Books
Queer author Carmen Maria Machado draws raves for ‘Her Body’ short story collection
Writer says family storytelling tradition, collegiate experiences inform her fiction
Author Carmen Maria Machado says her love of reading and the storytelling tradition of her family deeply inform her work. (Photo courtesy Tom Storm Photography)
All fiction writers need imagination. Carmen Maria Machado’s is so vivid, she sometimes passes it on to her characters.
“Sometimes I sat on the porch and gave imaginary interviews to NPR personalities,” says the narrator of “The Resident,” a short story in Machado’s debut collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” “”When I write, I feel like I’m being hypnotized,’ I told Terry Gross. ‘It was at that moment I knew everything was going to change,’ I told Ira Glass.’”
For most writers, such daydreams remain mere fantasies. Few authors become literary superstars or suddenly find themselves under the spotlight on NPR. Yet this is what happened to Machado, a 31-year-old queer writer.
Her short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties” (Graywolf Press), released in October, has received the attention usually bestowed on the work of literary giants such as Toni Morrison or Michael Cunningham. “Parties” was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. It won the Bard Fiction Prize. It’s her first full-length work though she has had many of her stories published in various outlets.
“Parties” is unlike any previous short story collection. Women’s bodies, queerness and feminism pulsate through the tales in “Parties” from “Inventory” to “Difficult at Parties.” Yet the book isn’t didactic or the least bit doctrinaire. Like the horror movie “Get Out,” the stories pop with horror and comedy.
Women have joyous sex, even as people die worldwide from a virus spread by physical contact. A sexual assault survivor hears the inner thoughts of characters in porn. A novella “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order: SVU,” is a piercing, but hilarious send up of “Law & Order: SVU” and its fascination with sexually traumatized women.
“The collection is that hallowed thing: an example of almost preposterous talent,” the Los Angeles Times said of “Her Body and Other Parties,” “that also encapsulates something vital but previously diffuse about the moment.”
Storytelling, Machado says during a Blade phone interview, is part of her family tradition. Her paternal grandfather came to the U.S. from Cuba; his wife was from Austria. They met as immigrants in New York. Her mother’s family is white.
“Storytelling, especially on the Cuban side of the family, is important,” Machado, an Allentown, Pa., native who now lives with her wife Val in Philadelphia, says. “My grandfather has dementia, but we can still recite stories back to him and he remembers.”
She incorporates that oral storytelling tradition in her work. Her love of reading and writing, as one might imagine, has deep roots.
As a child, Machado read voraciously. She went to the library and devoured books like candy, reading at breakneck speed, she says.
“All kids write stories. I wrote them and typed them out. I always loved the idea of being a writer.”
Machado sent her stories to publishers and authors. Her letters yielded no publishing offers, but, “my wife who works in publishing says that some delighted interns at the publishing houses must have loved my letters.”
To her surprise and delight, Machado heard back from Livia Bitton-Jackson, a Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir “I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust.”
“In the book, Bitton-Jackson talked about how the poems she wrote were left behind when she was taken by the Nazis,” she says. “I wrote to her and asked what happened to her poems. One day, my mom, who was confused by it, said, ‘There’s a letter for you from Israel.’”
Bitton-Jackson told Machado that she didn’t get her poems back, but that she’d kept on writing.
“She asked me about myself,” she says. “It felt magical that a real person — a writer — wrote back to me.”
When she was young in the 1990s, Machado didn’t understand that she was queer.
“I had crushes on girls, but I didn’t think of it in that way. I didn’t have any framework,” she says. “I didn’t know anyone who was out and queer until I went to college.”
Machado graduated from American University in 2008 with a degree in visual media. During her years in Washington, she read the Blade as she was coming out.
“I thought, ‘Oh this is who I am,’” she says. “My parents were pretty chill, though they were a bit confused because I was lesbian/bi. They didn’t quite understand why I would date a guy, but they were great about it.”
