Femme Friday – Literary Femmes: Elsie from Dead Collections

I’m halfway through Isaac Fellman’s 2022 novel, Dead Collections, and Elsie has not (yet?) referred to herself as a femme, but I’m going to call it. Elsie is bi, was married to a butch lesbian, is attracted to butch all over the place, and falls for the main character of the novel, Sol, who is a trans man. And a vampire, which it turns out Elsie also rather likes.

Here’s Sol’s description of her when they first meet:

            … she was all stiffness and solidity. A tall woman, big, in a stiff green velvet dress whose skirt stood out from her hips. Some big women are loose and soft, with a creamy invitingness – I mean not of attitude or personality, but a coincidence of how their body’s built. Elsie’s body was of denser stuff, and her face was matte and inexpressive, and her brown hair in a curly bob was very much “done.”

And later, when they’ve gotten to know each other more:

            I pressed my face to her broad shoulder. God, I love a girl you can rest on.

 Deep gratitude to Isaac for loving Elsie onto the page. For giving her strength and anxieties and grief and horniness and a full and intricate queer life. Thank you for adding to the all-too-short roster of queer femmes in literature!

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme life! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three or four times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, Femme Friday on Friday, and (new for spring 22!) the occasional Sometimes On A. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Published in: on September 2, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Leave a Comment  
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Femme Friday – Literary Femme: Lily Hu from Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Just out this year, Malinda Lo’s historical young adult novel is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the mid-fifties. While she’s sitting in her friend’s family restaurant, 17-year old Lily comes across an advertisement in the local paper:

TOMMY ANDREWS MALE IMPERSONATOR – WORLD PREMIERE! THE TELEGRAPH CLUB. 462 BROADWAY.

Lily can’t stop staring at the accompanying photo “of a person who looked like a handsome man with his hair slicked back, dressed in a tuxedo. Something went still inside Lily, as if her heart had taken a breath before it continued beating.” (my italics, and me who got all weepy reading this line because that is how I reacted when I saw my first butch, too and it is so beautiful!)

Deep gratitude to Malinda Lo for loving Lily into existence and for writing a gorgeous novel featuring a young femme as a main character. They are so few and far between! Malinda’s book is dedicated “To all the butches and femmes, past, present, and future” and this old-school femme is enjoying the hell out of reading it, not to mention shedding a joyful tear or two.  

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you (or your friend)! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Published in: on April 2, 2021 at 5:01 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Femme Friday – Femmes in Literature: America Chavez

Interviewed by Savas Abadsidis in the Advocate, March 9, 2017, Gabby Rivera, America’s writer, says this:

America’s a vibrant young, fierce, and gorgeous superhero babe. You can bet your Yeezys that she’s going to be dating. But it’s not going to be some heavy meditation on the stresses, inequities, and violence faced by LGBTQ people. We get enough of that in the news and in personal essays. That work is vital and important. But America’s series is meant to be a space of joy and fantasy. I also want it to be a healing piece of media/art so that folks who are being beaten down by the system and life in general can laugh and cheer and get a moment to breathe easy in this chaotic world. We get to watch America, an unapologetically queer Latina, deal with everyday love stuff. I’m so ready for that, aren’t you?

Hell yes! And deep gratitude to Gabby for giving us America, in all her hard femme glory!

Check out Gabby talking about her healing and transcendent creative work here!

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com.

 

Published in: on December 15, 2017 at 5:08 PM  Leave a Comment  
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