“Something always happens to sustain us. A tenured professor goes on sabbatical and their course trickles down to the adjuncts. A university I applied to years ago finds my information at the bottom of a drawer and gives me a call. Brady Black’s wife hits his father over the head with a fire poker, putting him in a coma, and Kristen DiMera participates in scientifically impossible villainy and steals someone’s fetus.”
My latest article for the Toast is available here.
My essay, ” ‘Just a Doll in Dungarees’: Revisiting Gidget” has been published at The Toast. Here’s a quick preview:
While I can’t pretend to know how the filmmakers intended audiences to perceive Betty Louise, called B.L., they’ve presented her in such a way that it’s difficult to not read her as a lesbian. Using initials for a girl’s name was not common in 1959 by any means. B.L. is not invited to the manhunt; she has short hair several years before the pixie cut would come into style, and in every scene, her clothing is loose, monochromatic, and without frills. Plus, look at her in that chair: legs crossed in a way that takes up as much room as possible, she lets her face slip into an inaudible scoff as she eats an apple noisily.
The essay is here and also linked under “Writing” on this site.
A writer at The Millions (“the indispensable literary site,” according to the NY Times) liked my “Literary Characters” article at The Toast, and mentions it here.
My essay, “Literary Characters I Would Not Invite to a Dinner Party,” is now available for your reading pleasure here. As a voice over on Bravo TV would say if the essay were a reality show, “watch what happens!” when characters from multiple authors and centuries collide. Look out for murderous twins and wild dogs.
kathryn ionata 