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As one reader said, "[Snapshot] is like reading the bulletin board at our now defunct dining club or bookstores." Sinister Snapshot is Sinister Wisdom’s biweekly newsletter with a featurette and lots of links. If you have suggestions for future editions of Sinister Snapshot, send them to info@sinisterwisdom.org.
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The Oral Herstorians Box Set is now on sale for $60! This special box set is all six of the issues written, edited, and compiled by the Lesbian Feminist Activist Oral Herstory Project gang.
Julie finished reading The Green Scamander by Maude Meagher from 1933 and loved it. Right now she is kneedeep in Thistlefoot and really loving that as well. Alicia Mountain’s new collection Four in Hand was also a delight. On the music play list is Waxahatchee, a great folk, bluegrass mixy duo.
Sierra is reading stories from the collection Pretend It's My Body by Luke Dani Blue and savored Feast by Ina Cariño. They are shameless about their love for musical artists Ethel Cain and Mannequin Pussy.
Ivy just read S/He by Minnie Bruce Pratt and is now plotting the devouring of a precariously tall stack of poetry books during an upcoming road trip to the mountains. Tennis, Boygenius, and Fall Out Boy have been on an endless listening loop for the last week.
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Tove Jansson and the Moomins
by C A Brink
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Imagine, if you don't mind, a ghost. Not the typical sheet-covered ghost. This ghost—actually, there are many of them—is very small, say, six inches or so. She—they are all female—has very bright eyes, a long body, two hands each with five or six fingers, and no arms. And they don't have mouths. How do they communicate, this tribe of little ghosts? In a language of their own from the current of electricity that moves through their bodies.
These creatures, who are known to just a few non-ghosts, are Hattifatteners. Often they travel alone but sometimes in twos or threes or a dozen or more. A few times a year they set out in many, many, many tiny sailboats and head to their very own island, which people who don't understand them call the Lonely Island. On their island they play games, explore, visit friends, eat pancakes with jam, take naps together, and each sunset join their currents to welcome the night and stars.
To almost all of the readers of the eight volumes of the tales about Moominvalley, by Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson, these strange creatures are simple curiosities. But a few of us can feel the tingle of the currents on the page and in our imaginations: We recognize this little tribe and smile to ourselves. Ah, tiny sisters who have their own safe place and their own language!
Some states and countries have their own national bird, anthem, flower, gemstone, emblem of other sorts. Finland has a national characteristic that defines those people who live so much further north than many, many others. Surely the weather and winter darkness they must face has helped to shape them as well as their very bearish and scary neighbor to the east.
The first time I saw their world, outside of a book about Finland, it was blazoned on the side of a huge icebreaking ship. Each letter was probably ten feet high and spelled S I S U. Just as that ship fights through ice many feet deep, so the Finnish have fought and still fight through whatever is thrown at them as individuals and as a country. Perhaps this deep determination, perseverance, willpower, and courage is familiar to some of you.
Learn more about Tove Jansson here. Read about the Moomins here. Sinister Wisdom readers may be especially interested in Tove Jansson’s letters, available here.
C A Brink is a midwestern lesbian-feminist who retired a while back after too long a time of doing what other people told her to do.
Graphic illustrated by Ruby Cromer. Ruby Cromer is a photographer from Minneapolis.
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Celebrate Sinister Wisdom 128: Trans/Feminisms on April 18 at 7 P.M. E.T. This celebration will be both a vibrant reading of works published and a riveting discussion with a portion of the editorial collective that brought this issue to life. The editors will discuss the origins of the issue, touch on the hardships associated with assembling the theme, and reflect on the broader importance of Trans/Feminisms. Register here.
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Black Women Radicals will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, which was published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, on Thursday, April 20 at 6:30 P.M. E.S.T. Barbara Smith, editor of Home Girls and contributors to the anthology, Alexis De Veaux, Cheryl Clarke, and Jewelle Gomez will be honored at the event. Register for the zoom event here.
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Editorial Assistant Sierra Earle will be one of the featured poets at the Iowa City Poetry Association's 2023 Poetry Alfresco. This outdoor reading will take place in the Longfellow neighborhood on April 29. If you're local, please come and say "hi!"
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Stone Butch Blues celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2023. The University of Hamburg’s Center for Gender & Diversity (ZGD) will host an interdisciplinary conference digitally on May 5 and 6 to celebrate this milestone. More details will be available on this webpage. Panels include discussions on the impact of the translations of the novel, femme and butch identities, Queer spaces, and Trans and Jewish futures. The event will conclude with a reading and a conversation with Minnie Bruce Pratt.
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LesbianNightLife presents a Camping Music Festival for LGBTQ+ Women, Non-Binary, & Trans folk: Stargaze Festival. The festival will take place from August 25 to 27, 2023, at Camp Timber Trails, 1266 East Otis Rd., Tolland, MA 01034. Tickets are $250 per person for entry and camping with options to upgrade to a cabin.
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The Journal of Women and Criminal Justice, which is a national publication of justice-involved persons and advocates' art and writing, has published its third issue. Through personal testimonies and research, The Journal of Women and Criminal Justice highlights issues related to women and incarceration.
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Guernica Editions has an open call for poetry submissions for an upcoming anthology: Woman, Life, Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution edited by Bänoo Zan and Cy Strom. This is an international call for poems in English or translated into English (accompanied by the original text). Submit here. The deadline is March 15, 2024. Along with poets within Iran and among Iranian diaspora communities, poets from the Middle East are also encouraged to submit.
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Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a Ugandan activist, vows to keep speaking out despite new law that bans identifying as Lesbian. Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera oversees the African LGBTQ news outlet Bombastic Magazine/Kuchu Times.
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Womens Studies Quarterly calls for papers for their Spring 2024 issue Pandemonium. This issue "invites reflection on the status, health, precarity, and promise of the discipline of women’s, gender, sexuality, and feminist studies in light of our current state of pandemonium." Other proposed topics include the climate crisis, right-wing media, and more listed here. Complete articles are due by April 15, 2023. Submit here.
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“I don’t believe an auction house needs to define a genre..." read about how the exclusion of women and Queer artists postponed Sotheby's sale of glitch art in ARTnews.
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If you would like to support Sinister Wisdom's thriving Lesbian community, please consider donating or subscribing. Your support is vital to our mission of profiling, supporting, and nurturing Lesbian culture as well as providing educational resources to women and Lesbians. Thank you to our sustainers for supporting the advancement of Lesbian art and culture!
Curated with community, history, and an understanding that every present moment is a nexus of many pasts. May these stories of Queer culture inspire, enthuse, and rouse you to Lesbian actions. We hope you've enjoyed this installment of Sinister Snapshot! Have a lovely weekend.
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