Hey gorgeouses! I know a lot of people out there love doing things with words or art, so I figure I would pass on news of two very exciting opportunities!

Firstly, Birds of Lace, a Bay Area-based independent press that publishes work by queer and feminist writers is now accepting proposals for future books. BoL is one of the best indie outfits right now. Gina Abelkop, who runs the operation, is herself a poet and so she’s very sensitive and nurturing to helping to package books with her authors and coordinating launch events as needed. In the past, BoL has published chapbooks by Niina Pollari, Carrie Murphy, Leon Baham, Adam Strauss, Anna Joy Springer, Christine Vi-Van Nguyen, Jackie Wang, Kristina Marie Darling, and of course, myself. More exciting! Jason Helm’s upcoming fiction chapbook Fetish is out soon through BoL as well. As I said, Abelkop herself is a poet. This means she knows and respects the neurotic process of finding pieces to fill a book. So by all means if you have the material, pitch your book to her.

Also, speaking of Pollari—she and Judy Berman are editing a collection of personal essays about feminists who talk about loving misogynist art. An excerpt of the submissions call from Pollari’s blog:

Feminists have never hesitated to dissect and attack art whose misogyny offends and repulses us. But what happens when we fall in love with the work of a musician, writer, or painter we see as anti-female? Do we rationalize our cognitive dissonance away, turn our back on the offending artist, or find a way to embrace the film or story that moves us while acknowledging what disturbs us about it? How does our attraction to misogynist art complicate our relationship to both the artist and to feminism itself?