June 24th, 2012

The intellectual & visceral meaning of Dracula

Dracula in Love

I really enjoyed doing this sixty minute radio interview with Jon Hansen.  Few interviewers come so well-prepared to discuss a book on so many different levels with an author.  Hope you enjoy.

 

Dracula in Love radio interview with Jon Hansen

May 27th, 2012

Glass Escalator: For Men Only

escalator

The glass escalator is a new phenomenon similar to the glass ceiling, except that instead of hitting their heads as they try to rise to the top, men entering largely female dominated professions are carried past their women co-workers in winged chariots known as glass escalators.

Not surprisingly, as the job market shrinks, men are entering traditionally female-dominated professions—nursing, teaching, etc.  This is great news for the professions, as far

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May 16th, 2012

Ladies: How to Get Ahead Strategically

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Women are expert strategists when it comes to running relationships or running a household, both of which are complex tasks.  So why are we lacking the strategic skills to climb the corporate ladder?  According to the WSJ, “Women held just 14.1% of executive officer positions in 2011 at Fortune 500 companies, down from 14.4% in 2010, according to recent research conducted by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that seeks to advance

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March 10th, 2012

Living on PLANET WHITE

Diahnn Carroll as Julia

Friends, can it really be true that we’ve had no tv series with a single African-American female lead since 1974???  The article below mentions Teresa Graves’s as an undercover detective in the 1974 made-for-TV flick Get Christie Love!, which I do not remember, but I DO remember watching the beautiful Diahnn Carroll as Julia when I was a kid back in the late ’60s.

So, um, let’s

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January 18th, 2012

Israeli women pushed to the back of the bus

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After many years of functioning as one of the most egalitarian nations on the planet, suddenly, religious extremists are pushing Jewish women into the shadows.  This new development flies in the face of the stance of the government, which adamantly supports equality between the sexes.  However, concessions are now being made to right-wingers and fanatics for the sake of getting their votes.

Who will be sacrificed in this scenario?  WOMEN.

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September 26th, 2011

Mina Harker: An Uncooperative Protagonist

Dracula

From the first time that I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula in my teens, though I revered the work, I just knew that the character Mina Harker, Dracula’s obsession, was not satisfied with the role Mr. Stoker gave her—the quintessentially compliant Victorian virgin.  I knew that there had to be more to her than that.  (I knew that there had to be more to any woman than that.)

Anyone who has

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September 23rd, 2011

Women, Madness & Vampires

VicInsane

I am the guest blogger today at the superb site “Wonders & Marvels: A community for curious minds who love history, its odd stories, and good reads.”  That’s us, right?  The post is about my research into Victorian insane asylums and female hysteria for DRACULA IN LOVE.

THE SITE IS ALSO HOSTING A 5 COPY GIVEAWAY OF DRACULA IN LOVE!

Enjoy!

 

 

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September 13th, 2011

New Roles for Libyan women

Libyan women have been a visible and vital part of the revolution.

Libyan women have been a visible and vital part of the revolution.

Libyan women have demonstrated bold and courageous acts during the revolution.  Will they go the way of Rosie the Riveter once peace is restored?  In Egypt, women were on the front lines of the revolution but NOT A SINGLE female is on the committee to rewrite the Egyptian constitution.  Will this document represent women’s rights?  Probably not.

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July 21st, 2011

Take Back the Tit

Breast-feeding---Kids-Painting_580x

 

I had tea yesterday with a lovely friend who is a novelist and songwriter and a young mother of two.  She told me that in a class she attended on breastfeeding, a new mother admitted in a timid, guilty voice that she had to stop breastfeeding after several weeks because her nipples were cracked and bleeding and she could not produce enough milk.  The “teacher/expert,” some breast-feeding Brunhilde, callously

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November 28th, 2009

On Auto Wrecks and Adultery: Karen Essex chats with Penny Vincenzi and Christina Baker Kline about their new novels.

KE: The film producer Lynda Obst once told me that she came up with the idea for the George Clooney/Michelle Pfeiffer romantic comedy One Fine Day, when she—overworked, exhausted—was lying on a massage table thinking that to meet a man she would have to literally crash into one with her car. Andrew Davidson, who I chatted with recently on the blog, opened his bestseller, The Gargolye, with a car

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