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One of the reasons I’m not a famous pop star, my stunning looks aside, is that it takes me an eternity to finish things. And when I do finish things, I tend to be shy about promoting them. Or I don’t promote them at all. For example, back in early 2016, I uploaded a bunch [more]
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“So a tran walks into a bar…†I went to a comedy show last night, and the comedian didn’t make any jokes about trans people. I knew he wouldn’t – the comic, Jimeoin, doesn’t do that kind of joke – so I felt safe enough to go as me. By “as me†I mean as [more]
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This, by Robyn Pennacchia , is superb. It’s about school shootings, but it’s also about the problems of empathy in an age when other people are little more than non-player characters on your screen. In the 1970s, if you thought Ted Bundy was a hero for murdering all those women, you kept that to yourself. You [more]
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Following on from yesterday’s post about violent, insecure men and shootings. here’s how the AR-15 assault rifle used in the most recent shootings (including Sandy Hook and yesterday’s atrocity) has been advertised. This one dates from 2010. In the accompanying press release, Bushmaster Firearms explained: …visitors of bushmaster.com will have to prove they’re a man [more]
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We’re coming out of digital detox season, where newspaper columnists share the incredible insight that you can get a lot of stuff done if you don’t spend all your time dicking about on the internet. But as the developers of the excellent iA Writer app point out, taking a break is good but going offline [more]
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Buzzfeed has a reputation for daft listicles, and deservedly so. But the traffic those listicles generates also pays for long form content like this personal and thought provoking essay by Shannon Keating. It’s important to recognize when “sex†or “gender†doesn’t have anything to do with the matter at hand at all — that workplace [more]
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A few years ago I wrote a lyric with my young daughter in mind. It’s from the perspective of a parent hoping their child won’t repeat their mistakes. Over 4 years later, my daughter – now 10 – has left a comment on the song on YouTube. I love all your songs, especially this one! [more]
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I wrote a piece for Metro about the religious right’s wedge strategy to roll back equal rights legislation. The religious right knows it lost the equal marriage battle. But it thinks it can win the war against LGBT equality and women’s rights by using trans people as a proxy. Scratch an anti-trans bill, of which [more]
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Writing about it, I mean. As the annual Bad Sex literary awards and Justin Timberlake’s new album demonstrate, it’s very easy to write about sex very badly. Here’s Pitchfork on Timberlake: Sauce invites you to imagine a partner’s “pink†pressing up against Timberlake’s “purple.â€Â The title track features this charming depiction of foreplay: “But then your [more]
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Like many people, I have a personal Twitter account. And like many writers, that personal Twitter account is often used by people who want to contact me for work reasons. Luckily for me I’m not a young woman journalist, because if I were that means my personal Twitter account would be full of rape threats, [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