Attitudes about being queer were different for some of Machado’s extended family.
“Some of them were very religious,” she says, “but I didn’t have to deal with a lot of that kind of nonsense. I feel extremely lucky.”
Machado went to college to study journalism, but quickly realized that wasn’t what she wanted to do, so she switched to literature and photography.
“I wanted to get loose with my sentences,” Machado says. “I didn’t have the blood thirst, the nose for news, to be a reporter.”
After graduating, Machado moved to Berkeley, Calif., working random jobs during the recession and enduring a bad break-up, which she says made her miserable. But she didn’t stop writing. A creative writing teacher, whom she calls “a lovely human being,” encouraged her to keep writing stories.
Her stint at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from 2010-2012, where she earned a master’s degree, changed everything professionally for her.
“Suddenly, I was getting paid to be in grad school and write,” she says. “I didn’t have to worry about finding jobs. I had good health insurance. I could go to therapy and figure out my aesthetic.”
And, of course, her success with “Her Body” has helped fuel ongoing efforts. “House in Indiana,” a memoir about same-sex domestic violence is due in 2019.
“Same-sex violence isn’t talked about,” Machado says. “I wanted to talk about it.”
Kathi Wolfe, a writer and a poet, is a regular contributor to the Blade.
Books
Dolly Parton biography puts her hardships into context
‘Ain’t Nobody’s Fool’ a highly researched tome not to be missed
‘Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton’
By Martha Ackmann
c.2026, St. Martin’s Press
$30/304 pages
Not too bright.
That’s what people once thought about you. Your language didn’t conform, you had your own sense of style, and you were ignorant about modern things and places and foods. But you were no dummy. You were different, and you had a secret: as in the new biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton” by Martha Ackmann, you knew exactly where you were going.
When Avie Lee Owens and Lee Parton first married, they had the very basics: “two knives, two forks, two spoons, a skillet, a butcher knife, and an old iron kettle.” He was 17; she was 15. Babies came quick. The fourth one was named Dolly, after two great-aunts.
Almost from the time she could walk, Dolly sang. Before she was old enough to attend school, she wrote poetry, and she’d begun to notice rhythms and beats she could make with her fingers. As a schoolchild, she created her own musical instruments out of scraps, and she was eager to perform whenever anyone asked her – and they asked often, because Dolly Parton was a nice girl, and her sense of humor conveyed a warmth that drew people in.
Growing up in the Tennessee mountains, Parton was independent, shunning marriage and child-raising, instead focusing on a dream of being a star. By the time she was in high school, she’d had a regular gig on local television but she recognized that there were few opportunities for fame in the mountains, so she left for Nashville the day after high school graduation, with the snickers of naysayers ringing in her ears.
She stayed with an aunt and uncle there, and she beat the streets, dined on grocery store samples to get by, and missed her family and friends. And they worried about her, but they knew nothing would derail her plans. They knew Dolly would be fine.
As a friend said, “’She had her head on pretty good.’”
Chances are that if you’ve listened to music any time in the last 60 years, you’ve heard Dolly Parton through her words or her music or both. Now you need to learn more about her, and “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool” is where to do it.
Here’s a biography that grabs you on the first page with the tiniest bit of family tree, but not so much that you get bored with it. Author Martha Ackmann writes about Dolly Parton’s early life, putting hardships and experiences in context, both personally and historically. There are name-drops, but not overly so, as Ackmann takes you through Parton’s career, her heartbreaks, her marriage, and her years with Porter Wagoner, in detail but not dramatically embellished or outrageously told. It’s a biography that’s just right, sourced well and written with a fresh take that, like its subject, tells a good story.
