Eaton Hamilton

The Seven Stories Press banner for celebrating Women's History Month.

Seven Stories Press celebrates women’s history with their Women’s History Month Reading List, a selection of political non-fiction, memoir, literary fiction, and other writings they recommend for ... any month of the year, really!
sevenstories.com/blogs/205-ce...

I was in Paris at their women’s centre and not only got to see a first edition of Anna Klumpke’s book on Rosa Bonheur (lezzie work held in the Musée d’Orsay), but all the original newsletters/buttons/posters etc from the 1970s. It was super cool.

Oh, and a writing tip for essayists? If that’s your bag, join Substack (before it goes belly up), bc I gotta say I’ve started about 20 unintended essays since being there (Cranky Granky Substack), which I’ve never posted there, but just packed into an essay-drafts file. Very cool. They let ya go on.

…11 And ffs leave your money to struggling family and friends, not orgs. Leave it where it will save someone from being homeless or delay their downfall one more year, right?

…10 I get that retirement fund saving is
a) no fun
b) boring af
c) impossible when you don’t have multi incomes to cover stuff
d) etc (all real)
But it matters a lot. I was given a terminal dx of 1 year to live 40 years ago last xmas, and I’m 6 years into retirement age now. PLAN.

…9 And they’re really cool novels, too, in very good shape for a maybe second-to-last draft.

… 8) Frank talk from an actual published writer in the midst of another crappy pain day and a new dx on top of all the other ones that make living so impossible. But I’ve got two more novels to rewrite and gkids who need me before I slough off this mortal coil.

…7 …writers fail w/o inheritance, benefactors or spouses, or they write in the cracks of employment while they build their own retirement nest eggs. Disabled writers can’t do that. Less employment (none for me), less pension, no benefits ever. It’s austerity from the second of dx, w no back up.

…6 ...called is virtually non-existent. We shouldn’t be this reliant on subsidies. I’ve never understood why everyone in the chain of publishing gets a wage for their labours except writers, without whom they could not be employed at all. They may not be *well* pd, but they are pd. Meantime...

…5 And that no one, incl govt grants, is riding in to save a writer, even of 8 books and 2 chapbooks, + so many prizes, from getting turfed from secure housing or food scarcity. (Thankfully I’m not quite at the second yet.) Our PLR has been whittled away; our cancopy or whatever it’s currently...

…4 ...I didn’t expect much of Canada’s poets (considering the poetry scene even then), but I did expect that Canada would make sure they lived above ground. Now I know Canada doesn’t give a crap about what they consider non-workers. Period.

…3 This is maybe just a warning to other disabled people who become writers. Unless you win the big deal, the big prize, you are nothing in retirement, and perhaps even then. I remember thinking once when I picked up famous poet Dorothy Livesay from a squalid bsmt that…

…2 Yes, this is how it is for marginalized seniors in Canada. Because I was disabled most of my life and not able to work, no pension to speak off, yet no private pension either. It’s impossible to live any longer. Yet my life is full of vibrancy and happiness and I want to extend not end it.

🧵Sucky news … did not get BC grant, which seals the deal on having to move again this spring—and there is just nowhere cheaper than where I’m living in a mobile home park. I guess people would imagine MAiD as my best solution, but fuck those ableist eugenics.

@amandaleduc.bsky.social Many congrats on long-listing for Carol Shields Prize! Good luck!

I love writers’ imaginations usually even if their writing style stinks. How did they think of this? Almost everyone is now more well-read than I am; I don’t get enough reading done with ADHD *ever,* which really surged in my forties. I too have a short attention span, even as a lit writer.

(But maybe pub is particularly subject to unexamined prejudices like transmisia, homomisia, racism, ableism, allistic-ism, which often is expressed as “we published something similar last year” or what I used to get: “we pubbed a lezzie last year” or “how could we market this?” Which is lazy af.)

I have read v little Stephen King as I stopped reading white men pretty much in the early 90s, in favour of books by women and the marginalized, so I can’t really say.

Plus fads, both writing fads and readers’ preferences fads (not a surprise that as education dims, women’s choices in the world fade, and woke is censored, that readers lean toward easier books). Plus political pressures. And I’m sure economics enter into it too, you know, here and there.😉

Y’r intentionally missing the point, which is that “interesting” is a non-descriptive and useless word in this context. Wrting is subjective, of course, + pubbing is too, while also subject to whims, prejudices, snit fits, jealousies, accepted gossip abt authors, publicity depts feelings etc.

2/ …didn’t take this long before the internet. Wasn’t the web supposed to speed things up? More convenient? Sure, tons. But so tedious over and over.

🧵Hello, good lit people. I’ve been off for a FM emergency. No writing and virtually no thinking about it, either. But I was pleased to manage three subs last week. Anybody else find subs take hours each since every place has different open times, different format requirements etc. It really...

starry starry night, shani mootoo
certainty, anne fleming

Interesting. Isn’t everything literary “interesting?” But a silly premise, imo, as “good” and compelling to a wide audience can be either the same or widely different in genre and, really, every other way. Didn’t Stephen King prove literary work could be horror could be literary?

ICKY

Hi to you. I hope you’re faring well.

Well, part of it is likely misogyny because I hear men don’t like to be seen reading books by women, as that’s considered less than.

…and for a lack of empathy that is killing others.

But there again, what are your criteria?

Revealing the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction longlist - Women's Prize

womensprize.com/revealing-th...