Your hold is ready! (11. 29. 24)

(A photo-heavy newsletter, get ready!)

November 29, 2024

Hello all –– can you believe it’s almost December?!

I hope those of you in the u.s. are having a restful long weekend. Today, as well as yesterday, are national days of mourning for Indigenous peoples across what is now known as the “u.s.” Having grown up near the traditional lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe –– one of three surviving groups of the original sixty-nine Wampanoag tribes, which underwent and continue to undergo genocide at the hands of the “pilgrims” and their descendants –– I feel compelled to share this link to donate. Donations support myriad programs, including cultural education, housing, mental healthcare, and more. When our “holidays” are inextricably tied to violent, ongoing dispossession, it is our responsibility to look.

Overall, November was a month full of travel for me: I visited three bookstore locations and one conference, spending time in states I’d never really visited before. This, plus a series of rapidly encroaching deadlines, have made for an incredibly busy, rewarding month.

First was Denver, CO, where my reading with Bri Gonzalez was shifted online due to snow (!), which was exciting to see for the first time this season. Next, I flew to Chicago, where I had a delightful reading at Pilsen Community Books, the radical indie store local to featherproof, Failure to Comply’s publisher.

A corner of a bookcase and the wall of Pilsen Community Books. On the wall, in paper-cut outs, reads "always carry a book" (ACAB)
Cavar, a genderless white person with glasses, a black mask, a sweatervest and black turtleneck, and khakis, poses beside a sign announcing their event.

Particularly given the election –– which, unbelievably, happened only a few weeks ago –– it was a relief to be in openly, ardently radical spaces, where we could speak openly about strategies for resisting fascism and keeping each other safe.

Then, I took an Amtrak charter bus –– which I had never taken for this length of time (about 3.5 hours) before and was surprised to find clean, quiet, and relatively pleasant overall! –– to Madison, WI, to see, stay, and be in conversation with my beloved comrade Helen Rottier. Helen and I have co-organized a workshop on Mad pedagogies, which we have recently transformed into a multimodal article for the International Mad Studies Journal (forthcoming!).

We had a wonderful reading and conversation at A Room of One’s Own, to a packed/standing-room-only audience, including ! It’s the best event I’ve ever done, in a series of incredible events. Failure to Comply is 10% off through the end of November –– what better way to spend Black Friday/Small Business Saturday?!

Cavar and Helen pose in front of an A Room of One's Own banner.

Lastly, I went to the National Women’s Studies Association conference, this year in Detroit, MI. I got to spend time with friend and fellow writer before popping into the NWSA festivities. I had the honor of sitting on an author meets critics panel with Margaret Price, a giant in the field of Critical Mad Studies and author of the recent book Crip Spacetime (which is, as all scholarship should be, open access). Sitting alongside idols that have become colleagues was both exciting and humbling, especially as I finish my grad school journey.

After that, at last, I got to come back to Davis! The fun wasn’t over yet –– on 11/23, I participated in my first ever 10k run. I finished it, and not only that, but finished it without stopping or walking. My jog was slow, but slow and steady…finishes the race in a time that seems (?) respectable for a first-timer. I’m very proud of myself!

Map of my 10k run on Strava. I ran 6.36 miles at an 11:43 pace, with a total moving time of 1:14:31.

Also, add me on Strava if that’s your thing.

Oh, and in the midst of all of that, on Nov. 15, the sixth issue of manywor(l)ds came out, and I’m thrilled with it –– submissions reopen on Dec. 1! I’m almost done compiling edits for Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds for Sinister Wisdom, as well as the Disability Justice issue of smoke + mold, both of which I’m guest-editing.

These days, what I’m up to mostly revolves around teaching and (until I receive my dissertation edits/comments) ~creative~ writing work. I had a wonderful meeting with my agent, Noah Grey Rosenzweig, recently, and feel prepared to dive into the first round of edits on Novel #2, whose title I’ll drop…soon! Hopefully! I’m also wrapping up prep for a course I’m designing and will be teaching in the spring at the University of Maine: Augusta –– let me know if you’d like to see/hear more about that.

Thanks in advance to everyone who has made it through this long preamble! As always, check out Failure to Comply, add it on Goodreads and Storygraph, and request it at your local bookstores and libraries. Find inspo/similar reads/books that fed Failure to Comply at my Bookshop affiliate page, where each of your orders gives me a dollar! You can find my gift recommendations, both literary and non-literary, below:

Now, at long last, onto the recommendations!

Today’s Recs:

Books:

Podcasts + Digital Media

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

Essays and Articles:

My Recent Work: