Mike M.'s Kiss for the Spider Woman

The 11 of us who attended last week's discussion of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman enjoyed a lively discussion of the novel. That prompted Mike Mazza to look up the review he posted on Amazon 25 years ago of Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays.

Spoiler alert: Mike was (and is) a fan of Puig's work. Perhaps it might be worth our taking a look at the other two plays in that volume at some point?

TL;DR = DNF?

No, our blog hasn't suddenly become a conduit for mathematicians or cryptographers to pass secret messages! :-)

Many of you are probably already familiar with the term on the left side of the equation, which is shorthand for "too long; didn't read." It's most often applied to online articles and posts, and sometimes carries a whiff of disapproval about an overly indulgent author who expects readers to wade through dense writing that doesn't offer a payoff for the time spent.

Now "TL;DR" has spawned a new term for book lovers: DNF--"did not finish." This New York Times article explores the debate between completists--who insist that if you start a book, you should finish it--and readers who say life is too short to waste time on something you're not enjoying.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll note that I am a completist by nature. But as I grow older, and am increasingly aware of how many books I'll never get to, I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to the DNF perspective.

A Radiant Dawn at Little District Books

Little District Books, the LGBTQ bookstore now on Pennsylvania Ave. SE, is getting into the publishing game! For its first project, LDB is soliciting contributions to Radiant Dawn: A Queer Hopepunk Anthology, a short story collection it plans to publish in the spring.

Coined by author Alexandra Rowland, "Hopepunk" is defined by weaponizing kindness, community and optimism to overcome oppressive systems. It doesn’t fit neatly into any one genre, which offers authors a lot of options. Visit this site for more details on the project and submission guidelines.

A year after Andrea Gibson's passing...

Last year, I posted a couple of items about the late, great Andrea Gibson, who served as Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2023 until their passing on July 14, 2015. In her honor, Poets. org (which puts out the Poem-a-Day newsletter I so often reference here) recently published several of Gibson's poems:

Wellness Check

Spider

Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps

Photoshopping My Sister’s Mugshot

Anniversaries that should be less Secret

Last night, we discussed the final tranche of short stories in Lev Raphael's Secret Anniversaries of the Heart, published 20 years ago. I think I speak for those of us who have been discussing these stories in third-Wednesday Zoom meetings over the past year when I say that it has been one of the most satisfying anthologies in our group's history. (Thanks, Mike Mazza, for nominating it!).

If you have any interest in short-form fiction, you owe it to yourself to check out this book.

Happy 100th Birthday, Allen Ginsberg!

I'm a little late to the party, but did want to note that poet and activist Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926. Back in 2011, we read a graphic novel version of his most famous novel, Howl.

For a detailed list of centennial celebrations (a fair number of them happening in the Big Apple, appropriately), visit The Allen Ginsburg Project. And if you're interested in a less hagiographic take on the poet's legacy, I recommend this recent op-ed from The Guardian: "Beat legend, ‘boy lover’: How should we reckon with Allen Ginsberg’s complex legacy?"

Lavender Con is in two weeks!

Little District Books, Washington, DC's all-queer independent bookstore, will be hosting Lavender Con 2026 on July 25-26. The festival celebrates LGBTQIA+ authors and stories; tickets are available for either day or both.