This month's Keep Writing postcard is a collaboration with Becca Hebert. I printed the first layer last night with stamps she carved. Want to receive postcards such as these from me? Sign up on my etsy site, www.gutwrench.etsy.com. Interested in hearing about Becca's adventure riding from New Orleans to Pensacola with two friends talking with people on the gulf coast about the oil "spill"? Click the link for "Gulf Coast Bike Ride " on the right or go to www.engulfedcoast.blogspot.com.

New and For Sale

I have finally updated my etsy account with items I made last spring for a print sale here.
Browse: www.gutwrench.etsy.com

A Glimpse of What's to Come

Back in the print studio this week and nearly alone. School doesn't start for ten more days, so the shop is quiet. And cool. And with the heat index reaching 115 degrees last week, I don't mind staying inside to print. Above is a section of a postcard I started for the Ladies of Letterpress exchange. The idea is to make a postcard celebrating your state and summer. Something like that. I screen printed the first two colors this morning and they look better than I had hoped.


Keep Writing number 21 went in the mail this morning. This month's postcard is late, due to some technical issues like a broken press and a bit of culture shock when I returned home. This postcard is also a collaboration with Vanessa Adams, a New Orleans artist who has been taking print classes at LSU. This is only a section of the postcard. If you want to see the whole thing you will have to wait until I post it on etsy.

Um, Excuse Me?

I have subscriptions to a few magazines for different reasons. Two years ago someone sent me a copy of the Oxford American's issue about New Orleans three years after Katrina. It was smart, sensitive and did not make me uncomfortable in the way most writing about the hurricane does. I signed up for a subscription. They are based in Arkansas and focus on writers and subjects in the south. This summer's issue includes an article titled "Are You a Tree Bitch?" with the unfortunate subtitle "Yes the phrase is offensive...but answer the question please." I read it on a lazy Sunday, a few days after returning from Italy. I thought, maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I am just extra sensitive. Nope. I thought about it. And wrote this letter to the editor. The last letter to the editor I wrote was in 1993 about being a weirdo at my high school.

I was disappointed and then angry that you chose to publish Ad Hudler’s piece on “psychology “ titled “Are you a Tree Bitch?” (Summer 2010). Starting with the dismissive subtitle, to the embarrassing excuse that the writer was “raised by an outspoken feminist” and is a “stay-at-home dad”, the writer absolves himself of criticism. He gave reasons why he should better understand that using the word “bitch” across genders does not strip it of its destructive power but continues on in defense of its usage. Using “bitch” to describe crappy, under appreciated grunt work and defining “dude” as someone doing performs the skilled, admired, artistic labor reinforces the power structure feminists work to dismantle. The author talks himself in circles trying to explain why it is ok to use this term in this situation while restating the ways it is insulting to use. While I do not read the Oxford American in search of radical political views, I usually find it thoughtful, entertaining and never offensive. This piece struck me as lazy, and its carelessness has made me unable to enjoy the rest of this issue.

Oh, Thea actually called his excuse "embarrassing" but I borrowed it.