BURN PILE: "Climate Change, Sexual Politics, and a Pinch of Humor" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back to Burn Pile, friendly readers.

If you don’t know, today marked the beginning of the global climate strike. Women and men in over 150 countries will be marching in protest against sluggish political systems whose policies have not reflected the urgency of the issue at hand, which is planetary ecological catastrophe. As writers and readers, we are beginning to be confronted with the prospect of constructing and consuming narrative in the face of a future which might not remember us. Here is an interesting article by Omar El Akkad over at LitHub about what stories might survive climate change. In it, El Akkad asks questions about what roots narrative when we’re losing the ability to anchor our memories to the land. And if that seems a little glum to you, Elizabeth Putfark wrote an article for LitHub about maintaining humanity in the face of global anxiety. Both are well-researched, precise, and, to varying degrees, helpful. Most importantly though… organize

While we’re on the topic of political subversion, go check out an interview over at ElectricLit with Mona Eltahawy, the author of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls. Also on ElectricLit is a transcript of Jacqueline Woodson’s address to the recipients of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards, a foundation which supports emerging women writers. The title of the address is “We Are Writing Against Our Own Erasure.” It’s chilling. As an aside, the space between paragraphs up there might lead one to conclude that sexual politics and climate politics are somehow different issues. They are not. 

But anyways, courtesy of McSweeney’s, here are five reasons to stop what you’re doing and write a dystopian feminist novel. Here is a letter to all the women who die first in horror movies, brought to you by ElectricLit. And finally, here is a riot of a piece from McSweeney’s which lists quote unquote honest job postings in academia. Probably good to end this one with some humor.

Go out and change the world.