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Tag Archives: blogging

me, writing elsewhere … see you in 2017?

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in life writing, Uncategorized

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blogging, blogging elsewhere, work-life balance

IMG_20151229_144039During the past month, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do more and less of in 2016.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, as they seem driven largely by the twin engines of American consumerism and self-improvement driven by toxic guilt. Perhaps, too, there is something about January in the upper Midwest (or New England) that seems a poor time to harden one’s resolve to do much more than curl up under a blanket with a cat, a glass of merlot, and a good book.

Still, I’ve been thinking about more and less. The things I do which bring me energy and joy and the things I’ve done in the past year which bring me largely exhaustion and stress. And, in between those two poles, the things which must be done (to put a roof over our heads, to put food on the table) and the things which fill time but don’t necessarily nourish the soul (my soul; at this moment).

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This afternoon, I put together a list of things which I hope to (will strive to) do more of this coming year. This list included things like quilting, reading romance novels, writing romance fanfic, cuddling with my wife, and walking around Boston.

Blogging wasn’t on that list, nor was nonfiction/personal writing of any kind. Which surprised me, a little. Since early adolescence I’ve been a prolific writer of the personal, since starting college a reliable producer of the research essay, history thesis, book review, and since 2007 a regular blogger at what would become over time the feminist librarian.

But lately, as they say, I just haven’t been feeling it.

So in 2016 I’ll be hitting PAUSE.

I’m going to see what a year of not-blogging feels like.

In 2017 I might be back…or I might be elsewhere. Meanwhile, of course, the Internet is a vast and many-textured space where computers talk to one another and human beings use computers to talk to one another. And I will continue to talk with other human beings there, in many locations other than this blog.

You’ll find me on Twitter sharing selfies and providing almost continual stream-of-consciousness thoughts, feelings, and photos.

You’ll find me on Archive of Our Own writing smutty fanfic.

You’ll find me on GoodReads leaving off-the-cuff book reviews.

You’ll find me at MedHum Fiction | Daily Dose and Library Journal writing more substantive reviews.

You’ll find my online reading list at Tumblr.

And this may date me? But I still enjoy corresponding with pen-pals. So you can always find me by email at feministlibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com.

I hope all of you have a lovely, rejuvenating 2016 and I look forward to seeing where the year takes us. May it be a better place by fits and starts than where we are as we begin.

does being welcoming mean constantly being “on”?

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in think pieces

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blogging, comment post, social justice activism, thinky thoughts

Image: Illustration from The Little Book of Love (16th c.). A man stands on a tree extending out over a body of water, chopping the tree off at the root.

This week I’ve been haunting the comment threads over at Student Activism, one of my favorite personal blogs, where we’ve been discussing in wide-ranging form the fallout from Jonathan Chait’s piece (of click-bait) on “political correctness” (which doesn’t exist) and community norms. See this post, this post, this post, and this post if you want the specifics.

I don’t want to rehash complex debates from the comment threads here; what I want to riff on is the question of the responsibility of any group to outsiders who are considering becoming insiders. Chait, and those who agree with his perspective, argue that certain ways of enforcing group norms in a given community (in this case the political left-liberal coalition) end up alienating newcomers who are embarrassed, shamed, or vilified for transgressing a community ground-rule. This, they assert, is bad politics: The community will not grow into an effective force for political change if people are made to feel bad and leave never to return.

At is most basic, this is a question to take seriously: how welcoming is the left? Or, more generally, how welcoming is [insert group of choice herein]? Back when I attended church on a regular basis, this was a perennial question, the question of the welcoming church. How did we greet newcomers? How did we invite them to stay? Were we too hands-on, not hands-on enough? How would we ever grow the congregation if adherents never became members … and so forth and so on.

It seems like a goal — being welcoming — that few people could or should disagree with. But I’ve been mulling over a couple of facets of this question in the past few days and I want to share my questions and concerns with y’all here.

Continue reading →

once upon a listserv: thoughts on professionalism, privilege, and power [#thatdarnlist]

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in library life

≈ 52 Comments

Tags

archivists, blogging, technology

Thank you to all whose thoughts helped form this post. 

Coincidentally, this is the 1200th post to go live at the feminist librarian. I’ve learned a lot from this idiosyncratic labor of love. It’s been great to have y’all along for the ride.

