In honor of National Women’s Day, here is a comic I made when I was around 13, about a character in Jewish folklore. Then I grew up and majored in Folklore & Mythology and drinking male tears. 

For Tablet this week, I wrote about “sensitivity readers” (terrible name, honestly) and how they’ve become misguided shorthand for OMG CEEEEEENSORSHIIIIIIP IN YOUNG ADULT LITERATUUUUURE. Do I deny that people call other people names on social media? I DO NOT! Do I think we’re giving entirely too much focus to a phenomenon affecting only a handful of books, which distracts us from larger problems in publishing, such as, uh, the paucity of writers getting to tell their own communities’ stories? I DO! Feel free to let me know what you think, though I will ignore you if you’re unpleasant.

And: Not all heroes wear capes. Here’s a profile I did for our indispensable East Village NYC blog E.V.Grieve of a friendly neighborhood copy shop man…with a MYSTERIOUS PAST. 

In non-me news, my friend Fawn Fitter wrote a fascinating piece in the NYT about her plans to donate her corpse to The Body Farm, a criminal justice program. And since I haven’t posted since the Oscars, please let me recommend a children’s book: Ruth and the Green Book, by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper. It’s about a little girl’s family road trip in the Jim Crow era. It’s completely age-appropriate, scary and realistic but in a way children can handle. The happy ending feels earned — it’s feel-good but in a way supported by history. I read it a couple of years ago and learned a lot, and it suddenly seems more relevant than ever.  Ruth is the main character in her own story. 

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