A few days old now, but I took part in a roundtable on Kate Zambreno’s Heroines. At the discussion (if one can be ‘at’ an online space) were Joanna Walsh, Christine Cody, myself and Michelle Bailat-Jones, who put the whole thing together and asked thoughtful and probing questions of the group:
The chattering woman is the muse of modernism. Her talk that is represented as unconscious and intuitive and associative. He always accompanies her with a notepad. He copies down her “disordered” speech, and later he will use it to convinct her.
Kate Zambreno, Heroines, p.83
In 2012, Semiotext(e) published Heroines by Kate Zambreno, a book that is as much memoir as it is literary criticism, that is also a kind of novel, and that questions its readers about all these forms and how we define them, how we work within them and around them. The book also opens up a discussion about women’s writing and the literary canon, about who gets to “write women”—their fiction and their biographies—and from what perspective.
We decided to put together this discussion in response to Heroines, as it’s a book that has stirred up much interest, a fair amount of praise and some controversy.
In other news, I am working on an application for a three-month fellowship in New Zealand at the Pah Homestead in Auckland. It’s a bit of a long shot, but the position is open only to writers of Scottish origin or inclination, so I do have my hopes. It would be an incredible opportunity, and something that I would never be able to do under my own steam. Wish me luck!
Schietree 