Hello, Toasties, how are you all this Friday? I’m recovering from a migraine, which sucks. I hear caffeine is good for headaches, though, so I’ve been drinking coffee and eating chocolate muffins all day; my health is very important to me.
This week we were very proud to publish this #longread by Colleen Hele, Naomi Sayers, and Jessica Wood on what’s missing from the conversation around missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
SEPTEMBER DAD MAG dropped and don’t forget you can pre-order Jaya and Matt’s book now! Amazon | Indiebound | Powell’s
Dirtbag Beowulf made me so, so happy:
BEOWULF: so how many Grendels have you killed so far, Unferth
anyone here who’s killed a Grendel raise your hand
that’s what I thought
I’ll think about this a lot the next time I fly, which might be never.
“If Stephen Colbert were your dad, he wouldn’t be able to help you with your French homework, but on your birthday he would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you over the phone in perfect Sindarin.”
Rachel Klein rewrote Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
What is known I strip away . . .
I launch all women forward with me into the Unknown—the men are
Not invited because they’re just going to fucking ruin everything with their bullshit
attitudes.
Saying shit like “The clock indicates the moment — but what does eternity
indicate?” as if they fucking have some genius answer to that question
And they’re just waiting for you to be like, “I don’t know; what does it indicate?”
Bernard Hayman on the need to build more diverse worlds in fiction (with lots of book recs in the comments!):
As writers of color continue to slowly gain space and visibility in the realm of publishing, the scope and possibility of what permutations worldbuilding can encompass also expands. We can consider worlds in which protagonists must contend not only with dark prophecies and darker enemies, but also with gentrification and unreliable subway lines. Worlds in which the physical forms and identities of deities and heroes are as multicultural, multi-hued, and complex as the ordinary humans amongst whom they live and die. Worlds in which humanity is challenged to reconsider notions of sexuality, gender, race, and even our identity as a species, each struggle just as vital and important as the others.
A high fantasy novel where no one flirts or sleeps with any of their relatives
“You Haven’t Called Me in Weeks But I’m Feeling Okay About It” and other songs from a highly unusual Tegan and Sara album
IF YOU SOMEHOW MANAGED TO MISS IT I interviewed Constance Wu for The New York Times Magazine, which led to me explaining to my kid that even though it’s called “The New York Times Magazine,” anyone anywhere can read it, and her saying “that’s cool you talked to someone who’s on TV” and then telling me “it must be really hard to be an actor, like way harder than being a writer” (she’s got us there), and I’d love it if you read the interview because Constance had a lot of smart and wonderful things to say.