(via)

So a thing happened last week on one of the professional listservs I subscribe to. While I’m relatively new to this listserv, having been subscribed for roughly a year, I’ve been around long enough to know this is not an isolated happening in this particular online community. Similar incidents, involving many of the same players, have happened before. More importantly for this blog post, this thing that happened follows a wider pattern, one that will be familiar to most folks guilty of “blogging while female” or “blogging while queer” or “blogging while [insert marginalized identity group here].” As a veteran of the feminist blogosphere (at seven years and counting the feminist librarian is firmly middle-aged in Internet time) I’ve seen it happen before in other forums, and will no doubt see it again. It’s a worrying pattern, a pattern of unethically leveraged power and privilege, and I believe strongly that it needs to be named as such.

Thus, this post.

I’m going to tell the story of what happened without naming names or linking to specific emails in the listserv archive. Those of you interested in reading all 91 emails in the thread can find the archive here. Scattered additional responses can also be found seeded through the listserv archive from May 19 through May 23. Many of you will have already followed the exchanges in real time. Even so, I have chosen to describe what happened in archetypal terms because my goal here is not to reopen/rehash the details of specific exchanges. Rather, I hope to point out how the dynamic at play is a familiar one to many of us, particularly those of us on the receiving end of its toxic effect, and to bear witness to the way its poisonous effect ripples out under the guise of “professional” interactions. Continue reading →

oh yes, we’re home! [a no-photo post]

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in our family

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blogging, boston, domesticity, travel

Hanna and I finally made it back to Boston on an uneventful Saturday-afternoon flight through Cleveland. We sort of didn’t believe it was happening until we actually hit the runway at Logan, but yay! We’re home.

We think it’s probably a good measure of the good fit of our lives currently that even though we both really enjoyed the extended stay with my folks in Holland, we had good feelings about being back in Boston, in our apartment, and back at our respective jobs.
We’re playing catch-up this week, for obvious reasons, but my hope for the winter/spring is to have at least one book review-type post up per week, likely on Mondays. For next week, I plan to write a joint review of Shiri Eisner’s Bi and the anthology A Woman Like That both of which I read while snowbound in Michigan.
More soon. Meanwhile, enjoy this videosoothing of our new humidifier, which changes colors and baffles the cats!
>

west coast trip: back in Boston, more soon

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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Tags

blogging, photos, travel

Shelley the hotel cat @ Sylvia Beach (Newport, Ore.)

We’re back in Boston and I’ll be posting more organized photo posts and some book reviews soonish — once we’ve finished doing laundry, reassuring the cats, and unpacking all those books we brought back with us…

Books on Beach (Newport, Ore.)

thanks for the liebster love; let’s have some more!

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in linkspam

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Tags

blogging, friends, fun

Thanks to follower .breaking into blossom., I’ve been nominated for something called a liebster award: a sort of  blog-based chain letter which encourages small bloggers to give a shout-out to/for other small bloggers.

I don’t normally do chain-letter type things, but 

a) it was sweet of blossom to think of me (thank you!),
b) I just got back from vacation and I’m bored,
c) I like that the Liebster Award shares the same first letter as Lesbian.

So here goes.

It seems there are multiple versions of this “award” going around, but the one blossom is following instructs me to:

a) nominate eleven blogs with under 200 followers (I honestly don’t know how you’d determine that, so I’m just gonna take a stab at it by choosing from the “smallish personal blog” category in my Feedly list)
b) notify said bloggers they’ve been nominated (hey bloggers! thanks for existing!)
c) provide answers to the eleven questions blossom posed in her own Liebster post, and
d) ask eleven questions of my own nominees, to answer if they so choose, along with posting their own eleven nominees (excluding the blogger who nominated you).

My Nominees in Alphabetical Order are…. (drumroll) … 

  1. The Dirty Normal
  2. Eat the Damn Cake
  3. Fannie’s Room
  4. First the Egg
  5. I’m Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write
  6. The Lesbrary
  7. New Porn By Women
  8. Radical Doula
  9. The Thang Blog
  10. Undercover in the Suburbs
  11. Walk the Ridgepole

