My Art, Your Body

Got a picture of yourself with some of Stephanie's fabulous art like the official WLOAD pin? Send it along to her or leave a comment here.

Sex

Now that I've got your attention, I want to remind you that the next issue of the Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers has a deadline in the not too distant future:

March 21st

Send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses -- or rather, send us your artistic visions yearning to be free!

We need artists, musicians, writers, crafters and people of unusual abilities to send us their stuff. Send us your high quality JPEGs, your links to MP3s or videos, your Word documents or websites. We want to highlight some fabulous women artists, but we also want your thoughts on ALE and its DRINKING. We want your musings on SEX and all that provokes because this issue will be out at Beltane (let's hope the snow's gone by then). BE WILD! Be interesting -- because the only sin is being BORING.

We hope to have some print copies of the journal available, too; we still can't pay for contributions, but consider your piece to be advertisement for your work and include all the necessary linkage to your sites.

As always, you can send you offerings, files and questions to me, Vicky. Join the League; raise your glass.

Ten Q: Adrean Darce Brent

What name(s) do you go by?

Adrean

Where can we find your fabulous work?

Online only for now: Cosmic Life Sketches

What piece would you want to use for a “first impression”?

“A Hammer Of An Afternoon”

How did you learn your skill/craft/discipline?

Writing – academia and corporate research
Photography – doing and formal coursework

Who inspires you?

People who stand up for justice, even if they stand alone.

How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?

Relax, reflect, do something different.

What are your goals for your work?

Writing – Branch out into fiction. Revision my previous limited circulation publication titled “The Brent Bulletin” into a platform of creative and conscientious work.

Photography – Create a website of images that are available for purchase.

What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD members?

When an opportunity presents itself, take it – it may never come around again.

If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?

Live again (and forever) in Paris, France. Establish a salon for conversation and creativity.
Continue learning and exploring.

WLoAD stars need not actually drink ale: what’s your fave bevvie?

Here are my favorites in various drink categories:
Beer – Leffe Blonde, Leffe Brune
Wine – Red Bordeaux, Champagne
Mixed – White Russian, Kahlua Sombrero
Hot – Hot Chocolate, Cappuccino
Cold – Whole Milk, Diet Coke

Ten Q: Sue Menhart

1. What name(s) do you go by?

Sue Menhart, Rock Star

2. Where can we find your fabulous work (both online and IRL)?

www.suemenhart.com
Independent record stores in Connecticut
iTunes, CDBaby
This cute little women’s boutique in Montville, CT called Mesh.

3. What piece would you want to use for a "first impression"?

The Choice

4. How did you learn your craft?

Listening to the radio, even leaving it on all night while I slept, which subsequently imbedded catchy lyrics, instrumental hooks, and awesome chord progressions into my subconscious for when the time was right to start creating my own.

5. Who inspires you?

People who have figured out how to make a living from their Art, without having to succumb to corporate conformity.

6. How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?

Def Leppard

7. What are your goals for your work?

To move people - not all the people… just some of the people, some of the time.

8. What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD
members?

Never give up

9. If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?

Would create a foundation that would absolutely ensure that no school, nowhere, at any time, could ever cut the Arts from public school.

10. WLoADed stars need not actually drink ale: what's your fave bevvie?

Anything that’s in the cupboard.

TenQ: Victoria Squid

1. What name(s) do you go by?

Victoria, Vicky, Ms. Squid.

2. Where can we find your fabulous work (both online and IRL)?

In the pages of the Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, available for just 99¢!

3. What piece would you want to use for a "first impression"?

I mostly do performance pieces that are gone once they're over, so there's little tangible to show. I suppose there's always this.

4. How did you learn your skill/craft/discipline?

By slow degrees and via many mistakes and wrong turns...

5. Who/what inspires you?

Artists who refuse to fit a label or a pigeon-hole; people who refuse to live in accordance with consumer society, who make their own art, play their own songs, write their own stories and never worry if anyone else is going to give them permission to do so.

6. How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?

Martinis, martinis, martinis.

7. What are your goals for your work?

To be brilliant, to rule the world (not necessarily in that order).