Fans, of course, will want this highly researched book but music lovers of any age or type will eat it up. That means you, so use up that Christmas gift certificate. “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool” just shines.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
Historiography with heart
Pioneering author John D’Emilio continues to enlighten us in new book ‘Making Gay History’
‘Making Gay History, Memoir of a Scholar-Activist’
By John D’Emilio
Dukeupress.edu/making-gay-history
“Dear Dr. Kameny,” wrote the earnest graduate history student almost 50 years ago. “As you know, the academic community only rarely deemed the lives of gay men and women to be worthy of serious scholarly study. To my knowledge, no American history faculty at a major university has yet sponsored a dissertation that deals with gays historically.”
That student was a young man from the Bronx who would change all that. His name is John D’Emilio.
“I must be able to uncover ‘manuscript’ sources, that is unpublished and unique historical materials,” he explained to D.C. gay civil rights pioneer Dr. Franklin E. Kameny who lived in a house stacked to the ceiling with “unique historical materials.” In reality, these were piles of correspondence with government officials and politicians, legal filings, mimeograph copies, gay newspapers, press releases, Mattachine Society brochures and picket signs. Frank Kameny, a self-described “pack rat,” invited D’Emilio into his private world of papers and memorabilia to begin uncovering an erased and forgotten pre-Stonewall history. This was one of many such research forays into “basements, garages and overcrowded living rooms” across America conducted by John D’Emilio. He was a young man on fire to complete a Ph.D. dissertation at the frontier of a distant galaxy — writing a scholarly gay and lesbian history backed by original research where there had been none, only a void.
Reading D’Emilio’s memoir “Making Gay History” (2026, Duke University Press) one has the sense of watching an emerging galaxy spinning around a galactic core of New York scholars and their mentors, young activists, and community historians throbbing with the New York City energy celebrated by Walt Whitman a century before in his epic poem “Mannahatta”. Spinning out of the ‘60s anti-Vietnam War activism; Marxist historical analysis, the Stonewall riots and gay liberation, we can see it coalescing around this one history student’s search for a dissertation topic and himself piecing together a new history that “no one had yet written about … a pioneering work in this newly emerging field.” D’Emilio pitches his idea for a dissertation that “spanned the length of U.S. history, moving from the religious teachings that shaped law and social attitudes … to how the federal government dealt with the increasing visibility of a homosexual world in the twentieth century.” With the blessings of Columbia’s Department of History, he completed his dissertation leading to the publication of his groundbreaking history: “Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States” (1983). When he received his first copy of the bound book in the mail, he “cradled the book in my arm holding it close to my chest….It was as if I had fathered a child.”
More so, D’Emilio fathered a new history. Historiography is the story of how history gets written, conducting original research, uncovering the data and creating the narrative(s) — often a snoozing read of academic process. But not this historiography. “Making Gay History” is a historiography with heart.
“Nothing was going to stop me from giving everything I had to this effort at making change in society and myself,” he declares while connecting with others who share his “boundless excitement for the collection of documents.” There were many others in this spiral with D’Emilio who are mentioned and play important roles. In the spiral were Jonathan Ned Katz (“Gay American History”, 1976); Allan Berube (“Coming Our Under Fire” 1990), Martin Duberman (“Hidden from History”, 1989); Daughters of Bilitis activists Del Martin and Barbara Gittings; Civil War historian Eric Foner and author/activist Larry Kramer. No libertarians among them. Well, maybe the divine Bette Midler who was well known for performing uptown at the Continental Baths who makes an appearance at a Washington Square rally.
He craved his parents’ approval. Among the most riveting scenes in the memoir are a series of family dinners in the Bronx with his old-school parents who go into near shock when he tells them he is gay. How to evade this any longer, especially now that his dissertation is going to be on homosexuality? It is a moving and hilarious sequence. After he says it out loud, “I am gay”: “No. No. No!” his father gasps. “This can’t be true. It can’t be.” D’Emilio thinks, “Oh my God, he’s going to die. I’ve killed my father.”
