GIRLDRIVE HAS MOVED!

Hello! Thanks for visiting Girldrive. You will be redirected in mere moments to the NEW SITE:

www.girl-drive.com

Enjoy!

Rubyfruit Jungle, oh how I heart you

Okay, so this doesn't really have to do with Girldrive, per se, except for the fact that it's about finding your feminist identity...but I just wrote a piece on Bitch's site about how much I love Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle. It seriously is the best feminist novel I've ever read. Check it out.

Preview: some dates for the Girldrive launch

Seal Press and I have been hard at working settling some dates for various Girldrive events. So far we're planning on:

• a reading at KGB Bar in NYC on Oct 29 at 7 p.m. (featuring some ladies from the book)
  

• a classy-ass launch party (kid-and-underage-friendly!) at A.I.R. Gallery in NYC on Oct 30 at 7:30 p.m.
  

• a reading at Women and Children First in Chicago on Nov 7 at 7:30 p.m.
  

• a reading at Left Bank Books in St. Louis on Nov 22 at 4 p.m.
  

I'm also hoping to hit up Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, and any college or bookstore that invites me within driving range! (Or if you want to fly me out, that's cool too.)

Real quick: Jezebel gives Girldrive a shoutout

(Thought I'd tell you in case you didn't see it...)

Also, not sure whether to laugh or cry, but one of the comments jokingly compared the Girldrive vid to this fake trailer by Alicia Silverstone and Alanis Morissette. Crazy coincidence? Um, hopefully.

My Mother's Red Hat w/Alicia Silverstone & Alanis Morissette from Alicia Silverstone

Girldrive trailer!

Check out the new Girldrive trailer, which has actual footage of our road trip (it actually kinda matches that photo of us on the right!). The video was made by the amazing and talented Lucy, who came with us for a week on our adventure, and brought her video camera along with her. Pretty soon, there will be shorter trailers of a few individual interviews to get you excited for the book.

Note: the new website (advertised at the end) doesn't work yet, obviously. That'll be up in a couple of weeks, I just couldn't wait to share the video!

Become a fan of Girldrive on Facebook!

Hi everyone,

I just created a Facebook fan page, a place to keep up on updates and events related to Girldrive. Clearly if you read the blog, you already get these, but please become a fan so that your hundreds of Facebook friends will see the little icon, get curious, and click on it!

It also has some photos that aren't on the blog. Enjoy!

-Nona

Girldrive's cover

Yay! Girldrive's cover is finally done!

It features the beautiful faces of some of our interviewees on this blog, like Mehiko, Puja, Pia, Gina, Noel, Julia, and Raine, as well as a few women we met after our initial journey.

This means I can finally make a Facebook fan page for Girldrive, too, since I have some actual art to accompany it. Be sure to become a fan so that your Facebook friends can see the icon and learn what the book's all about!

I keep promising a new site, and it is indeed in the works. I'll link to it from this blog as soon as it's done!

Love,

Nona

RainTaxi reviews Belladonna book honoring Emma

Thought I'd link to this piece (better late than never), an amazing and thoughtful review of the fourth book in the Belladonna series, which honors Emma, written by Ellen Kennedy Michel of RainTaxi Review of Books. It has a lot to say about Girldrive, too--and it's very spot-on.

An excerpt about my essay in Belladonna:

"In her own contribution to Belladonna #4, “Emma’s Poetry,” Nona Willis Aronowitz writes: “Emma was always disappointed that ‘GIRLdrive the book’ could not possibly embody the headiness of ‘GIRLdrive the experience’. . . She wanted us to be more conspicuous characters in the story of GIRLdrive, more than just the talking heads of the odyssey that forged connections between hundreds of women across thirty-five cities.” Nona’s prose, both here and elsewhere, conveys the energy and intelligence of GIRLdrive. The two women knew how to seize the moment, identifying the gaps and the overlaps between their forebears and feminists (or “not”) of their own generation..."