8. What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD members?

Dare much, follow no one, trust your instincts.

9. If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?

By traveling the world.

10. WLoADed stars need not actually drink ale: what's your fave bevvie?

A very dry martini -- think Sahara, Mojave -- olives on the side. Nice view of the Thames. Or a glass of Zubrowka, seemingly the official drink of the League (oh irony).

Ten Q: S. L. Johnson

TEN Q FOR JOINING THE LEAGUE! (or in this case, FOUNDING it!)

1. What name(s) do you go by?
 Stephanie, S.L. Johnson and, of course, Queen of Everything.

2. Where can we find your fabulous work (both online and IRL)?
http://ravenseyrie.wordpress.com/
http://www.zazzle.com/Raven_wombat
http://www.smokingantrecords.com/
http://wloaded.blogspot.com/

3. What piece would you want to use for a "first impression"?
The WLoADed logo or ‘Deadly Dirigibles’

4. How did you learn your skill/craft/discipline?
School and self-taught

5. Who/what inspires you?
Other creative people, nature, music.

6. How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?
It varies- speaking to friends, switching projects, sometimes just doing nothing.

7. What are your goals for your work?
That my work is enjoyed by others. It’s also nice to sell a piece here and there, too.

8. What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD members?
Have creative friends that are not in the same discipline. Take chances and put yourself out there even if it kills you!

9. If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?
Open up a center for the arts. Or create a venue to encourage all artists to participate and be shown.

10. WLoADed stars need not actually drink ale: what's your fave bevvie?
Bisongrass vodka. 

Thanks, Stephanie! We'll be profiling other contributors throughout the month. Stop back and enjoy and of course don't forget to pick up your copy of the Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers! A bargain at only 99¢ and chock full of fun. Click the link to your left.

WLoAD #1 is here!

Step right up and get your copy of the fantastic, spanking new JOURNAL OF THE WOMEN'S LEAGUE OF ALE DRINKERS! A bargain at only 99¢ and you get all this plus a lovely cover by our own resident artiste, Stephanie Johnson:

Contents

Vicky Squid - Editorial Pronouncement

Justine Graykin - The Necessity of Creation

Alessandra Bava - To Emily Dickinson

Wendy Goldberg - Quantum Poetry & Summer Tomatoes

Sue Menhart - Sue Menhart Band

Stephanie Wexler - Arching & The Summer's Dusting

Judy Holder - Land of Textures

H. Byron Ballard - My City Mother Has Risen From the Dead

C. Margery Kempe – A Literary Concoction

Wendy Goldberg – The Wrong Word

S. L. Johnson – Night Lady

Adrean Darce Brent - No Forwarding Address

Natalie Rauch - KNIT2dEATH

Nancy Parent - Red Hot Stove Tops / Rivergods

Elena Steier - Lydia Sick

Wendy Goldberg - Dreaming

Alessandra Bava - Almost Sidereal

Stephanie Wexler - Knotted

Judy Holder - Blue Door

Adrean Darce Brent – Freakonomics

K. A. Laity - Fear and Loathing in Deptford

We'll be spending November getting to know the contributors to this issue with our TEN Q questionnaires. It's not to early to start thinking about the next issue which will be out in time for Beltaine (that's May Day for the mundane). The deadline will be March 21st so mark it on your calendars!

The Journal

Lovelies --

We have some wonderful submissions and your delightful trimulierate of talented women are hard at work assembling the disparate threads of this endeavour into a coherent whole. How to wrangle such individualistic works into a comprehensive unity? That remains to be seen. But you will doubtless be delighted by the outcome because there's no way all this fantastic inspiration could disappoint. And no, it's not a bit like this ;-)

Inspiration: Georgette Heyer

Fashions come and go: writers who were fêted and champagned in the past can be forgotten in later times, or remembered by only a select few. Such is the fate of the trés chic writer, Georgette Heyer. I learned of her from fellow Leaguer, K. A. Laity who tells me she in turn learned of Heyer from the ebullient Stephen Fry.

I for one take notice of anyone Mr Fry recommends.

