Send My Love to Anyone | Issue 24
with Sheila Murray and Alex Leslie
Hi Friends,
I hope this month’s issue of Send My Love to Anyone offers you a February pick me up!
Writers often talk about not getting the attention they desire, but in Issue 24, novelist Sheila Murray (Finding Edward) tells us what it’s like when a book does get noticed.
For Words Count, a new section on craft, author Alex Leslie (All We Need to Eat) shares the process of becoming someone who word counts, and I explain why I started a new writing project before I finished my current one.
And finally check out the February Gatherings for my recommended reading, viewing, events, and more.
My story collection, Anecdotes, is in the copy editing stage. It feels good to have it out of my hands.
Because the book has an illustration of a maxi pad on the cover (thanks to the work of Malcolm Sutton) and four stories about periods among other subjects, I wanted to read other period writing, and sadly there’s not a lot of it.
But in 2018 Rosanna Deerchild, Ariel, Gordan, and Tanis MacDonald edited Gush: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Times (Frontenac House). And wow there are some heavy hitters in this anthology (like so many of my favourite writers!). I’m excited to read their thoughts on all things menstruation.
If you have period writing (fiction or nonfiction) recommendations, let me know in the comments.
In other news, on February 25, 2023, I’m attending the United for Old Growth Rally at the BC Legislature in Victoria.
ICYMI from Issue 23 check out David Mura’s excerpt from The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Myths and Our American Narratives by David Mura and Kirby’s column, The Return of the Owl. And I wrote about why pre-ordering books is helpful to authors.
If you’re looking for a writing prompt, check out my latest You + What If? from my writing prompt newsletter Where Do I Start?
Issue #24 of Send My Love to Anyone
On Writing and Word Counts by Alex Leslie
Why I Start a New Writing Project Before I Finish My Current One by Kathryn Mockler
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A year or so later, when I was eleven, I got the “curse.” I was
horrified at the blood on my pajamas and between my legs. I
remembered my mother’s blood. She had tried to tell me about
menstruation, but I had blocked her words, and now I had it. She
fitted me with a fold of clean cloth in my underwear, secured it
with two safety pins, and told me to go to school. I didn’t want
to go.
“You’ll just have to get used to it,” she had said.
At school, I avoided my friends because I knew that everyone
could see the blood and this thing between my legs. I felt distant
from everyone. The girls were giggling and silly. They didn’t have
the curse. I hated them.
When I had developed breasts, she had made me a bra. It was
a beautiful creation made of pink satin with delicate embroidered
roses on the cups.
“A French bra,” she had said proudly as she gave it to me.
an excerpt from my memoir Growing Up Weird: A memoir of an Oak Bay childhood from the chapter titled The Curse.. this would have been around 1950. I am doing a second printing of my book and it will be available by mid March. cheers, Liz Forbes lizmax@shaw.ca
Hi Kathryn,
I'm a new subscriber and first, thanks! I like what you wrote on the first page about your new book and the period stories. And you know, I love that maxi-pad cover.
Here's a poem you might like.
Ronna
to my last period
by Lucille Clifton
well, girl, goodbye,
after thirty-eight years.
thirty-eight years and you
never arrived
splendid in your red dress
without trouble for me
somewhere, somehow.
now it is done,
and i feel just like
the grandmothers who,
after the hussy has gone,
sit holding her photograph
and sighing, wasn’t she
beautiful? wasn’t she beautiful?