Veronica Silva is a Provost Fellow at the University of Central Florida, where she is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in PANK Magazine, The Acentos Review, The Blood Pudding, and Pleiades.
Poet and essayist Isobel O’Hare is saying more with less in the recently released all this can be yours.
The Text Is My Enemy: Erasing The Patriarchy With Isobel O'Hare
"The erasures are transformational, I think, in that they mutate the original messages of the statements into my own vision of the truth behind them. It’s sort of like wetting a sheet of paper covered in invisible ink and seeing the message hidden there."
Read More
15 Presses & Journals That Will Make You Weep With Pleasure
BY LISA MARIE BASILE
I'm sure plenty of you know a few of these, but allow me, for those who might not, to introduce and love on the presses that are currently sending me into literary-body-psychic overdrive. What does this actually mean? It means I've been devouring their books for some time or that I've discovered their new work, or am re-reading their older work and losing my mind over it again and again. I believe that these presses and journals are doing beautiful, unique things, and I love the voices and work they're putting out there. To blood and beauty!
If you could press your hand against my chest, you would feel my heart fluttering. Wakefield Press is one of my new favorites, and it should be yours, too. Devoted to 'overlooked gems' in translation, literary oddities, and elegant packaging (oh god they are so good to us), this press is bringing immense beauty to the literary landscape.
I just got my hands on:
Spells by Michel de Ghelderode
Murder Most Serene by Gabrielle Wittkop
The Cathedral of Mist by Paul Willems
2. Siren Songs
Joanna C. Valente, managing editor here at Luna Luna, runs an imprint on Civil Coping Mechanisms—and they're publishing Devin Kelly, Cooper Wilhelm, Jayy Dodd, and Omatara James. Literally am waiting on the edge of my fucking seat. The press seeks work by queer, trans, nonbinary, women and people of color.
OK. So Inside the Castle runs a residency in October called Castle Freak. Do you feel that? That's me having an orgasm. This press is deliciously dark and strange, and everyone should check out their dedication to literature that does more. They publish 'difficult poetry and prose poetry.' Wouldst thou pick me up from the floor?
I just discovered this gem—they publish women artists and writers, and the magazine itself is filled with unique, beautiful work. It feels like you're flipping pages as you move through the beautiful site.
Full disclosure: I'm in a full-on romantic relationship with this press and journal. They might not know it, but I do. They've always been my go-to for good reading, they publish superb books, and they even chose my manuscript Nympholepsy as a finalist in their 2017 book awards. Their work is tight, well-crafted, and aesthetically inclined.
6. Occulum
Just click click click and indulge in the beauty. Their about page says, "Unreliable sources have claimed that OCCULUM is David Lynch’s favorite lit journal. This in turn, is also unreliable." Which, yes, please. They're ok with 'semi-normies' (lol no one here) but they publish speculative fiction and 'species' of poetry. Their peculiarities are why I dearly love them.
7. Monstering
As someone with a chronic illness, I love the fact that Monstering Mag makes a space for discussions around the body, disabled experiences, nombinary voices, and illness. Their work is vulnerable, necessary, and thoughtful.
RELATED: 6 Online Lit Mags For Ladies Who Love Creepy Poems
8. Spork Press
Run by Richard Siken (I know he's your favorite, too), this lit journal and press puts out some fantastic work. Each issue is like a mini car crash you can't look away from. The work is always tight as fuck.
9. Paragraphiti
Just discovered their 'Romanian poet' issue, and I'm in love. It's so important that we are treated to translated work, and I'm so glad to see journals like this one do the heavy lifting.
10. Action Books
One of my favorite all-time presses, Action Books makes books that make me weep and then go write books that make other people weep. And repeat. There isn't a single solitary book in their catalogue that won't break your heart and threaten your ideas of the literary status quo. You will realize what you've been missing. You will drown in it. The work is transcendent of what we know and understand and accept.
With their focus on the radical and mystical, this queer collective produces books that are loud and heavy in your hands. And always beautiful. Also, they've got a "west coast lean," which, to a New Yorker, means there's a hazy intoxicating palm tree ocean spray magic to it all. Their books also LOOK delicious. And, they focus on giving a voice to identities often excluded from the conversation.
12. Grimoire
Grimoire, like Luna Luna, makes a space for the occult alongside their literary selections. The work is stellar, and their little spell-treats and seances are especially to die for. I love this journal and can't wait to keep reading each new issue.
13. Dreginald
So apparently I was late to the party with Dreginald. Just discovered how awesome they are, and I am blown away. Their selections are carefully crafted, insanely unique, and they prick at you—leaving you feeling the wound long after you've left the site. Also, DREGINALD. Just say it.
Bonus Round: new journals
14. Bad Pony
This magazine is brandy-new, insanely beautiful, and not yet live. Their mission says, "We are a very bad pony. Maybe we have always been that way. Maybe we had a particularly bad childhood where instead of hay or grass, we were fed a large amount of Starburst," which has done me in. I am ready for this bad bad pony.
Our very own Nadia is launching her own literary magazine this Friday—and we can't wait. Nadia's eye for beautiful, audacious work helps shape Luna Luna, so I can't wait for her dreamy creation.
Lisa Marie Basile is an editor, writer and poet living in NYC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014), as well as a few chapbooks: Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York), War/Lock (Hyacinth Girl Press), and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her bookNYMPHOLEPSY (co-authored with poet Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. She is working on her first poetic fiction novella, to be released by Clash Books/Clash Media.
Sarah Bridgins in Conversation with Wren Hanks
BY SARAH BRIDGINS
I was so excited to sit down and talk to Wren Hanks about their chapbook Prophet Fever, recently published by Hyacinth Girl Press. Prophet Fever is only 16 pages long, but i it Hanks uses the story of the cis gay teenager Wren and his relationships with his destructive mother, a sinister Virgin Mary, and a wolf to explore issues of gender, religion, sexuality, and environmental destruction in ways that are beautiful and complex.
S: First off, how did you come up with the title? I’m just wondering because I love it and I am very bad at titles.
WJ: I’m also really bad at titles and I worked really hard to become better at them. Originally I titled all the poems because there were many poems of varying quality and when I went to put it together, Prophet Fever was the title of one of the more successful poems. It’s section 6. So that’s where the title came from and the reason they’re no longer titles is because the rest of the titles were pretty rote. They were “Becoming” or “What Home Was.” They were pretty plain. When I started putting it together, it felt more like one long poem or sections of one long poem.
S: So when you first started. Did you conceive of this as a chapbook or have you been thinking about it as a larger project?
W: I’ve been thinking about it as a larger project. but I was an MFA and working on other things and it felt like and it still feels like a thing that will take a very long time.
S: Okay, because it works as a distinct piece. It feels finished.
W: Right. It feels like at a certain point I decided not only did I want to have something out in the world but I wanted to see how these poems worked on their own and I felt like I'd reached a certain point in the arc of the story. I could see this character starting off. I could see this kind of anointing and then [my protagonist] goes off to preach and then, it’s like obviously the end of world is coming so you know what’s going to happen—or you can imagine it—and sort of see it spooling out in your mind. My brother is a filmmaker, and I was also thinking in cinematic terms where a lot of times directors who want to make a feature film make a short as a teaser: i.e. if you like this thing I did…there’s more!
S: So when you first started working on Prophet Fever were you thinking of it in terms of a narrative or more thematically because there are all of these recurring images? Did the narrative come out of the theme and the images or what it the other way around?
W: When I first started working on this project, it was very different. It came out of a southern radio broadcast. Mary was the primary character, so it was narrative and I did have a narrative outline that I was working with. It was weird and formal and I feel like it was derivative of a lot of stuff that has been done before. There are a lot of good books that have come out about Mary—Mary Szybist’s Incarnadine and Tracy Brimhall’s Our Lady of the Ruins to name two of my favorites. There has been a lot written about a subversive Mary figure. So I had narrative in mind, but Wren’s character was a lot more minor and peripheral.
S: Wait, so why were you listening to Christian radio?
W: Jeanne, my fiancée, and I do this all the time when we go on long drives. She didn’t grow up religious so it’s something she seems genuinely fascinated by. It’s this alien thing and it doesn’t really upset her because in a way it doesn’t seem real. It’s like reading old misogynist fiction or something. For me it’s harder because although my parents weren’t Catholic I grew up in a place [southeast Texas] where there was a lot of Evangelicalism. I get really prickly about it, but at the same time I have this morbid fascination with the Book of Revelation because Catholics don’t believe in it literally, which I think is interesting. They literally believe that we’re drinking Christ’s blood, but the Book of Revelation is the only book they read figuratively. So we’re driving in this U-Haul from Austin to New Orleans and the whole time we’re listening to these ridiculous stations and there was one of those call-in shows where you donate for prayers. They made $25,000 in ten minutes. The callers were saying, “I’m calling in because I need help because I’m dying of cancer—here’s $100. Or I’m calling in because my son is a homosexual.” Then this incredible man came on talking about how there’s the feast of birds and about how, I don't know the specifics because I haven’t Read revelations in a long time, the people who have been sacrificed and eaten by the beasts are also going to be eaten by birds and the righteous are going to have this supper over their dead bodies. That’s kind of how this book started.
