More Than A Magazine, A Movement
In the male-dominated field of stand-up comedy, it’s rare to find spaces that champion the development of female comics. That’s why we love Carolyn Castiglia: a performer, writer, producer, director and teacher committed to creating spaces where women thrive.
Castiglia gave Ms. 10 tips she tells her students to orient themselves in the space of comedy and develop their own point of view.
Ladan Osman’s lines tend to levitate from the page and embed themselves into your heart and consciousness. Nearly every poem in her collections point to generations of women whose full humanity has been questioned or exploited, their power underestimated.
It’s easy to think about gender representation theoretically—but you really don’t understand just how much you’re missing until you see the opposite triumphantly rocking out in front of you. This is one of gifts of Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls LA.
Ms. spoke with DiFranco in the lead up to her April 18 livestream concert, celebrating the release of her new album Revolutionary Love. She spoke with us about poetry, feminism, domestic abuse, shame, allyship and places where vulnerability and strength can co-exist. She was calling in from New Orleans, with her children and dog moving through the background and her head newly shaved. Ms. spoke with DiFranco in the lead up to her April 18 livestream concert, celebrating the release of her new album Revolutionary Love. She spoke with us about poetry, feminism, domestic abuse, shame, allyship and places where vulnerability and strength can co-exist. She was calling in from New Orleans, with her children and dog moving through the background and her head newly shaved. At age 50, she could still feel traces of her younger self and “the epic journey” that led her there.
Lucinda Williams’s “Good Souls and Better Angels,” was released early into the pandemic this April. I interviewed the Grammy-winner this summer, while she was quarantined with her husband in their home in Nashville.
With a sublime mastery of language and artistry, five women poets— Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Patricia Smith, Ellen Bass, Toi Derricotte, Tina Chang—ask us to consider bodies facing attacks both physical and psychological. They write in defense, in awe and awareness of the body, pointing again and again to our shared humanity.
When singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy imagined the release of “Devotion,” her sophomore record, it didn’t include a world-wide quarantine.
“Devotion” is a mark of her commitment to process through electronic pop, a sonic shift away from her highly praised folk debut. With lyrics that delve into gray areas of love, art and political engagement, Glaspy holds up multidimensionality in earnest. She hopes to reach the others who could use a lift, and articulates how the act of creating anchors her, even now.
Singer-songwriter Amy Speace, 52, has been in the music business for twenty years. Her latest record, which she recorded in the final term of pregnancy with her son, includes characters singing in solidarity with Standing Rock, women’s rights and in pursuit of daily rituals.
“The telling of stories is a really powerful kind of activism—it allows you to empathize, to put yourself in others’ shoes.”
“If I was to give advice to my 17-year-old self, I would say: you go girl—now go teach others.”
