I trace my movement away from the tactile with my obsession with SPF. Did you think I was going to say the rise in our addiction to screens? I am. In a minute. I was a Southern Californian beach girl until my mid-20s. An ocean-loving, body-surfing, Bain de Soleil-slathering person with beach tar on my…
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Return to the Tactile: Collioure, France
Available now!
From Frida Kahlo and Elizabeth Taylor to Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher, and Lena Dunham, this witty narrative explores what we can learn from the imperfect and extraordinary legacies of 29 iconic women who forged their own unique paths in the world. Smart, sassy, and unapologetically feminine, this elegantly illustrated book is an ode to the…
Playing the Girl: Ten False Starts (After Janet Malcolm): LA Review of Books essay on You Play the Girl
1. YOU PLAY THE GIRL: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, Carina Chocano’s memoir/pop culture takedown of the way women are characterized by the media, was released on August 8, 2017. It was the time before #MeToo, when sexual assault and misconduct was a well-kept open secret, when powerful men…
Sneak Peek inside In Praise of Difficult Women
A little inside publishing baseball: the “first and goods” just came back from the printer. The book isn’t bound yet, but these loose pages are finished. The striking illustration is by Kimberly Glyder.
What Does It Mean to Be Difficult?
Type the word difficult into Google and you’ll find three definitions. “Needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand” (She had a difficult decision to make). “Characterized by or causing hardship or problems” (A difficult economic climate) “(of a person) not easy to please or satisfy.” (Lily could be difficult.) Lily could…
Confessions of a Coastal Elite
Since the election on November 8 my fellow Hillary supporters have been in a tail spin while supporters from the other side are gloating with victory (had it gone the other way, I’m sure Hillary people would be equally ungracious. That’s not what this is about.) An old acquaintance, who is married to a man…
Day After Election Day Pub Party at Broadway Books: Come Celebrate with Karen Karbo and Kerry Cohen
Party with Karen and the redoubtable Kerry Cohen and on The Day After Election Day: Wednesday, November 9, 7:00 pm at Broadway Books. Awesome Hawthorne Books is throwing a book launch party for Kerry’s Girl Trouble: An Illustrated Memoir (illustrations by Tyler Cohen) and Karen’s reissue of Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me. Please…
Hound of the Sea Featured on OPB’s Sports Hour at Wordstock
When: November 5 @ 11:45 am – 12:45 pm Where: Portland Art Museum, Whitsell Auditorium — McMenamins Stage, Wordstock A multi-genre discussion of new work with an athletic bent: Lisa Congdon discusses The Joy of Swimming, an illustrated celebration of our love for getting in the water; Karen Karbo on the experience of co-writing Hound of the Sea with big wave surfer Garret McNamara; and Jason Reynolds on the first…
Karen Karbo in Conversation with Cathi Hanauer, Editor of The Bitch Is Back
Join Karen and Cathi Hanauer, celebrated editor of The Bitch is Back, at Powell’s Books, October 16, 7:30 pm. More than a decade after the anthology The Bitch in the House spoke up loud and clear for a generation of young women, nine of the original contributors are back – along with sixteen captivating new…
Motherhood Made A Man Out of Me Reissued by Hawthorne Books
Brooke and Mary Rose are best friends. Brooke is the mother of a six-month-old. Mary Rose is pregnant. Brooke is married to Lyle, though, at times, she wonders why. Mary Rose would be married if Ward, the father of her child, weren’t already. Ward and Brooke are cousins… A comedy of manners and biology, Karbo…