bend toward joy

feminist, new york city apologist, word enthusiast, sass for days.

[majomaru]

“Writing a book is like wrestling a bear. Some days you’re on top,some days the bear is on top. And some days the bear is on top, dancing around the room and ordering lattes.”

Neil Gaiman, West Virginia Book Festival 2015 (via miss-elsaba)

[tispityshesasmore]

Clementine von Radics, 'For Teenage Girls with Wild Ambition and Trembling Hearts'

When you are 13 years old,  the heat will be turned up too high and the stars will not be in your favor.  You will hide behind a bookcase with your family and everything left behind.  You will pour an ocean into a diary.  When they find you, you will be nothing but a spark above a burning bush,  still, tell them Despite everything, I really believe people are good at heart.

When you are 14,  a voice will call you to greatness.  When the doubters call you crazy, do not listen. They don’t know the sound  of their own God’s whisper. Use your armor,  use your sword, use your two good hands.  Do not let their doubting  drown out the sound of your own heartbeat. You are the Maid of Untamed Patriotism. Born to lead armies into victory and unite a nation like a broken heart.

When you are 15, you will be punished  for learning too proudly. A man  will climb onto your school bus and insist  your sisters name you enemy.  When you do not hide,  he will point his gun at your temple  and fire three times. Three years later,  in an ocean of words, with no apologies, you will stand before the leaders of the world  and tell them your country is burning.

When you are 16 years old,  you will invent science fiction.  The story of a man named Frankenstein  and his creation. Soon after you will learn  that little girls with big ideas are more terrifying  than monsters, but don’t worry.  You will be remembered long after  they have put down their torches.

When you are 17 years old,  you will strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig one right after the other.  Men will be afraid of the lightening  in your fingertips. A few days later  you will be fired from the major leagues  because “Girls are too delicate to play baseball”

You will turn 18 with a baby on your back  leading Lewis and Clark  across North America.

You will turn 18  and become queen of the Nile.

You will turn 18  and bring justice to journalism.

You are now 18, standing on the precipice, trembling before your own greatness.

This is your call to leap.

There will always being those  who say you are too young and delicate  to make anything happen for yourself.  They don’t see the part of you that smolders. Don’t let their doubting drown out the sound  of your own heartbeat.

You are the first drop of a hurricane. Your bravery builds beyond you. You are needed by all the little girls still living in secret,  writing oceans made of monsters and throwing like lightening.

You don’t need to grow up to find greatness. You are stronger than the world has ever believed you to be. The world laid out before you to set on fire. All you have to do is burn.

[mcnallykids]

Ursula K. Le Guin refuses to blurb a story collection with no female writers. 

“Gentlemen, I just don’t belong here.” This is what a badass sounds like. 

[authorstalker]

The good news is that, as a country, we are all about telling girls to be confident. It’s our new national pastime. Every day I see Twitter posts, Instagram campaigns, and hashtags that say things like “We Will!” or “Girls Can!” or “Me Must, I Too!” on them. I think widespread, online displays of female self-confidence are good for people, especially men, to see. I just sometimes get the sneaking suspicion that corporations are co-opting “girl confidence” language to rally girls into buying body wash. Be careful. So, if that girl from the panel is reading this, I would like to say to her: Hi, it’s Mindy Kaling. I’m sorry I let you down. The thing is, I’m in my mid-thirties and I was wearing my Spanx for fourteen hours straight. You’ll understand when you’re older. Here’s how I think you can get your confidence back, kid: Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn’t always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine.

Mindy Kaling’s Guide to Killer Confidence (via authorstalker)

[alexyarnold]

It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the f*ck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.

roxanegay, Bad Feminist

[stuffmomnevertoldyou]

Not only will people like you, they’ll love you. I just heard of you and I love you already.

Ellen DeGeneres on Twitter, responding to the humansofnewyork boy heard ‘round the world

(via stuffmomnevertoldyou)

[wordsnquotes]

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.

Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum 

[emerylord-deactivated20210730]

[firewhisky]

[symphony-of-a-survivor]

I’m not crying; you’re crying.

[jayzsongwason]

NAILED IT

[explore-blog]

A childhood friend of mine who is now a rabbi recently told me that the most powerful one-line prayer he has ever read is: “Let me not die while I am still alive.” I would have never understood that prayer before losing Dave. Now I do. I think when tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning. These past thirty days, I have spent many of my moments lost in that void. And I know that many future moments will be consumed by the vast emptiness as well. But when I can, I want to choose life and meaning.

Thirty days after her husband’s death, Sheryl Sandberg shares this unbelievably beautiful and touching meditation on grief. 

Poet Elizabeth Alexander, whose beloved husband died as suddenly as Sandberg’s, has also written about the journey of loss beautifully. 

(via explore-blog)

[alexyarnold]

[unfoldingthemyth]

Being loved is not the same as loving. When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping. It is realizing you have hands. It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.

The Type, Sarah Kay (via unfoldingthemyth)

[penguinrandomhouse]

[alexyarnold]

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of--please forgive me--wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. When this happens, everything feels more spacious. Try walking around with a child who's going, 'Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!' And the child points and you look, and you see, and you start going, 'Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!' I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world--present and in awe.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

[wordsnquotes]

You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.

Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things

[moth-stories]

Watch the full video here of Zadie Smith’s Moth Award acceptance speech here: http://bit.ly/1xFfAoM 

[explore-blog]

Susan Sontag on storytelling, what it means to be a good human being and her timeless advice to writers.