Time for all things good
Labour, love, and liberty
If I had the time, this newsletter would be a lengthy essay about Minx1, the TV show that explores a 70s feminist erotic magazine, about labour within and without the home, about the kitchen as safe space, community and connection and also a place of drudgery and endless need, about how hard it is to foster love for the labour of the home when that labour is unrecognised and underappreciated, about how liberation involves a ton of labour, about how wealthy white women especially seek to offset that labour to the “help”.
If I had a bit more time, I would weave in my own recent experiences in this space. I would talk about how I hired a friend’s daughter to clean my house twice a week this term and my ambivalent feelings about that2. I would discuss how last Wednesday I laboured for hours after a full school day to help serve Matariki dinner at our Māori student achievement celebration, and it was joyous and uplifting and I’m so glad I did it, and afterwards my feet hurt so much that I couldn’t fall asleep until the painkillers kicked in.
If I had all the time I crave for this newsletter, I would add some analysis of my cultural touchstones on these topics: Emma’s comic on women married to men being viewed as the “manager” of household labour; the poem “Kitchen Stool” by Georgina Stewart, routinely misunderstood by Year 11 students who earnestly tell me how much the poet treasures this handy inheritance; the song “Labour” by Paris Paloma and the accompanying video (watch her crack that pomegranate open!)
Alas, I don’t have time for that essay.
Just too much to do, you know?
Book Stuff:
I’m doing another newsletter promo (hi, new readers!), this one for sexy Beach Reads. Obviously, for my fellow Southern Hemispherers, this will be sexy By-The-Heat-Pump Reads, but regardless of location, I recommend you check out the promo! There are over 250 free books in there, and there’s bound to be something you love. My contribution is Penelope Pops the Question, which (thematically!) has an island destination wedding. It… does not go well.3
Aphrodite Unbound, the sequel to Persephone in Bloom, comes out AUGUST 14! Not coincidentally, that is also MY BIRTHDAY! Do you know what would be a great present for my 42nd trip around the sun? A pre-order of Aphrodite Unbound!
If you are a new reader, you’re very welcome. Please feel free to tell a friend about this newsletter if you like. I’ve been writing and publishing traditionally for years, but this is my first year in the indie publishing and romance spaces, and I really appreciate every bit of support!
The colours! The clothes! The performances! The many, many penises! ↩
Mostly my feeling is “stunned gratitude” every time I walk into a house where the dishes are clean and the ironing is done, but I also have some residual weirdness about not just doing my own damn dishes my GOODNESS, who do I think I AM? ↩
If you’ve read this novelette and were like, “aww, poor Manny”, don’t worry. I have PLANS for him, because my BFF and writing partner Robyn is a FILTHY ENABLER, and because I will never ever want to stop writing Euripides fixit fic. ↩