Happy Pride from Big Cat, Little Cat . . . For the visually impaired: Two cats, orange and grey. The orange cat takes up almost all of the left half of the frame, and is looking downward at the grey cat with what appears to be a benevolent facial expression. The grey cat is smaller,Continue reading “New Weekly(ish) Piece”
Category Archives: Erika
(Podcast Episode) A Postscript to our Writers’ Round Table on Queerness and Allyship
As Andrew and I listened to the playback for parts I and II of this month’s Writers’ Round Table about queerness and allyship we both found ourselves exhausted from the emotional labor that we’ve been doing this month. We were both unprepared for the things we felt-trauma, disappointment, frustration, and for the homophobia we wouldContinue reading “(Podcast Episode) A Postscript to our Writers’ Round Table on Queerness and Allyship”
Your Love is better than Ice Cream
By Erika Grumet (A note about the term “bisexuality”: some people find the term ‘bisexuality’ restrictive or uncomfortable because of its focus on the idea of “binary” or an either/or dichotomy. My personal interpretation, the way I use it, describes the idea of “a gender identity similar to mine” and “a gender identity unlike mine”Continue reading “Your Love is better than Ice Cream”
We Dance to the Rhythm of 49 Heartbeats: The Pulse Massacre 5 Years Later
By Erika Grumet In December of 2012, the day after my youngest child turned 3, on what had begun as a typical Friday (with a little extra crankiness because there had been an extended evening of celebrations the night before) the Facebook News Network broke a story about a shooting at an elementary school inContinue reading “We Dance to the Rhythm of 49 Heartbeats: The Pulse Massacre 5 Years Later”
#ActLoveGive-A Request from Erika
by Erika Grumet This weekend will mark the fifth anniversary of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, an unimaginable and heartbreaking tragedy targeting our LGBTQ+ family, and in particular BIPOC members of our LGBTQ+ family. We’ll bring you a longer piece about that over the weekend, but I have a request this week,Continue reading “#ActLoveGive-A Request from Erika”
The AIDS Epidemic: Fortieth Anniversary: A Personal History
By Erika Grumet Forty years ago today, the first reports of the “pneumonia” that we would eventually know was AIDS broke. As the most senior member of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room team, and the one with the most experience in HIV and AIDS related topics, (and the one who brought it up during planningContinue reading “The AIDS Epidemic: Fortieth Anniversary: A Personal History”
Antivax Racists are Trying to Repurpose the Yellow Star of David
By Erika Grumet When I was a kid, I would occasionally encounter people with numbers tattooed on their arms. I don’t remember a time when Nazis and what they had done to Jews (and by extension, my own family) weren’t a part of my consciousness. I heard the stories first hand from the survivors, inContinue reading “Antivax Racists are Trying to Repurpose the Yellow Star of David”
You Don’t Look a Day Over 200
By Erika Grumet It’s birthday time here. Mine is this week, although I am nowhere near 200, but we’ll also be celebrating Walt Whitman’s 202nd birthday with this weekend’s episode of The Ivory Tower Boiler Room. I think it’s hard to grow up where I did on Long Island and not have at least a Continue reading “You Don’t Look a Day Over 200”
May Wrap Up: The month of May was come
By Erika Grumet when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit. -Thomas Malory Lusty for clicks and comments for sure… When I sat down to write this, I had a cat at my feet, a cat at my head, and one under my right elbow, who was also insisting on sharingContinue reading “May Wrap Up: The month of May was come”
Erika’s Big Think #1:Coming out of the Poetry Closet
By Erika Grumet It’s a little ironic, I was the one who proposed that the topic for this month’s Big Think… should be “writing about ourselves as writers.” Of all the members of the Ivory Tower team, I’m the one who really struggles to self-identify as “a writer” and in fact often actively resists theContinue reading “Erika’s Big Think #1:Coming out of the Poetry Closet”