My responses to blossom’s questions…

  1. What comforts you most when you’re sad? Touch, particularly from my wife (doesn’t have to be sexual). And reading familiar books.
  2. What would you do on a dream day where money and travel time were no object? Enjoy leisurely meals in the good company of friends and family (who are scattered across the continent), go walking in Cumbria in ideal weather, read intellectually engaging things in books, and enjoy unhurried sexytimes with my wife.
  3. Favorite drink (with or without alcohol)? Summer: Elderflower gin & tonic, Winter: Goat’s milk hot cocoa made with belgian chocolate.
  4. What character trait (of yours) do you most struggle to accept about yourself? The fact that physical activity and exercise are not second nature to me.
  5. How much water do you drink in a day? Typically not as much as I should.
  6. If you’re a parent, what has surprised you the most about the gig? If you’re not, what do you like best about not having kids (right now or at all)? I feel uncomfortable framing non-parenting in terms of what’s “best” about that aspect of our family life. In part, we’re non-parents because we can’t picture having enough hours in the day (around work) or emotional resources to parent adequately. So I guess I’d say, “it’s good having enough sleep and down-time that we can function”? But I’d rather say that what’s surprised me about non-parenting is that I’m okay with it. Growing up, I assumed I would be a mother. Life hasn’t turned out that way, and it’s surprising me that I’m as comfortable with that as I am.
  7. What (if anything) makes you feel insecure about either being a parent or not being a parent? Insecurity may not be the right term…but I worry about how to maintain cross-generational connections in the absence of parenting, as that is the clearest model I know.
  8. Top three four television shows of all time? Firefly. Mr. Rogers. Torchwood. The West Wing.
  9. Specialty dish (or baked indulgence)? Something you’ve made time and again. Moosewood brownies.
  10. Favorite thing about the person you’ve grown into? That I can always find something to be interested in and ask questions about.
  11. One simple, happy memory. Stepping off the plane in Redmond, Oregon, en route to visiting my grandparents and smelling the scent of juniper and lava rock dust.
My questions for the Leibster nominees … (should they choose to answer them) … 
  1. First library?
  2. A favorite childhood book or movie you’re now a bit cringe-y about having adored?
  3. Earliest memory of the internet?
  4. Food you disliked in childhood but appreciate now (and why)?
  5. Books currently on your nightstand/active reading pile?
  6. A might-have-been from your twenties (job not taken, relationship not pursued, trip aborted) that you find yourself wondering about?
  7. Favored toothpaste, toothbrush?
  8. Have you ever burned/shredded/junked a piece of personal history you now regret destroying (if so, what and why)?
  9. Have you ever burned/shredded/junked a piece of personal history you have no regrets about (if so, what and why)?
  10. A strong childhood memory of world events?
  11. A project you hope to finish some day (but has currently fallen by the wayside)?
If you (the nominees) choose to spread the liebster love, now or at some later date, please link the post you create back here in comments so others can enjoy!
Again, thank you all for thinking and writing and sharing.

    stuff that may be keeping me from blogging (as much) this summer

    21 Friday Jun 2013

    Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in life writing

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Tags

    being the change, blogging, domesticity, history, work-life balance

    During the past few weeks, I’ve been reading stories on the internets about which I have Thoughts and Feels, but for which I have very little (if any) time or energy to blog about. Non-internet stuff has been happening, in that way that takes attention and emotional-mental-logistical energy. In that way that takes up all the brainspace and physical time/space otherwise filled up with typing words that become blog posts.

    canoes on the Charles River lagoons, 2008

    So blogging might be a little slower around here than it has been in the past few months. Here’s a run-down of some of the things I’ll be doing when not seen in this space:

    • I’ve been getting back into some personal (not-for-work) history research in the cracks between my other obligations. I’m on what we call in the business a “fishing expedition” looking for a project that will yield something interesting and original on the crossroads of gender, sexuality, and religion within the Christian left during the 1950s-1980s (focusing on the early 1970s). My starting point is the Methodist Student Movement publication motive magazine (1941-1972), outspoken on issues such as poverty, civil rights, and cold war politics, the staff of motive experienced a decline in denominational support when they published an issue on women’s liberation in 1969 through to the final two issues, published independent of the church, on gay men’s liberation and lesbian/feminism. My current line of questioning circles around why Christian theology provided a robust vocabulary for speaking about some leftist issues — but seems to have failed its young activists on feminist and queer issues. I’m keeping busy reading motive, some personal papers of its editors, and surveying the secondary literature … a few hours a week, stolen when I can.
    • Against my better (or perhaps simply more self-centered) judgement, I’ve been Getting Involved at work with some advocacy issues related to organizational transparency and employee benefits restructuring. As a small non-profit cultural institution (we employ a staff of about fifty) we’re facing some post-2008 financial fallout that requires reduction in benefits. Questions about how decisions have been (and will be) made, and how employees will (or will not) be involved in the process are a live concern. I’ve been tapped to be part of a staff advisory group, and volunteered to be on a retirement planning committee. If any of you have reading suggestions for good books or articles about worker advocacy in the non-profit, non-unionized workplace I’m happily taking suggestions!
    • General workplace busyness during the summer season, which is when many of our fellowship recipients make time to visit the library to conduct their research, and casual visitors in Boston on holiday make an appearance.
    • For the past two months, Hanna has been working her way through an allergy identification diet which has demanded particular attention to cooking and a lot of learning-on-the-fly about alternate ingredients. So far, the likely suspect is gluten intolerance, which will require a reorganization of the kitchen, our shopping & cooking patterns, and all that jazz. Do you know how hard it is to find non-preachy gluten-free cookery books?
    • I’ve been trying to spend more time reading offline and doing other non-internet activities, particularly on the weekend. Some of those things I’ve blogged about in my book review posts. I’m also enjoying such things as The London Review of Books, The Lesbian Connection, Bitch magazine, and back issues of our various professional journal subscriptions (The American Historical Review and Library Journal and Oral History Review and so forth). 
    • Biking means less time to read offline while commuting. As whingey as this sounds, biking more to and from work reduces my leisure reading time by as much as five hours per week — a not insubstantial amount!
    • I’ve been seeing a wonderful uptick in personal emails over the past few months, as long-distance friendships have evolved from blog-based to email-based exchanges. This is a positive development, in my personal opinion, but also means that much of my writing and discretionary intellectual energy gets pulled in the direction of one-to-one conversations rather than blog posts sent out into the aether.
    • And yep, I’m still fiction (and fan-fiction writing)! For example, the piece of erotica I submitted last weekend, and the series I’m adding to on a weekly basis over at AO3.