Heyer is a delight: if you love Austen (and if you do not, pray do not speak to me) you will lover her romances, especially the gloriously witty Regencies. Are you interested more in mysteries? She's got a bunch of those as well as other mainstream works. There are so many who appreciate her unique abilities. Try reading some for yourself.

I find it inexplicable that her works have not been seized upon to capitalise on the Austen audience's eagerness for more. Yet only two of her novels have been turned into films (with little success). You can watch one on YouTube, the land of uncommercial works that people nonetheless hunger for --

Call for Submissions

"Passion. Vision. Daring. Humour. Any alone will be intriguing--but to have them all is to be sublime."

That is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which I am editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres. We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work.

The inaugural issue will be out for Halloween. The full colour PDF format will be a showcase of talented women.



DEADLINE
September 21, 2010


FORMAT

Writing: fiction, drama, humour or non-fiction up to 5k; poems up to 100 lines total; submit as RTFs (or paste into an email).

Images: scans of paintings, drawings, multimedia, etc. or photos of handicrafts, sculptures, etc. or original digital designs in JPGs (resolution of 300dpi).

Music, Sound and Video: via links to your site or host site (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)


And if we select your work for WLoAD, we ask that you wear the badge proudly -- link to our site and your fellow artists, promote the journal assiduously and celebrate this forum (i.e. comment on the issue and your colleagues).


Submissions should be sent to VICTORIASQUID@GMAIL.COM

Be sure to include links to your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc., in the email with your submission. Thank you!

Inspiration: Dorothy Parker

Hello darlings!

Today I want to add to the list of inspiring women my muse, Dorothy Parker. Okay, let's admit it, her life was a shambles, filled with tragic losses, bad love affairs, ambivalence about her Jewish heritage, institutionalized barriers to women, far too much drinking and too many small dogs. But her poetry formed the blooms that rose from all that fertilizer -- and what exquisite flowers they were. A brief selection of some of my favourite bon mots:

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smell awful;
You might as well live.

Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick. I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore:
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men.
I'm due to fall in love again.

Penelope

In the pathway of the sun,
In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
He shall ride the silver seas,
He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbour's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
They will call him brave.

Theory

Into love, and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen ---
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Some one dropped me on my head?

Bless you, Dotty. I aspire to match even a single line of your wit.

Inspiration: Stephanie Johnson

Hello, darlings! Vicky Squid here. I get to kick off this month's celebration of women we find inspiring. You're all invited to join in -- just send an email to any of the team. In this traditionally hot and humid month (in the northern hemisphere anyway), when so many people take their holidays and few people feel all that energetic, we thought a brief tour of the women who delight our minds and replenish our inspiration would be a fantastic way to idle through the month.



I chose co-founder Stephanie Johnson as our first shining example, because she has exquisite taste -- of course -- but also because a whole slew of her art is newly available online. You can always visit her Repository of Visuals, but do yourself a favour and drop by Smoking Ant Records to see an orgy of delights that show just how varied her style can be. That nimbleness of mind proves to be a rare quality, but one SLJ has in abundance. You can see how each page suits the character of the band whether old school or new world jazz spunk or off-kilter power pop. Johnson's art has cheeky good humour and inventive dazzle. Every design makes you grin with pleasure.

And guess what? The music is terrific, too. Win-win! No surprise, I suppose -- why not surround yourself with the very finest people? Works for me.

More on the journal tomorrow, my dears. Must dash now.

Who is Vicky Squid?

Victoria to those she has not met formally. An enigma? Her origins remain unclear, lost not in the mists of time, but the whirlwind of her life. It's said she rubs elbows with the crowned heads of Europe, but there are also those who claim she is more likely to be found in the shadowy alleys of artists' mews and garrets, in fact many say she has been captured in oils and in marble. While her shape has been reproduced, no still art can imprison the spark of inspiration that fires those restless rambles across town and country.

For Vicky is a traveler, seldom content to linger in one location beyond a season, always seeking new adventures, new partners, new inspiration, new fashions. A bon vivant, it's true, yet so much more than that dissolute tag implies. Not for her the mere thrill of new experience. She searches for the unknown, the unheard, the unseen—jewels of inspiration not mere oblivion or sensual pleasure or novelty.