Via Hyacinth Girl Press
S: Did the idea of using all of this as material help you not get as upset by it? Because then you’re approaching it as an anthropologist.
W: It becomes raw material. And I don’t know how much this registers for people who weren’t raised Catholic at all. I’m happy if people just seeit as this weird vaguely religious horror show.
S: You published this chapbook under the name Jennifer Hanks. What is your relationship to “Wren” the character and the speaker and your relationship to”Wren” as the name you later adopted as your own?
W: I’ll start by saying that I’m not the only trans person who has done this which is very comforting because I thought I was and I thought it was very strange. The poet Sara June Woods is someone who has talked about doing this. I know a couple other poets have said they fell into their name by writing letters to this other person. At the same time I don’t feel like Wren is me. I still feel like that Wren is a character. That said, I felt really comfortable in his voice from the get-go, and I kept having these conversations in workshop where people were telling me “That’s not a convincing male character, that sounds too much like you.” and I’m like “What does a male character sound like? And also what assumptions are you making about me that you think I can’t write a convincing male character.”
And this wasn’t my whole workshop experience with this book, but it came up sometimes. But then the chapbook came out and I realized I had been thinking of myself as this name for a long time. I tried to make as little deal of coming out as possible which you know, always goes really well. I didn’t know when I was going to tell my family so I didn’t want to do the name change. The thing about coming out in any way I think is that people want you to make the changes really quickly, or they want to know exactly what changes you’re going to make.
S: Right. And they want to be “good” about it and they don’t want to fuck it up.
W: And a lot of the time you don’t have any idea what the answer is for a really long time. And it hasn’t been a really long time. It’s been like four months. I told a friend, a really close friend who was far away and gende queer that I thought I might do this so they were calling me Wren before anyone else was. I’m still pretty self-conscious about it, and I don’t know how to explain people who don’t know me well. It’s difficult to explain that I feel very separate from the character “Wren,”, but I also don’t think I would have come out if I hadn’t written this or let myself write this.
S: Because then you’re going through the experience of having this other voice in your head, while at the same time it’s still you.
W: It’s a way to ease into being you. And I feel like when you write you do that no matter what you’re easing into. My chapbook that’s just out from Porkbelly is about my grandmother’s suicide and that’s about easing into grief, gender, and all the parts of myself I didn’t get to tell her about.
S: I wanted to talk about the wolf as a recurring figure in these poems. I don’t know if this is a connection, but I feel like the book has all of these sinister maternal figures, and I think of the wolf as a kind of sinister maternal figure just because of Romulus and Remus and that whole connection.
W: That’s there. And I do think of her as a maternal figure. But she becomes the only one who doesn’t have really bad ulterior motives because she’s not human and I don’t know if she’s capable of them.
S: But that’s interesting because she’s the one who is the most outwardly frightening.
W: Exactly. She’s very scary. In the cover image she’s on fire. She’s horrifying.
S: But it turns out she’s the least threatening.
W: Some of that has to do with the initial focus of this chapbook that isn’t as visible now that it it’s character-driven. In the beginning it was more about environmental apocalypse so it was important to me that most of the main characters seemed sinister and it was important that whoever the main protagonist was, they were rejecting the human world in some way. So there’s some of that, but also I think it’s important for Wren to have someone to rely on. He’s rejecting one mother who obviously has a lot of issues so he’s very vulnerable and his new mother figure is not any better at all. I mean, I love her, but she’s a terrible person.
S: Why do you see her as being terrible?
W: I think it’s the same way that the Greek gods’ aims are not focused toward mortals so they can’t really see these people as people. For her the mechanisms she’s working with are so much larger than these individual people involved. So maybe in that sphere she’s moral, but if you’re a person she’s totally manipulative. She totally consumes his whole life.
