Viva la Feminista

WOW That pretty much sums up the weekend. It was a whirlwind of everything. Yes, it's Thursday and I'm still reeling from the weekend. Friday I got to have lunch with PunditMom . Then Jenn Pozner & I greeted each other like we always do - a huge hug. We realized later on that we've now been friends for about 12 years. YOWZAS! After dinner with Jenn, Lisa Jervis, Latoya Peterson and Jennifer Mattson we headed back to the conference building for the opening reception. The opening plenary was made of three women journalists from Iraq, Columbia and Zimbabwe. Jenn live-blogged it , so I won't try to summarize it. What I will say is that I was floored at the bravery of the women. What I will always remember is that Huda, from Iraq, was a translator for English-speaking journalists. During one assignment the first question a journalist asked was if a man was Sunni or Shia. He responded to her with "That's the first question?" She spent a lot of time talking...

I have a few posts scheduled for my absence, but if you aren't already following me on Twitter , why aren't you? haha! Instead of my usual "I'm craving chocolate" posts, I'll be Tweeting from WAM! this weekend. I won't live tweet everything, but some good highlights. Later!

While some out there truly believe I have a future in books, I can't turn my back on the raging exchange of words between the radical WOC blogosphere and Seal Press. Read La Chola Furthermore, it also means that women of color gain a reputation outside of academia as being considered “unpublishable.” Seal Press recently had an exchange with another woman of color blogger at which it was finally disclosed that women of color authors don’t sell, but it would be fabulous to publish them! (It appears that several of the comments on this exchange were taken down–pay attention to “bah”’s comments for proof that these things were said.) Read the Seal Press blog It's late...I should had been sleeping 30 minutes ago (I'm already in bed, so I can't say I need to go to bed), so I'll just leave you with those two posts, that contain other links in them. This is what I was talking about when I said something went down at WAM! and it wasn't my story to tell. JFTR - This isn...

I wanted to take a few days to mull over the negative aspects of WAM! before posting about it. I didn't want this post to seem too reactionary or for me to write it pissed off. That said, I'm still a tad ticked at what I thought was far too many cliques and too much separation between WOC bloggers and white bloggers. It was awesome to see a few allies in the Radical WOC bloggers session and even more so that an A-lister like Jill was there. There has been criticism of some of the A-list feminist blogs not having enough WOC in the past, so it was nice to see her there. I won't repeat how she introduced herself, but it was very sweet and from the heart. She also wrote a great summary of what it was to be a WOC at this conference: It was the one place in the conference where it felt like a collective blood-letting, and where most of the women really seemed comfortable and in their element. It made me think quite a bit about the value of creating those kinds of safe spaces, and...

See if you can spot me! Technorati tags: WAM! , WAM! 2008

I live blogged WAM ! and now it's time for a wrap-up post. The Good: I got to meet some awesome bloggers and writers that I have admired and aspired to be like. Starting at the networking session there was Jen Angel of the dearly departed Clamor, and Miriam of Radical Doula and Feministing. At the Friday night reception I met Allison Stevens of Women's eNews and Echidne of the Snakes . Did I mention EotS likes this blog? haha...sorry, I still can't believe that moment happened. Seriously the best part was the Radical WOC bloggers session where I got to meet BFP and far too many other wonderful WOC. Again, this was a freaking love fest session. I've been struggling all day on how to explain what I felt during this conference. Since I'm in the "good" part of this post, I'll do the good part first. As a Latina who has never felt a real strong connection to the Latina community especially since I don't speak Spanish, I have never felt so welcome...

Again I'm going to go to more than one session. How to Get Heard: The Art of Strategic Communication with Editors Barbara Beckwith, Jeanne Harnois, and Shirley Moskow Don't turn in an assignment without pitching a new story Hang out with writers - It's a lifestyle Never pitch a story with an attachment - It will end up in a spam folder Always turn in things on time Just get out there and do it Don't be afraid to push back Barbara's notes While most people say that you shouldn't work for free, she did start out writing for Sojourner which paid very little ($15) or nothing at all. Her early writing was her experience that she used to be a more professional writer. Don't minimize your experience. You aren't just a college student - You wrote for the Beacon. Meet your editor if you can in person. How to approach an editor - Know that you have value, express a sense of congeniality, don't use their first name until they use yours thou, know that they need...