And more specifically about Emma:

"It is clear from Belladonna #4 that feminism, photography, and artistic expression have lost a fierce, articulate, forthright, inquiring practitioner, the voice and vision of a young adult who was romantic, idealistic, impetuous, talented, and knowledgeable beyond her years. Her pace was fast, eager, and self-reflective. Emma’s photography (for which she earned a degree with Honors, with images such as the one here, of a friend) played with the notion of masquerade: “In all of the photographs, a set of elusive and unknowable eyes peers out from the layers of artifice, trying to see and be seen. There is a tragic element, as despite all the attempts at engendering an image that matches a mental picture, the woman underneath the clothes and behind the skin remains a mystery to us and to herself.” That Emma suffered so much at the end of her life confers a harder look at the issues that consumed her."

It's a great piece. Check out the rest here.

Update: Galleys headed my way!

Yay! My deadline has officially passed and the first galleys of Girldrive are en route to my house. AND so is the second half of my advance, which means I will be abandoning blogspot for a dot-com very shortly. Look out for a new Girldrive website in the next couple months!

Love,
Nona

Women's History Month quiz

Deborah Siegel at Girl W/ Pen, one of Girldrive's fairy godmothers, is trying to pass on this blog quiz. If you have a blog, repost this and add a question of your own!

(thanks to Feministing for the heads-up)

1. In 2009, women make up what percent of the U.S. Congress?
A. 3%
B. 17%
C. 33%
D. 50%

2. How many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are female?
A. 12
B. 28
C. 59
D. 84

3. Who was the first First Lady to create her own media presence (ie hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column and a monthly magazine column, and host a weekly radio show)?
A. Eleanor Roosevelt
B. Jacqueline Kennedy
C. Pat Nixon
D. Hillary Clinton

4. The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced to Congress in:
A. 1923
B. 1942
C. 1969
D. 1971

5. Who was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
A. Phyllis Wheatley
B. Alice Walker
C. Toni Morrison
D. Maya Angelou

6. What percentage of union members are women today?
A. 10%
B. 25%
C. 35%
D. 45%

7. What year did the Griswold v. Connecticut decision guarantee married women the right to birth control?
A. 1960
B. 1965
C. 1969
D. 1950

My added question:

8. What kick-ass woman said this phrase: "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution"?

A. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

B. Emma Goldman

C. Angela Davis

D. Madonna

Answers in the comments section....

Belladonna* book honoring Emma

Belladonna*, a reading series and small press devoted to the visibility of women writers, is publishing a book in their Elders series dedicated to Emma. She was originally the editor on the project, which was connected to a panel that hadn't yet taken place. But she had completed her work for the book, and the event has morphed into a tribute to her and her art, both for GIRLdrive and elsewhere. I have a piece at the end called "Emma's Poetry." If you're in New York, check out the info for the book release event here.

You can buy the book here. It's really a beautiful little collection, full of Emma's photographs and both of our writing, as well as an afterword by Johanna Drucker and interviews with Marjorie Perloff and Susan Bee, Emma's mom.

Some Advance Press

Check out this nicely-put piece on GIRLdrive in Too Shy To Stop, a relatively new online magazine for "young people who live, play, study, or work in the United States."

It connects older feminists' reactions to young female Obama fans with some GIRLdrive revelations, which is kinda cool. Lemme know what you think!

(photo from Too Shy To Stop)

This Is Awesome

Update: Intense Writing Time!

Hi everyone,

I'm taking some serious time to finish the GIRLdrive manuscript, so I won't be posting all that regularly during January and February. As you all might imagine, I have a whole lot more work than I thought I would and I want to make our book the best it can possibly be.

I'll check in with you soon. Wish me luck on the home stretch.

Love,
Nona

---
More tributes to Emma:

Her dad's tribute (includes eulogies spoken at the service)

Daoud's song dedication

Poem for Emma

Tribute from our publisher, Seal Press

Grace's post