And it seems like she thinks this is what’s best for him because he’s chosen, he’s going to survive. No one else is, presumably. And you wonder about the reasons why his real mother is deteriorating at that rate and how much that has to do with her.
S: It’s just interesting trading in one dark maternal figure for another one.
W: I feel like there’s this specific queer vulnerability because I feel like a lot of queer kids are growing up through trauma so I’m interested in their ideas of what a family is or what a family might be. I have another chapbook coming out, gar childthat’s about a similar kind of violence, only through generations of queer women. I feel like for Wren maybe this seems like a healthier structure because she [Mary] is strong ,right? And she can actually provide, he’s protected.
S: Another thing I thought was really interesting was the relationship between sweetness and spoil and sweetness and rot. Like with the skinning the hand and the honey, and the meat spoiling, and the bread mold.
W: Well, I’m a vegetarian who is really afraid of rotting meat. I think there’s some sense for me that the natural world encroaching on us is dangerous. For instance, zombie apocalypses are about the breakdown of the civilized (human) world. Zombies are literally decomposing meat bags. Rot is this healthy, functional part of nature that we have a really hard time with. Prophet Fever is also just saturated with the…grossness of teendom. The candy and quick sex.
S: You lived in New Orleans for the last three years. Did you feel like the city influenced the way that you wrote or the subjects that you wrote about?
W: I think it influenced the way I wrote about queerness. I think being back in the south was interesting because when I left the south I was “straight.” And when I came back I was in this very visible queer/ trans relationship. There are many queer couples who are not visible in quite the same way as my partner and I are.—like for instance we got seated in the very back of a fancy restaurant once, and no one there (except one nice waitress who gave us a free bread pudding to go) wanted to serve us.. And it’s New Orleans. It’s not like there aren’t lots of queer friendly people in New Orleans.
S: It’s just weird though because it’s still Louisiana which you forget.
W: It’s still Louisiana. And I feel like that’s a thing you’re not supposed to say—but it’s true sometimes. So that apprehension was in the air, and that’s why I wanted to write about a character who had zero worry or fear about being gay.
S: When I think of New Orleans I think of it as being decadent but also haunted at the same time.
W: It is! I didn’t believe in ghosts and then the first place that I lived there seemed very haunted. The first night Jeanne [my partner] and I slept there we had identical dreams where the ghost told us that we seemed fine so it was okay for us to live in the house.
S: That’s terrifying.
W: It’s the only place I’ve ever lived that felt weird. I think the mindset of paranoia and uncanniness is easier to conjure up in New Orleans than in a very “realist” city like New York.. New Yorkers do not want to hear about my ghost chorus. In New Orleans I would tell people about my house being haunted and they would be like “yep.” Also I feel like, Prophet Fever’s not set in a swamp, but the sweetness and decay, a lot of that comes from being in this very tropical place. And New Orleans is beautiful, but everything is also falling in on itself all the time. I felt more capable of letting my work shape itself while I was living there. I was able to cede control a bit which is hard for me, but New Orleans is not a city that runs on time or lets you keep your original plans.
S: So what are some of your other influences as it relates specifically to this project?
W: In the book the wolf is named Lyra, like in the Golden Compass.
S: I was going to bring up the Golden Compass! But the idea of a sinister maternal figure one of the first things I think of is the Golden Compass.
W: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy is pretty influential to this project. Jeff Van der Meer is a huge influence. Mostly because he doesn’t feel the need to privilege humanity over other species in his writing. He’s also a straight white man who does a really good job with queer characters and characters of color (in genre fiction no less!) which is something I really admire. Feng Sun Chen’s poetry , in particular her collection The Eighth House, is fantastic . I love how she inhabits a multitude of voices. The way Richard Siken’s Crush deals with violence in queer relationships—that book has really informed how I write and examine power dynamics.
Zombie movies—on some level, I do want this project to be a poet’s Dawn of the Dead. My fantastic D&D group, who I dedicated this chapbook to. David Bowie., in particular his album 1984 and “oh you pretty things.” Femme boyhood, as it relates to my own experience of transness or the experience I might have had if I’d come out sooner, is something I want to dig into more with Wren’s love interest, B, in the larger story.
Sarah Bridgins lives in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Buzzfeed, Bustle, Luna Luna, Sink Review, and Big Lucks among other journals. You can read more of her work at sbridgins.tumblr.com.