    And finally, as a reminder, you can generally see/catch me on Twitter (@feministlib) if you’re curious about what I’ve been reading and thinking about in 140 characters per notion. Also, emails (feministlibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com) will usually rouse me (see second-to-last-bullet-point above) since I love correspondence.

    In the meantime — hope y’all are doing well and have kick-ass summer plans. I’m sure we’ll see one another around!

    post eleventy-hundred: nerd blessings

    01 Saturday Jun 2013

    Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in think pieces

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Tags

    being the change, blogging, fun, random kindness, thankfulness

    Today, after making a trek to Harvard’s library privileges office in the middle of the first heat wave of the summer to apply for spousal library privileges (what could be nerdier than that?) I finally made the time to watch Wil Wheaton’s message to a baby nerd, which Hanna sent to me several weeks ago via the Mary Sue.

    I thought it was appropriate to share as my 1100th post here at the feminist librarian.

    Stay cool, everyone, and spend some time this weekend loving your favorite things as hard as you can.

    guest post @ first the egg: swallows and amazons!

    06 Monday May 2013

    Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in book reviews

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Tags

    blogging, children, guest post

    My friend Molly is running a delightful series of guest posts from her friends about their favorite books from childhood. The first part of my contribution (because I never did learn to keep it snappy) went up today:

    When I told my mother about this blogging assignment, she pointed out that of all the noteworthy books from a seriously bibliophilic childhood, there was really only one book (or, rather, series of books) that I could choose: the Swallows and Amazons novels by eccentric Englishman Arthur Ransome. …

    …While some later novels — particularly Pigeon Post and Great Northern? – take on more serious “adult” concerns such as the danger of drought and the importance of protecting endangered species, the stories remain child-centered and full of imaginative adventure. My only caution for parents would be that they are, as with all works of fiction, a product of their time — in this case early twentieth-century imperial Britain. The children imagine themselves as British adventurers in a world for of friendly and unfriendly “natives” (the adults), and like all children sometimes reflect the prejudices of their elders. Much like the presence of Native Americans in Laura Ingalls Wilders’ Little House books or the misogyny with which Susan Pevensie is treated in The Chronicles of Narnia, the problems with race (and to a lesser extent gender) in Ransome’s work can hopefully be treated with light parental skepticism that encourages critical thinking rather than serving as cause to dismiss the series overall. As a child for whom Swallows and Amazons fuelled literally years worth of imaginative outdoor play, I can’t but hope future generations will find as much pleasure in them as I have.

    Check out the whole post (and the rest of the series!) over at Molly’s blog, first the egg.

    admin note: comments & spam

    03 Sunday Mar 2013

    Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in admin

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Tags

    blogging

    Hi all,

    I’ve been getting hit increasingly with spam comments lately that aren’t being caught in Blogger’s spam filter. This may be a sign I need to migrate the blog to WordPress, but I’m not quite ready for the work that would entail, so … I’ve turned the captcha word verification function back on for commenting, to see if this helps clear up the problem. If you are having trouble verifying you comment, please email me feministlibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com to let me know it is an issue. And include the comment if you want me to post it for you.

    Thanks for your patience!

    Anna

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