I'm going to be jumping between 3 different sessions this morning, so here are my notes. Strategies for Making Change: Models for Feminist Media Justice Not that I'm biased or anything, but this is the cutest panel of the entire conference. Jennifer Pozner, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Betty Yu, and DeAnne Cuellar Jenn is talking about the POWER Sources Project . This is the oldest feminist project to bring more women's voices to media (newspaper columns, op-eds, sources, talk shows, etc.) by helping journalists connect to expert women in a multitude of areas. Thus removing the excuses of "We'd love to put a woman on the panel, but there aren't any women in [insert field not health care, children's issues, and abortion] OR I just can't find any women in [insert field not health care, children's issues, and abortion]. Everything that WIMN does involves not just women as a monolith, but women as a diverse group (ethnicity, geography, socioeconomic status, c...

Presented by Radical Reference volunteers Jenna Freedman and Lana Thelen The presentation is online ! WOO! Gotta love it. "This workshop will introduce skills to novice and veteran media makers alike, encouraging them to 'research like a librarian,' providing tips on how to find and recognize appropriate resources for researching and fact checking their stories. The presenters will be happy to adapt this workshop to whomever is in the room, but the impetus for proposing it is sharing skills with those newer to advanced research and critical thinking. However, people who are already confident in their research skills will undoubtedly learn some things, too. The facilitators can field questions on fact checking and research, but also on the mysteries of tagging, RSS feeds and the like." The first thing taught in library school is how to evaluate sources aka check your facts. Make time to fact check Keep track of where you are getting your facts & what you change. A...

I'm sitting next to Liza and she asked just before we started "Is Brownfemipower here?" When she said, "Yes!" I ran to her, but Liza jumped over a table. We embraced BFP in such a large hug. Oh, yes...we set the stage for the love fest. We are beginning with introductions about our wishes. Here is my introduction: I wish that I didn't have to justify my Latinaness just because I don't speak Spanish. I wish that my daughter will not wrestle with this and grow up always surrounded by love. There are a lot of awesome wishes which I won't even attempt to write down here for fear of misstating them. We all wish for better representations, complete histories, I wasn't so tired, that our brothers had a positive view of themselves in media, and many many more. The openness of just our introductions is so heart warming, so honest, so needed. There is a blog that is associated to our wishes! wishes fulfilled . Go, post your wish. We're in a six minute ...

Good morning! Yesterday was awesome and I don't feel like I did that much. It's too funny. Speed Networking : I got there late because my flight was canceled and I got on another flight an hour later. I met a lot of awesome women, got some leads, gave some leads, and just had a great time. Reception : More meeting of awesome women, getting some leads, and met another author who is considering blogging. She's coming to my panel (that's in an hour!) on feminist blogging to get some idea if she really should do it. Considering that more and more authors are jumping on this blogging bandwagon, I do hope she does. And of course, I'm more than happy to walk her thru it all. Authors are like drug dealers to me...They have access to books. Oh yeah... The best thing thou was this beautiful woman came up to me and simply said, "I love what you write." and hands me her card. OH MY FUCKING GAWD....It's Echinde of the Snakes! I mean, hello? She likes my stuff? Yea...

And even thou I do plan to take the laptop and do some live-blogging, I figured that I should also attempt to Twitter WAM as well. Also note my new tag just for WAM! :) I guess you need to be a follower of mine to see my updates . As my current status says, I'm still not convinced that this new uber-popularity contest tool will be important, but hey, maybe I'll just use it for times like conferences where people are always saying something awesome. Technorati tags: Twitter , WAM , Women, Action & the Media