WHEN PARIS PRESS PUBLISHED THE ANTHOLOGY ‘SISTERS’ recently, we were thrilled. And we still have two more copies to give away, thanks to the publisher. To enter, merely answer our favorite fill-in-the-blank, right in the comments below: “You know you’re a sister when…” We’ll select two more winners at random, one this Wednesday (March 3) and one next. [click to continue…]
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NOT ONLY DID MEG WAITE CLAYTON WRITE THE BOOK on sisterhood, she’s done it three times–two already published novels and the third just sent off to her editor. “The emotional turf I seem to go back to again and again is sisterhood in the friendship sense,” Meg, the author of the national bestseller The Wednesday Sisters, told TSP’s Sister Marion. Marion’s profile of Meg is here to enjoy.
THIS TIME LAST year, the “25 Things” meme was ricocheting around the internet, and we Sister Project sisters decided to have a go at our own lists. Paige decided to take a second look at hers, to see if it’s true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. To learn at least 25 things about her, and possibly a few more, read on.
SOMETIMES WHEN SHE’S HOMEBOUND with cabin fever, Sister Paige says, she finds friends and sisterhood in unlikely places. Where does she go for a sense of community with hobby chicken farmers and collage artists and writers and other moms–all her kinds of people–when she can’t leave the driveway? Get the roadmap here.
I LOVE THIS SONG BY RICHARD THOMPSON, called “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” after the bike model, and every time I hear it, I think of my red-haired sister, Marion. I don’t even know if she knows the song (or Richard Thompson, or his ex-wife, Linda Thompson, or their son, Teddy Thompson, glorious musicians all). Do you, Marion? But as Richard’s cult hit says…Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme…(Get all the lyrics…)
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SISTER MARION WAS ON AMERICAN IDOL. Did you know? Did you catch her? No? Well, she recorded it for you. “I think you’ll be really proud of me, sisters,” she says. “It went really, really well, like this:”
AS SOMEONE WHO HAS PREVIOUSLY purchased Aristotle, you might like…” Thus began a recent email Sister Marion received from Amazon.com. She’s thinking of printing it out and pinning it to her dress to wear while she watches The Simpsons, the combo of the two influences really kind of summing her up. Or does it? She’s not sure. Who is she, again? (Singalong now: “Who are you? Who, who, who who?”) Shall Marion ask Google, or ? A hilarious case of sometimes-mistaken identity: Read all about it.
ON THE POSITIVE side: No one threw up. But what happens when you pack two not-so-copacetic siblings into the car for a four-hour ride? In Sister Paige’s family: headphones, iPods, and a whole lot of discussion of just what makes boys so gross, anyway. The lowdown from the road.
OUR SISTER MARION LIVES ON A GRID. She calls it The Grid. It’s a character in her family’s lives to some extent, and everyone who knows it makes fun of it, and she is good with that. Printed on a large white board, written in erasable dry marker, The Grid sits on Marion’s desk, in full view as she writes, mapping out the seven days of her week, incidentals to big chunks. It’s not her sister Margaret’s digital grid, but it’s Marion’s and it works. Want to know more?
PAIGE’S GOOD FRIEND told her that Mary Karr’s Lit was the best non-fiction she’d read in years, that while she couldn’t bear to put it down, the prose was so divine it made her want to stop after each passage just to savor it. This friend is no easy sell when it comes to writing and reading, so OK, said TSP’S Paige: “add that book to my reading list, stat, and here’s why.”
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By Marion Roach Smith
OUR FAVORITE NEW BOOK is the exquisite Monday Hearts for Madalene by San Francisco disc jockey Page Hodel. The images in the video above are from a series of handmade hearts created by Hodel in memory of her partner, Madalene Rodriguez, lost to ovarian cancer. Each Monday, Hodel, 53, makes and photographs a one-of-a-kind valentine crafted from everyday objects, and then emails them to friends and family as a reminder and celebration of their love for one another. The result? This book and website, as well as other products, a portion of the sale proceeds going to The Women’s Cancer Resource Center in Oakland, California. Now that’s all heart.
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W HAT GOT ME STARTED LOOKING AT GEISHA PHOTOS, I do not know, but I suppose that all this sister talk on TSP has me seeing sisterhoods everywhere. When I first discovered the breathtaking vintage-photo collection of Rob Oechsle, or Okinawa_Soba as he is called on Flickr, including many images of geisha, I knew that without question the women depicted were a sisterhood: “the solidarity of women based on shared conditions, experiences, or concerns,” as defined by Merriam-Webster. Yes, the geisha definitely qualify on all fronts. See a geisha slideshow in vintage photos.
WE ARE SAD TO LEARN OF THE DEATH OF LUCILLE CLIFTON, an American treasure, a prolific poet and author, and a recipient of just about every major poetry award or fellowship we can think of. Some months back TSP’s Sister Paige posted Clifton’s poem “sisters,” saying it “just made me want to cry, dance and sing.” Let’s cry, dance and sing today for the loss of Clifton, 73, by reading it aloud: [click to continue…]
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IN THE GALLERIES: Photos by ALLISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN.
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia
is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there. 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men.
TSP’s Galleries were created to show off that outpouring of art and craft, poetry and prose. Come see a show or two—no ticket required, no lines to get in—and suggest others whose work we ought to showcase.
