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Slack Pussy
November 16, 2016 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm GMT
Slack Pussy reading group will map out a feminist and queer oriented can(y)on of living female writers. We will be reading in a chain. The first text we will read is an extract from Eileen Myles’s autobiographical novel, Chelsea Girls (1994). Eileen will begin the chain by recommending a text by an author of her choice, who will in turn recommend the next, and so on…
Sessions are held monthly, and texts will be made available by email. We ask you to read the text in advance of the session.To join our mailing list email: slackpuss.rg [AT] gmail.com
No prior knowledge is necessary – and all are welcome. You can join at any point in the chain. If you have missed past sessions and you would like to catch up, please let us know.
The books we read and the suggestions given by each author will be kept in the MayDay archive. Each month, MayDay’s archivists will search their collection for historical material, in order to provide broader political and social context to issues raised in the book we are reading.
Session 1: 7pm, Wednesday 16 November
Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles (1994)
Poet and novelist Eileen Myles is one of the most influential living lesbian writers. She is also one of the coolest women on the planet. Born in Boston in 1949, she has published over 20 volumes of poetry and prose.
We invited Myles to be the first in the Slack Pussy chain, and, following her suggestion, we will begin by reading the chapter ‘Robin’ from Chelsea Girls, her autobiographical novel written in 1994 – an account of a brief, and intensely sexual, love affair.
From the back of the book:
“Chelsea Girls cobbles together memories of Myles’s 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, her volatile adolescence, her unabashed “lesbianity”, and her riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s New York.”