Wren Hanks is the author of the forthcoming chapbooks gar child (Tree Light Books) and Ghost Skin (Porkbelly Press). They were a finalist for Heavy Feather Review’s Double Take Poetry Prize, judged by Dorothea Lasky. Their recent work can be found in Arcadia, Bone Bouquet, Hermeneutic Chaos, and The Boiler, among other journals. An associate editor for Sundress Publications, they live in New Orleans with their girlfriend, two cats, and a collection of sea ephemera.
6 Lady Book Vloggers We Love to Watch
BY CHARLOTTE COOK
YouTube has an active community of vloggers, artists and personalities for almost everything or occasion – makeup, music, gaming and even colouring. Of course, it’s only fair that books have their own respective corner in the YouTube world, and these are some of the lovely ladies making some of the best bookish content out there.
Jean Menzies from Bookish Thoughts
PhD Classics student, book reviewer and all-round literary princess. Jean is crazy clever, but down to Earth and reads a huge variety of books from classics to contemporary fiction and graphic novels. If you like “banging your feminist drum”, then you should definitely check out her Feminist Orchestra book club!
Watch her if you’re interested in classical fiction and feminism – or if you just enjoy a delightful Scottish accent.
Jen Campbell
Booktube pretty much begins and ends with Jen Campbell, most likely because she’s so well-read and lovable. Jen is a published author and poet, with great taste in fiction and poetry of all kinds. She has a series of children’s books currently in the making which are no doubt going to be amazing. Plus, her dog, Lola, is so adorable.
Watch her if you’re a fan of magical realism, fairy-tale retellings and a good old cup of tea.
Mercedes Mills from Mercy’s Bookish Musings
Mercy is the certified queen of book hauls. If there were ever such a thing as retail jealousy, Mercy’s channel would embody it. She’s always chirpy and friendly, but her reviews are straight-talking and on point. If I’m ever thinking of which book I should buy next, her channel is my first stop!
Watch her if you want some awesome reviews and mouth-watering hauls.
The popularity of Young Adult fiction has blown up over the past few years, and if you jumped on the YA bandwagon then India’s channel is definitely one for you. She’s super bubbly and keeps her videos short and snappy. If you’re looking for a YA recommendation, then definitely check out her monthly wrap-ups where she chats about the books she read that month. She’s also re-reading the Harry Potter series (for a bonus side order of nostalgia!)
Watch her if you’re a fan of Young Adult fiction and want to relive some Hogwarts memories.
Lauren Whitehead from Reads and Daydreams
Lauren is just a beacon of bookish joy, with a lovely smile and infectious laugh. Of course, no badass lady booktuber is complete without a good dose of literary love and Lauren has plenty of it. Her “Page to Screen” series is also a great way to get a double-whammy book and movie recommendation.
Watch her if you’re a fan of a good classic book analysis with some movie adaptations thrown in – oh, and if you need to smile!
Sophie Carlon
On the other side of the Earth is the lovely Sophie Carlon, an Australian booktuber with a great sense of humour. She makes book hauls, reviews and tags with a smattering of vlogs which are always welcome as she has such a kick-ass personality (and a snake, to boot!). Possibly the most underrated booktuber out there!
Watch her for some seriously funny reviews and an occasional shot of a serpent (her name is Abbey).
Who are your favorites? Leave them in a comment below.
Charlotte Cook is a journalist, poet and strident shark defender. Having just graduated from University with a BA in Philosophy, you will most likely spot her writing about feminism, sex and culture - all whilst accompanied by a cup of tea and a heap of books. You can find her on Twitter @charlotte__cook, or peruse her blog: www.charl-cook.blogspot.co.uk
The Books That Lied
BY NICOLA PRENTIS
As an adult, I read when I can steal a moment back from my day. A book can take months to finish. The bookmark has always fallen out and sometimes I read several pages before realising I'm covering old ground. Books are entertainment, inspiration, education, the best of them might make me cry but they rarely get my full attention now that attention is divided between so many more duties. But the books I read as a teenager, when I could spend an entire weekend curled around one on the sofa, shaped me. From treasured volumes to throw away instalments of teen serials, Judy Blume, LM Montgomery, Francine Pascal and the authors of countless historical romances taught me about myself, boys and sex.
They lied.
From age 13, I was at the library every Saturday to take out the 6 books my card allowed. I often went with friends so we could maximise the loan number by swapping books between us, queueing up together to borrow the book the second the other girl returned it. At school we had to keep a reading log, a chore for most of the class but a badge of honour to those of us getting through two or three books a week. By age 15, my teen and historical romance reading list had expanded to include horror, Stephen King and Graham Masterton, and bonkbusters, Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper, but none of those led to the damage the more age-appropriate books did.
