Guest post by: Lidia Yuknavitch

Author of The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch appears at the Wordstock Festival on Sunday, October 9 at 4pm on the Wordstock Community Stage and as part of two conversation My Censor, My Self on Saturday, October 8 at noon on the Weiden+Kennedy Stage and What’s with America’s Sexual/Literary Hang-up on Sunday, October 9 at 11am on the Wordstock Community Stage.

Hey. You. American woman writer. About that body of yours? Ssssshhhhhh. Meaning: don’t bleed, don’t fart, don’t deficate. Don’t lactate, don’t orgasm, don’t pee on anything. Don’t shoot your mouth off, shoot your sexuality, don’t shoot a gun. When you write about the sex you’ve had, the anger raging in you, the grief that drove you under down deep enough to leave the world, please do it by way of craft. Don’t talk too much about putting odd things in your mouth, over indulging with drugs or alcohol, or the time you woke up in the gutter in a pool of your own sick with your pants down around your ankles. Don’t make woman characters who stab themselves, inject themselves, cut themselves, or burn themselves up, please, it’s unbecoming. Don’t say “I” too much. And for the love of god, keep the scenes of childbirth (especially if there is a vagina), menstruation, and menopause (ew) to a minimum. Gah.

You must keep to universal themes. Even if the number of females in the United States as of October 2010 was 157.2 million, and the number of males was 153.2 million. Your themes, your body stories just aren’t, you know, universal enough. I mean unless you apply enough craft. See too the VIDA count so you are not confused about women in publishing.

(Hey. Pssst. It’s me. Lidia Yuknavitch, an American woman writer, author of The Chronology of Water. Yep, the boob book. I’m here to interrupt the cultural code of the clean and proper body for a second – consider it a break-in. If you want to read some new books written by American women with female characters whose bodies do what our bodies really do? Here’s some bitchin’ contraband: Zazen by Vanessa Velselka. Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks. Green Girl by Kate Zambreno. The Girl With Brown Fur by Stacey Levine. I promise you these American women writers have ruptured the code of the safe and pretty body. You’re welcome. Now back to your regular programming.) O.K.? We clear?

(Pssst.: see also Elfriede Jelinek. I’m just saying. Nobel Prize in Literature, 2004, when everyone voting that day must have been, what, high?)

More information about Lidia Yuknavitch and her writing see http://www.lidiayuknavitch.net/