Hello all,
I am back for this blog's monthly Link Roundup; admittedly I'm about a week late but it's for a very good reason. My 18 year old sister came into visit from Ohio! She is the cutest, sweetest little human and I cut my workload down to "need this money now" work. I missed doing my other stuff though, so next time I'll get it all queued up before I have a visitor.
Before we dive in, TWO quick announcements! People are getting excited about both of the workshops I'm doing in August which is getting me all kinds of excited (but also nervous). The first is a revamp and remount of my Queering the Tarot workshop at The Future on August 17th. The other JUST officially announces is a brand-new (but still totally in my wheelhouse) Sex & Tarot course at The Smitten Kitten! Luckily for you, Queering the Tarot is sliding scale starting at just $15, and Sex & Tarot is FREE to you! Which means you could potentially take two radical tarot classes that weekend for just $15, and that actually seems like a pretty sweet deal to me!
Now, on to radical things OTHER people are writing and doing!
Politics & Resistance
- If you want a quick breakdown on what's going on with that BS Department of Justice statement that LGB people aren't covered under Title VII, Autostraddle has you covered.
- There's some pretty important legislation being discussed about the non-profit sector too. It's easy to be overwhelmed right now, so this was easy to miss.
- A Lithub personal essay/book review about being torn between queer and Southern identity, plus the books he covers sound like important reads too.
- Why IS Hyperfemininity Expected of Fat Girls? This one practically garnered applause from me.
- I should probably just have a permalink list somewhere to all of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's writing, and her Bitch articles have been on point lately. I especially loved "A Modest Proposal For a Fair Trade Emotional Labor Economy (Centered By Disabled, Femme of Color, Working Class/Poor Genius)".
- On Black Lives Matter, Queer Identity, and Appalachia.
- Lisa Frank Body Positivity is not as cool as it sounds. This is a good read though.
- Prison Reform is one of the most important issues to me that never gets talked about. The way our society dehumanizes and traumatizes inmates, many of whom are in for minor crimes or no real reason at all, physically makes me ill. This piece talks about the juvenile system and why it's reform is a necessary queer issue.
Tarot & Witchery
- This has been shared around a bit in metaphysical circles, but just in case you missed it: "Astrology of the Stonewall Riots" is as cool as it sounds.
- Asali Earthwork regularly blows me away with her writing and witchery. This month I bookmarked both her review of The Personal Space Tarot and this so-necessary piece about mental health and witchcraft. The review is a really great example of a review and discusses tarot and the deck in depth. The personal piece spoke to me so deeply and is every bit as brave and beautiful as the title suggests. As a bonus, head over to her shop and snag some tea because it is delicious.
- Dior is making Motherpeace Tarot inspired clothes now, and Vogue has the scoop! I completely nerded out when I saw this.
- "See the cripple dance" is ALWAYS one of my favorite Little Red Tarot columns, but this one on the Seven of Cups hit really deeply for this PTSD-trodden, chronically ill queer.
- Also from Little Red: a super easy, informative guide to snagging the best crystals for spiritual fatigue.
- I'm never going to stop posting about representation in the spiritual community and why it matters. I'm also never gonna stop linking back to radical writers of color highlighting the issues better than I ever could.
Writing & Business
- I love peering into people's personal work processes, and Benebell Wen's look at promotional tactics, what worked, and what didn't was great insight with useful information AND things that won't work for everyone but were still fun to read.
- In Minneapolis everyone has a Prince AND a Bob Dylan story; in any case Seth Godin went somewhere I didn't quite expect with this one.
- This really applies to all types of writing and made me laugh a lot. Here's "How Not To Write A Play."
- Y'all know by now how much I adore Theresa Reed, especially her "Soul Propietor" series. This one on how you want to feel in your business is especially good.
- A cute cartoon about job and gig hunting that everyone should see. It'll take you four seconds but it's good!
- I talk about "Money Dates" a lot and how they've changed my life and both of my businesses, but it never occurred to me to share this primer from Bari Tessler herself with you. So...here you go!
Theatre & Art
- "A Collective Call Against Critical Bias" is a wonderful start to important conversations about arts criticism and where we drawn the line, and features goodies like: "As female artists and academics…we have dedicated our careers…to dismantling discriminatory structures and practices in theater, and the criticism this year is so blatantly prejudicial that we felt compelled to collectively author an editorial that both documents the problem and puts it in an historical context."
- There's a new series at the Twin Cities Arts Reader entitled "The Curmudgeon" about all the ways arts organizations are NOT actually helping the press help them. It sounds heady but it's actually really easy to access information about how to market shows better.
- I was so happy and surprised when I saw my friend Shannon on one of my favorite blogs today. Shannon runs Uprising Theatre Company, is a fantastic writer in his own right, and oh yeah, is a transgender Priest!
- Sometimes the title does the talking for us, like in "The Necessity of Diverse Voices in Theatre Regarding Disability and Difference."
All The Other Things I Love and Thought You Might Too
- I was obsessed with Poison Ivy as a child. No, not the Batman character I'm still in love with, the other one. The movie starring Drew Barrymore. I guess I wasn't alone and this revisit from Dazed was written wonderfully.
- Andi Grace gets real at Little Red Tarot about what she's been through lately, and tells us what she's learned living in a van about boundaries and letting go. This one was truly beautiful.
- One of my biggest flaws is that I'm a jealous friend. I will love you deeply and unconditionally. I will want nothing but the best for you. I will also be unbelievably jealous and feel incredibly stupid voicing that to you. So I was relieved to find an actual good article addressing this jealousy and it's roots.
- An oldie but a goodie came back up in my feed the other day--an absolutely side-splitting teardown of Goodnight Moon.
That's it for me y'all! Blessed be.