The walk to the library, like any walk into town, brought the honking of cars if I wore a skirt. They slowed down to allow craning necks, maybe a shouted comment, even though, at 13, I was probably with my mother. She still looked good, but we both knew that it was my blondish hair and shapely calves that drew their attention. I revelled in it. I was Jessica Wakefield of Sweet Valley High – less sun-kissed, less kissed, but I too wore denim miniskirts 'teamed with' high-heeled 'pumps.' When bad boy Bruce Patman tried to untie the top of the sexy bikini Jessica had picked out, she playfully swatted his hand away. Jessica was a sassy 16-year-old and boys did her bidding. When two boys pinned me to the floor at a friend's house-party and pulled up the sexy, short, tight dress I was wearing, I only escaped more than a groping because someone intervened.
At 17, an older boy, Sean*, was finally mine after I'd longed for him throughout a year of glimpses around town. He looked just like teen heartthrob Jason Priestly of Beverly Hills 90210. I was the same age as Katherine in Forever when she started going out with Michael. Katherine decided to seal their love by having sex for the first time. Michael was patient and understanding and so was Ralph, his penis. The Jason Priestly lookalike's penis was less patient. Every time we were alone together, I felt I had to go that bit further even though I'd stopped being comfortable (slightly post-Jessica's limit) when he had my top off. I eventually gave in because it seemed easier than saying no – again. Where Michael gave Katherine an orgasm just by moving slowly inside her, Sean's Ralph hurt too much to carry on. In fact, I realised years later when I managed to banish the memory enough to lose my virginity, it hadn't even been fully in. Afterwards, Katherine asked Michael to show her what to do for him. I just wanted to be somewhere else. Sean wanted to try again. I asked, "Do we have to?"
At university, in the first two weeks, I met Andy. He brought me a mug of tomato soup in bed when I had flu and then kissed me for the first time, even though I'd told him I was so bunged up I could hardly breathe. I kissed him back long enough, I hoped, to be polite and say thanks for the soup. While Anne of Green Gables rebuffed Gilbert Blythe over and over, he remained her admirer through school, college and beyond. Andy would leave my room so sexually frustrated, he said, that he was bouncing off the walls. We were together six weeks until he dumped me. I told myself, if only I had been able to have sex with him, we would have lasted.
I went through university with a gaggle of Wonderbra-enhanced, short-skirted and flirtatious friends, the modern-dressed versions of the heroines in historical novels. Corseted, breasts pushed up, vying for the attention of a Lord or King, they held out long enough to gain titles and wealth and only then succumbed to his lusts. We got in free to the Student Union 80s night on Tuesdays, Club Tropicana. The bouncers got a quick flash of hoisted up flesh and we saved £2.50. I think we even skipped the line. I once got so drunk that when a male friend took me home at the end of the night, I came to my senses on top of him and didn't know who he was. We never mentioned it afterwards.
My teenage literary heroines lived in worlds penned by women who were living a romanticised story version of what I now know their real lives could never have been. They could never have met many real Michaels or Gilberts, would have been lucky to meet no-one more sinister than the easily caged Bruce, and I doubt any Kings had showered gifts in return for their virtue. As a teenager, I knew the stories weren't real but I still believed in the fiction. I thought you could tease boys and keep them under your playful control. I thought the first time would be special and on my terms. I thought saying "no" would inspire respect at least, if not my own manor house. The girlish books I inhabited taught me nothing about how to deal with male libido as it really is: unromantic, unyielding, always on the lookout for a weak moment.
I wish I could tell the teenagers of the last few years that they're never going to meet a chastely respectful Edward Cullen or a lovesick Peeta Mallark, grateful for whatever bone they throw him. I wish I could warn them: the fiction isn't only the vampires and the Games. As a writer, perhaps I should be writing books for girls that teach them how different, how dark, men can be when they're hot for it. Or, maybe it would take a man to write an honest book for teenage girls. But I still want to make believe. I lie for myself with my charming heroes and my in-charge heroines, despite knowing I risk the next generation of girls falling for the lies like I did.
*name changed
Nicola Prentis has written for Salon, xojane, AlterNet and Refinery 29 and has had short fiction published.