In honor of Georges Perec, a list. Without too much explanation.
What is inspiring me now as I write The Book. I read these things and write and read and write - sometimes notes, sometimes the book itself...sometimes something else altogether that may go somewhere else someday.
1. Leigh Gilmore's 'The Limits of Autobiography: trauma and testimony' - genius feminist scholar parsing the distinctions of self as represented and/or constructed - disputer of 'false memory syndrome' as bad pseudoscience - uniter of 'shell shock' and 'hysteria' that were torn asunder by gender politics - and reader of such diverse writers as Michel Foucault, Jeanette Winterson, Jamaica Kincaid & Dorothy Allison - as at the limits of autobiography.
Sample:
"A first-person account of trauma represents an intervention, even an interruption of, a whole meaning-making apparatus that threatens to shout it down at every turn. Thus a writer's turn from the primarily documentary toward the fictional marks an effort to shift the ground of judgment towards a perspective she has struggled to achieve."
Drops mic.
2. William Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' - just read it if you haven't. 1930. Multiple 1st person POV. "My mother is a fish." is a chapter. Hated this book at 15. Love it at 51. Nice palindromic symmetry there, dontcha think?
3. Jill Lepore's 'The Mansion of Happiness' - about history of life and death in America - brilliant, funny, insightful, and breathtakingly researched.
4. Morris Dickstein's 'Dancing in the Dark' - precise yet extraordinarily comprehensive cultural history of the Depression in the U.S. (That routed me back to Faulkner.)
Other inspirations - not books - but mighty important:
5. Beloved husband, John, who brings me coffee, makes food most of the time, always does the dishes and tolerates my Extreme Moodiness While Working on This and assures me I am still lovable. I think he's lying, but bless him anyway.
6. Friends Julie & Susan - witnesses-in-chief to this struggle.
7. Mother Robin - chief purveyor of support & information regarding her mother (also cousin Darcy and her info & support and newly-found cousin Sharon and hers)
8. Everyone who supported crowd-funding campaign making this summer possible. Plus many others who are offering support in ways they know and don't know.
9. That and Dick & Jani's photos and spirits. And me. And the 20th Century. And everything else.
OK, so if Georges Perec wrote this, it would be way better...but I'm focusing that precision on the book. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Welcome to my blog..
"We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I am now transitioning into being married again with a new surname (Barclay-Morton). John is transitioning from Canada to NYC and as of June 2014 has a green card. So transition continues, but now from sad to happy, from loss to love...from a sense of alienation to a sense of being at home in the world.
As of September 2013 I started teaching writing as an adjunct professor at Fordham University, which I have discovered I love with an almost irrational passion. While was blessed for the opportunity, after four years of being an adjunct, the lack of pay combined with heavy work load stopped working, so have transferred this teaching passion to private workshops in NYC and working with writers one on one, which I adore. I will die a happy person if I never have to grade an assignment ever again. As of 2018, I also started leading writing retreats to my beloved Orkney Islands. If you ever want two weeks that will restore your soul and give you time and space to write, get in touch. I am leading two retreats this year in July and September.
I worked full time on the book thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign in May 2014 and completed it at two residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House in summer 2015. I have done some revisions and am shopping it around to agents and publishers now, along with a new book recently completed.
I now work full-time as a freelance writer, writing workshop leader, coach, editor and writing retreat leader. Contact me if you are interested in any of these services.
Not sure when transition ends, if it ever does. As the saying goes, the only difference between a sad ending and a happy ending is where you stop rolling the film.
For professional information, publications, etc., go to my linked in profile and website for Barclay Morton Editorial & Design. My Twitter account is @wilhelminapitfa. You can find me on Facebook under my full name Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. More about my grandmothers' book: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani
In 2017, I launched a website Our Grandmothers, Our Selves, which has stories about many people's grandmothers. Please check it out. You can also contact me through that site.
In May, I directed my newest play, On the edge of/a cure, and have finally updated my publications list, which now includes an award-winning chapbook of my short-story White shoe lady, which you can find on the sidebar. I also have become a certified yoga instructor in the Kripalu lineage. What a year!
And FINALLY, I have created a website, which I hope you will visit, The Unadapted Ones. I will keep this blog site up, since it is a record of over 8 years of my life, but will eventually be blogging more at the website, so if you want to know what I am up to with my writing, teaching, retreats and so on, the site is the place to check (and to subscribe for updates). After eight years I realized, no, I'm never turning into One Thing. So The Unadapted Ones embraces the multiplicity that comprises whomever I am, which seems to always be shifting. That may in fact be reality for everyone, but will speak for myself here. So, do visit there and thanks for coming here, too. Glad to meet you on the journey...
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