One far away and far off, one nearby and soon.
(1) BlogHer LesFam ChiTown MeetUp. BlogHer, for those who don’t know, is an online community of and for women who blog, and BlogHer, as a thing you might “go to,” is their bodacious annual conference. More about ‘em at their About page here.
They do regional conferences as well as the biggie national one, too. I went to the biggie national one last year in San Francisco (wrote about it here), and it was a hoot/ gas/ revelation/ edumacation/ transformative experience. All of the above at various different times. Basically I drank the BlogHer Kool-Aid, is the short of it. I’ll be going to the upcoming one this summer in Chicago (sold out already, apparently; here’s the waitlist) and am in cahoots with Liza, founder of LesbianFamily.org, to try to ringlead a meet-up with other lesbian parent bloggers and our allies just following the conference while we’re all still in town.
So if you’re coming to BlogHer, or even just in the area and want to meet up and talk turkey — about how to do better organizing and world-changing online with one another and our allies, about how to connect our blogs to one another better, even about how to thrive more as lesbian parents in this firey/fertile time for LGBT families — join our power brunch the morning after the BlogHer conference, Sunday, July 26th. Further details as they emerge TBA at the LesFam post on the meet-up.
photo at right: campanile at khtoo’s Flickr photostream
(2) LD Campus Writerly Chit-Chat. I’ve had the great honor to be asked to speak at my alma mater for a class, “Other Voices,” designed to introduce students to “diverse, innovative, and emerging literary cultures.”
It’s a big, fat thrill, I’ll tell you, since I studied diverse, innovative, and emerging literary cultures there a coupla decades ago, and count those experiences, along with my involvement in campus activism, as instrumental to my deciding that (a) the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and (b) I want to figure out how to wield it, on behalf of love and justice, as mightily as I can.
The talk is open to the public, and will happen this Monday, March 30, noon -1pm, at Heller Multicultural Lounge in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union at U.C. Berkeley. [Map to the place here; scroll to and select Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union in the building list in the box at the lower right, and you'll be given a nice little close-up of the whereabouts.]
A nice little closing note: years ago as an undergrad, I was part of the student group that lobbied to have that student union named after Dr. King, at the time, the first building on campus named after anyone not white. To my knowledge, with the exception of one off-campus residence hall, it is still is the only building on campus named after an African American. It’ll be a major treat to sidle up to a podium there.
Lesbian Dad is written by a parent who answers to the name "Baba" and works toward a world in which amor does indeed vincit omnia. 
Hope you got my return email–and thank you. I just replied rather than going through the site, so hopefully Wordpress Dude did not intercept.
What about a transcribed copy of your Other Voices lecture for those (way) out of the Berkeley area? It would be great to get a glimpse of you in your off-line element.
Yes, thank you. Very much appreciated; more to follow directly.
And wow! What a thought. Kind of brings it full circle: reflections on writing online for online community, and bringing it back whence it came. Figuring I have it enough in a written-out format, I’ll totally post it here mebbe Monday night or so. Thank you for asking. It’d be neat to see what any of you-all think about it.
Believe me, Monday at noon is on my schedule!
Can’t wait to see you there… gives me goosebumps thinking how important and inspiring it will be for the students to hear from you.
No more inspiring as it will be for me to talk to ‘em, sister.
I’ll slip you the Jackson on Monday at 12:01 for the P.R. work.
Good luck tomorrow! I’ll be there in spirit, and I expect a full report!
I *think*, from what I’ve read, that you’re referring to UC Berkeley [?], in which I’m so freakin’ happy to hear that you’ll be speaking there. I often think about applying there when I go off to college next year, but I’ve been told by teachers that it’s too liberal for a Poli Sci major [as if DC is more conservative]. Still, I’ll always have a romantic yet distant love affair with Berkeley.
Anyway, I hope that there will be some sort of text released of your speech. It sounds like it will be such an applicable topic, especially with the current political climate. Kick ass and take names…with a peaceful pen, that is.
-Lauren
Too liberal! Naaaw. Actually, from what I understand, the Poli Sci department is actually notoriously conservative. Or relatively so. So I hear. I was an English/Ethnic Studies major/minor.
YOU SHOULD TOTALLY APPLY, MAN. Really, it’s an amazing place, and I can say that even though I am as biased as possible. My mom went there, and insisted my sister and I go, so we did, and didn’t even apply anywhere else. Lucky we got in since otherwise we would have been w/out a college education.
But it is really such a vibrant microcosm of so much. Maybe a person could be disappointed, but I tend to think those folks are rare. The faculty are across the board leaders in their fields, really, in big huge nationally/internationally relevant ways. But more, the students are alive in a big way. Look into the specific major you’re interested in, really. Esp. since if it’s a concern about “too liberal” or not, the rep the campus has from a coupla decades back doesn’t apply in totality now, nor did it ever really fit some departments. Poli Sci in particular. UNLESS THE TEACHER WAS A STUDENT AT BERKELEY RECENTLY I WOULDN’T TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT. Okay enough w/ the all caps. You can see I’m a zealot, no need to resort to the all caps to make that point.
And yes, it was there. I’m not so sure the text of what I said will be all that interesting, but you and eyejunkie have both put the squeeze on me, so I’ll have to cough up something. I switched it from a formally written-out thing to a series of notes from which I extemporaneously extemporized (!), before and after a reading of a post. But it was definitely a thrill to be able to reflect on this work to folks. I realize how powerfully it’s a nexus of so many things I hold so dear.
Really, I could care less how liberal a unversity is. I mean, I’m a gay 17 year old woman…liberal means safety in most respects. I’ve consulted with a lot of trusted teachers [who actually come politically diverse, even here in TX] about my college choices and they all grimace when I say UC:B…”Ah, Lauren, your mind won’t be challenged!”, “Ah! Lauren! They’ll make you a flaming liberal!” I don’t know, I’m starting to think they are all still burned from not getting accepted or something of the sort, because my other favorite college, American University in DC, is as liberal as it gets and they’re pushing me there.
It’s just that I hear such incredible things about the academics, the teachers, the campus and the community. But I also doubt I’d get in. My GPA is not stellar [3.8] and my SATs will probably barely be a 2000, and I will have fought for it.
It’s so hard to know these days.
I’m off to read your text from this extemporaneously extemporized speech…
[BTW, I'm loving this interactive blogging. It makes me feel a little self-indulgent about my lack of responding to comments on my own blog. You're too cool.]