The D’Emilios — Vincent and Sophie — so resemble the wonderful Castorinis in “Moonstruck,” I am thinking “Oh my God, this is Cher coming out to her parents Cosmo and Rose.” The young graduate student survives the family dramatics even more certain that this was not just his success but “a gay liberation success.” From the family dinner table to the streets, he writes how he marched in the 1973 Pride parade beneath a banner held high: “Gay Socialists.” This man is a born scholar-activist.
D’Emilio does not seem able to pull back. There are passages that veer into autobiographical minutia, detail about the grind to earn a living from the University of North Carolina Greensboro to the University of Illinois Chicago. He writes, ”I would be living on less than half my usual salary for the year, but with the small amount of royalties that I got for my three books, plus some occasional speaking gigs and dipping into savings…”. Much of this is gray matter compared to the galaxy John D’Emilio helped energize that even now brightens our sky.
Charles Francis is president of The Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. and author of “Archive Activism: Memoir of a ‘Uniquely Nasty’ Journey” (University of North Texas, 2023)
Books
New book examines fashionista Audrey Smaltz’s fabulous life
‘Every Inch a Lady’ reveals finding true love with another woman
‘Every Inch a Lady’
By Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell
c.2026, Amistad
$27.99/256 pages
Snaps, zippers, buttons, ties.
Toss that garment on, pull it up, wrap it around, you know what you like and how to wear it. The color is perfect for your skin tone, the fabric enhances your form. Yep, you always look your best and, as in the new book “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell), that best is fabulous.
”Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, and honeyed in Harlem” in 1937, Audrey Smaltz was a force to be reckoned with almost from the time she could walk. Her parents imbued confidence in her, they nurtured her creativity and sent her to charm school, but they never allowed her to create a stir.
“That,” says Smaltz, “is not what ladies did.”
By the time she was a teenager, Smaltz was modeling for New York City designers. Shortly thereafter, she started working for a married man with whom she had an affair, and whom she loved very much. She broke up with him, attended college, worked a series of jobs that taught her about fashion and jobs that didn’t seem to fit her. An ill-fated marriage took her to Chicago where she ultimately landed a position that sent her to work in Ebony magazine’s New York office.
Working at Ebony was a career-changer, in a way. Smaltz was able to travel the world and learn more about fashion, but she didn’t exactly get along with her boss.
Finally, seizing an opportunity, Smaltz decided to launch her own company, Audrey Smaltz, Inc., a “fashion production business,” but she couldn’t get any designers to take a chance on her. Undaunted, she reorganized, re-branded, hit the streets, and knocked on doors until she finally found one client, which led to many others.
Through it all, her personal life was a whirlwind. She dated “more men than you can shake a book at,” settling down occasionally, briefly. Fashion had always been her first love, but she accidentally found real love, “the love of a woman,” at a leadership course.
There’s an old saying that writers need to add lots of “color” into their stories. Read a little of “Every Inch a Lady,” and you’ll notice immediately that author Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell) quite literally takes that to heart by mentioning nearly every color of the spectrum here. Hmm.
That oddity aside, Smaltz is a wonderfully lively storyteller, speaking with the energy of a woman much younger to the heart of anyone who loves fashion. That glee extends to collectors of vintage clothing, who will be delighted to read about the industry long ago and the way things worked then. Smaltz says she experienced racism, which is not unusual for pre-Civil Rights America, but doors were surprisingly closed for other reasons that will astound anyone who’s savvy about the fashion industry, even today.
There’s quite a bit of name-dropping in this book but most of it belongs in the anecdotes, so you likely won’t mind. If you’re a fashionista, too, find “Every Inch a Lady,” and snap it up.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Furries take over the Metro
A roundup of fall events not to be missed
Activists protest outside Turkish Embassy in D.C.
Republican challenger misgenders McBride during forum, forced to leave
Queer mega stars coming to D.C. this fall
Dolly Parton biography puts her hardships into context
PHOTOS: SMYAL Fall Brunch
Fashion icon Bob Mackie dead at 87
Dozens detained after Turkish authorities raid LGBTQ groups, businesses