Asked once what excites her interest, she was reported to reply, "Passion. Vision. Daring. Humour. Any alone will be intriguing—but to have them all is to be sublime."

And that is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which Vicky will serve as editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres.

We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work -- writing in RTF files, art in JPGs, music and video via links. We ask that you tell us why the piece embodies your reason to live, to breathe -- what the work means to you, even why you think it may not have received an audience before.

And if we select your work for WLoAD, we ask that you wear the badge proudly -- link to our site and your fellow artists, promote the journal assiduously and celebrate this forum (i.e. comment on the issue and your colleagues).

Our first issue will be available in full colour PDF in time for Halloween. Submissions should be sent to VICTORIASQUID@GMAIL.COM as RTFs, JPGs or as simple email text with links to your MP3 or video files. Be sure to include links to your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as well as your account of the extraordinary work you are offering us. We look forward to your genius.

Tomorrow, Vicky kicks off our celebration of creative women who inspire. If you have a woman you'd like to celebrate, contact us and we'll give you a spot.

More Enigmatic Hints

The Anachronism (Official Trailer) from Anachronism Pictures on Vimeo.

and

a dash of Valentine de Saint Point...

Another Clue

Any guesses what's coming from WLoAD?

Shhhhh....!

Secrets to be revealed soon. This video contains a clue...

Women's League of Ale Drinkers: The Film!

WLoADed: Elena Steier

We've got a new format for introducing new members of the League, and we're trying it out with the fabulous Elena Steier. We'll be introducing a few more people in the next few days. Don't forget to share the links and pass along invitations to the creative women you know.

TEN Q FOR JOINING THE LEAGUE!

1. What name(s) do you go by?

Elena Steier

2. Where can we find your fabulous work?

http://editorialcartoonists.com
http://greatstufforama.com
http://gothscout.com
http://janequiet.com
http://striporama.com
http://queenofthecosmos.com

3. What piece would you want to use for a "first impression"?

You can use a goth scout cartoon. Pick one, any one. [Okay! Click for full size]



4. How did you learn your skill/craft/discipline?

Learn? Hahaha? I only pretend to know what I'm doing.

5. Who inspires you?

My dad. He's no longer extant, but when I think about him, he finds ways of giving me strength.

6. How do you cope with the inevitable discouraging days?

Discouraging usually means things have gone wrong in the social end of things. I recenter by thinking what would I do if I were all alone in the world, what would make me happy. People can be real dicks.

7. What are your goals for your work?

I do hope to draw really well some day. I'm getting there.


8. What wisdom from your own experience would you pass on to other WLoAD
members?

Never give up the opportunity to go on an adventure.


9. If you received a million dollar grant, how would you make use of it?

I really want to start a cartooning school. A place where kids can go after school and work on cartoons, animation and illustration along with other like-minded kids. A million dollars would be great. I could work with that.

10. WLoADed stars need not actually drink ale: what's your fave bevvie?

Campari and orange juice. Yum. Yum.

WLoADed: Lisa Kannenberg

Here's the fabulous Lisa Kannenberg, former chair of the History and Political Science department at the College of Saint Rose, scholar and labour organiser and lynch pin of the Tuesday salon at Mahar's (AKA the best bar in the world). Lisa is a fabulous mentor to new faculty members and a fine connoisseur of not only beer but of fine foods of the region. She was the one who led me to Capital Q, the very fine BBQ place in Albany as well as telling me of the delights of Bros Tacos. Lisa took me under her wing when I arrived at Saint Rose and I have benefited mightily from her knowledge and wisdom. Hurrah for women who pass on their skills and insight!

Womanly, yes, but they like it, too!

You don't have to be a woman to join WLoAD: all you have to do is support women who drink ale -- and/or are creative! Here we have the Brothers Hamilton, famed of song and story. They're pleased to be seen sporting their WLoAD badges proudly! Hurrah for the men who support us. Get your pins and show your support.