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Complicated books for contradictory people. - Jay Sennett, co-founder

A Ham-Fisted Cataloguing Error

That’s what Amazon told us when we queried why Self-Organizing Men lost its’ sales ranking and was showing up in the Amazon search engine as no longer in print.

Hello,

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

The customer service representative only gave her first name and an initial for her last name. Probably better that way. Guess those tweets with #AmazonFail worked.

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Eli VandenBerg at the William Way Community Center

VandenBerg has shown in international and national exhibitions including the National Queer Arts Festival. His work has also appeared in books and magazines including the anthology Self-Organizing Men: Conscious Masculinities in Time and Space. VandenBerg will exhibit drawings from two series: Passing which explores gender transition and Place and Home which focuses on discovering and rediscovering origins.

It was Eli’s series Body in Progress that drew me in as the editor of Self-Organizing Men. Eli’s work was the first visual imagery that captured some of the feelings I have had about my body. We were fortunate to use this piece as the cover for Self-Organizing Men.

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Fantastic Review for Cripple Poetics

Reviewed by Carrie Sandahl, Florida State University

When I received a copy of Petra Kuppers and Neil Marcus’s collection of poetry, I studied the book’s front cover, struck by its artwork and title. A square black and white photograph of two nude lovers curled into each other, lying on bare dirt in dappled sunlight, emerges from a smoky grey background. We see the male figure from behind. His back is taut and angular; his head is nestled in the crook of the female figure’s neck. The female figure is lying on her side; her soft curves contrasting and cushioning his angles. Below the photograph is the title: Cripple Poetics. Like the photo in which the figures’ physicalities are juxtaposed, yet lovingly entwined, so are the two words in the title. Both words are capitalized, but Cripple is italicized and overlaps onto the word Poetics, which appears in more rigid block lettering. The cover’s image and typeface beautifully prepared me to explore how the book’s main subjects ­ cripple, love, and poetics ­ would collide, entwine, and ultimately redefine each other. I noticed the book’s subtitle, A Love Story, does not appear until the inside cover, which I think is a wise choice because the book, which brings together an intimately personal collection of correspondence between the two lovers, extends far beyond their individual relationship to their network of friends, to the disability community as a whole, and to the nature of disability art and culture itself. Thus, this book will be of great interest to a wide variety of readers: poetry aficionados, disability studies scholars, activists, artists, as well as those who enjoy a great love story.

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Spotlight on Femmethology Contributor Sherilyn Connelly

How do you define your femme identity?
It’s what makes sense to me, and it’s the term which best suits how I am naturally. It’s not a flag I wave, however, nor does it define my behavior. Speaking of such things--

How do other identities you have not only intersect with femme but also contradict it?
My myriad identities (alphabetically: “femme,” “goth,” “m2f tranny,” “writer”) intersect by definition because they’re part of me, and I don’t care if any of them empirically contradict. I’m far too selfish and willful to NOT do something just because it’s not what a femme or goth or tranny or writer is supposed to do. For example, I’ve been listening to a lot of Richard and Linda Thompson lately, and the fact they’re not goth means less than nothing to me. It’s just not something I care about.

What are some joys of being femme?
When there’s no subcultural pressure to have short hair and wear flannel, the sky’s the limit. And my legs looked damned good in fishnets, if I do say so myself.

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