This year arrived for me with a heap of emotions and challenges. After being fired from my bookstore position (yeah, can you believe that? Me. Fired.), I hobbled along to find another job. At the start of the year, we also found this obnoxiously cute and innocent-looking puppy we named Nadja (after Natasha Demetriou’s vampiress…
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A good place to start supporting intersectional communities
I think my political opinions can be seen in much of my work, my feminist essays, the themes of the books I am writing, and my love of the earth and sustainability. I don’t need to express what disappointment I experienced to the 2024 election results. Or, further, the fears I have for the future….
The Watchers: How to turn a great book into a terrible movie
The Watchers was on my bookshelf, so when I saw the first movie preview, the familiar premise piqued my attention. A woman and a yellow bird are saved from the dark woods by a mysterious woman, taken into a mysterious house. There, they are safe from watching monsters. There’s nothing to spur me to read…
Furiosa: A study in undermining your strong female character
Furiosa started strong, but the movie didn’t ultimately know what to make of its title character. It starts with a chase. Like all Mad Max films, Furiosa mostly happens on the move. Furiosa is a preteen girl harvesting peaches in a hushed wooded oasis in the middle of the Wasteland. When bikers find the…
Let’s Flip Book Cliches!
I can be cynical when it comes to popular things. I was the girl when everyone started to like something, I pointedly DIDN’T like it. Harry Potter? I resisted until the movie came out (then fell in love). Lord of The Rings films? Held out until my late 20s. Leggings? Definitely should’ve tried them 10…
Meet My New Favorite Feminist Film: Polite Society
It’s the end of 2023 and I can’t let it pass without sharing the best film I saw in theaters this year. It’s feminist, it’s feisty, and it’s hilarious. Forget Atomic Blonde, Promising Young Woman, and every other violent female rage plot you think you know. Polite Society gets to the core of what we…
Nova’s 2023 Reading Roundup
I set out this year to chill out, read slower, process fully, and enjoy the moments sparked by story. I love being able to think on a story in my own time, allowing it to fill up my mind in moments of downtime. So, naturally, I read a whole 61 books compared to last year’s…
Shows About Girlhood are Cathartic, Powerful
I was watching Pen15 with my husband on the couch, our cat curled up between us. A scene came on where Maya has started her period and pulls out a tampon for the first time. It’s about the size of a rolled-up bath towel. I laughed out loud so hard that my cat lept off…
This Legacy Trope Reinforces Toxic Masculinity
You’re watching your favorite action series. The male hero is kicking ass left and right. Their on-again-off-again fling has been off-again for some time, and just after he’s secured the future of the universe (yet again), she returns. What a surprise it is to see her! She came back, and she still cares for him….
Nova’s 2022 Reading Roundup
Hello out there! It’s been a minute. I’ve been focusing on plotting the novel and reading my heart out, but I haven’t given much love to my blog here, which I strive to utilize more in 2023. Speaking of resolutions, how many of us met our reading goal? I set my bar low so I…
