November ruminations
Girls on the Page Newsletter #1
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a website as a way to expand Girls on the Page to become a place where I can better share discussions about books I love with both the writers who wrote them and the readers who appreciate them. Lately I’ve been enjoying the conversations I’ve been having with fellow book lovers on Instagram. I’ll receive a message - I loved this one too! What did you think about x and y? - and these relative strangers and I will have a back-and-forth as though we’re the closest of friends, passionate in our joyous disbelief over the brilliance of whichever book we happen to be discussing. I find this to be so touching, one of the upsides of Instagram. While social media can sometimes feel like a vortex of mayhem, I tend to filter out things that are bound to dampen my mood and focus instead on what I’m excited to absorb: discussions about books both new and old, modern writers whose work I find interesting, interviews, poems, quotes and essays by authors no longer with us, and the like.
A website didn’t seem like the right form to deliver what I was looking to do. In my free time all I want is to work on the book I’m writing. My knowledge of graphic design is limited. For all my life, I’ve found that creative endeavours from the heart, imperfections on show - for better or worse - are the most satisfying to make as well as consume. I was a teenager who replicated Warhol’s Factory in my bedroom (for the record, my loyalty lay with Edie, not Andy), sheets of aluminum foil on my wall, a collage of posters and magazine pages and photos tacked up serving not only as decoration but an extension of whatever was occupying my thoughts. So, without overthinking it, a newsletter feels like a fun concept, a collage of ideas and images.
Like many, feeling creative and productive comes in waves for me. There are times when I feel like I can juggle many different things and the chaos feels wondrous, then there are periods where focusing on just one project demands more than all of my attention and begins to feel overwhelming. This newsletter may not be consistent, but I’ll aim to put together at least one each month. I’ve really enjoyed these mini-discussions I’ve had with fellow readers who follow Girls on the Page and am interested in continuing the conversation beyond Instagram. I want to focus on literature and inspire conversation and celebration surrounding female-identifying writers and poets. As someone who is constantly writing I’m so curious about other writers’ ideas on the editing and publishing process, what inspires them etc., so my goal with this newsletter will be to share short interviews with authors, and in keeping with the content I post daily for Girls on the Page, it will also feature photos and a poem or quote to reflect the mood of the month, plus other ideas as they spring to mind.
The 1986 portrait of models Tatjana Patitz and Linda Spierings walking away from the camera into the grey abyss of a beach in France, photographed by Peter Lindbergh, captures the anti-reality that November evokes. Once the first snow falls it no longer feels like autumn, but it’s not winter yet either. Autumn calls to mind a golding: leaves the colour of spices - turmeric and cardamom and paprika, pumpkins glowing eerily from doorsteps, strange sunsets that simmer through ribbons of cloud, and winter calls to mind something else entirely. But we’re settling into one of the months that seem to bear no definition. November, with its unpredictable weather and aimless days. Where are we? Where are going? The radio stations are beginning to play Christmas carols, people are starting to string up lights; it feels like the world is dipping its toe in the glimmer of the holidays, but with the hesitation of a shy disrobing, knowing there is still time - after all, even the trees aren’t fully nude yet. We’re clinging on but unable to lean in wholeheartedly. If the period between peak autumn and true winter were a colour, perhaps it would be a cool steel.
I can feel the temperature of the room inside The Browning Readers, a painting by William Rothenstein: a drab day on the cusp of quarrelling seasons when escaping into a book is the only demand one feels compelled to acknowledge. Embers glow, but just barely, from the mouth of the fireplace and two women (the artist’s wife and sister-in-law) in long black dresses have reading on the mind. The painting is a tribute to Rothenstein’s favourite poet, but without context one adopts license to wonder whose world is Woman #1 so compelled by, which book Woman #2 is reaching for.
Sometimes a few simple words are enough to conjure a larger picture, transport us from one place to the other without moving us at all. Lately I’ve felt a lot of movement, but little distance. This time of year is a winding-down period; animals are preparing for hibernation, humans are ruminating their own versions of hibernation too. In November we can forgive one another for taking our time. When spring comes we promise to act the fool. The Rita Dove poem, which grows second and third skins upon each reading, is one I’ll be returning to again and again until we flip the page and find ourselves crossing the line, into December.
