(Shop) Ulp!
Alaric
Marilyn Monroe, Mary Magdalene, Medusa; the Virgin Mary, the Mudflap Girl,
Amazonia the 50-foot woman; Little Red Riding Hood, Foxy Brown, Playboy
Bunny,
Joan of Arc; Florence Nightingale, Wonder Woman, Pope Joan; Annie Oakley,
Barbie, Frida Kahlo; Venus in Furs, Betty Boop, Calamity Jane, Jezebel . . .
Red Light: Superheroes, Saints, and Sluts, is an anthology that critiques
the
resurgence in popularity of the female icon, and re-imagines her in works of
fiction, non-fiction, and visual art.
Creative & Theoretical Framework
The 'female' has been a timeless yet culturally unstable site from the rise,
fall, and re-emergence of the Goddess to changing notions of the 'mother'
and
social mores surrounding 'slut,' all at once reviled and desired. The female
icon is a site where the 'female' is stabilized - made static and sterile -
it
can be argued that the icon is about cultural sublimation of fear for the
'feminine,' on mass scale. Hothead Paisan, by creator Diane Dimassa, is one
of the few contemporary exceptions. Stripped of power, the highly-produced
icon
allows the culture to dislocate aspects of femininity that are frightening
and
place them in a repository. Because the icon doesn't exist as 'real' -
rather as
a screen upon which we project, undesirable aspects of femininity are
denied,
rewritten, controlled, and contained in palatable morsels. Cultural
instability between desire and repulsion is what produces the female icon;
this place of
unrest is what Red Light: Superheroes, Saints, and Sluts seeks to explore.
Red Light: Superheroes, Saints, and Sluts will be published in fall 2005 by
Arsenal Pulp Press.
Objectives
· To explore what female icons can, and do, mean for us
· To contradict popular culture's one-dimensional representations of 'girl
power' for the purposes selling ideals of naturalized femininity back to us
· To present icons that are not taken up in popular culture- women who are
queer, of colour, of all body types and sizes, and of diverse gender
experience
· To elucidate complexity and contradiction in our lives
· To critique, with humour, what may or may not be a guilty pleasure of
dressing up Barbie, collecting Wonder Woman comics, or feeling thwarted by
the
Mudflap Girl
· To present new interpretations of female icons - superheroes, saints, and
sluts - created in our images, for our lives
Submission Criteria / Details
· a diversity of artists and artistic forms/ practices will be presented
including fiction, prose poetry, non-fiction, and visual art
· submissions will be accepted by email (rich text / jpeg / pdf), or by
ground mail with a self-addressed stamped envelope (use IRC if you live
outside
Canada)
· all submissions must include your name, brief biographical statement,
address, telephone and fax numbers, and email / web address
· submission queries are welcome
Text submissions
· non-fiction written for a general audience (not academia)
· text submissions: no more than 15 double-spaced pages or 7,500 words;
submissions must be double spaced
Visual submissions
· illustrations, collages, photographs, photocopied art, and paintings that
reproduce in black and white
· visual art specs: vertical orientation; final print size will be 4.5"w x
7.5"h, and submissions should be proportioned to 6"w x 9"h
· visual submissions: portfolios of up to ten compositions - send 5" x 7"
proof prints, laser copies, or digital picture files, with an artist
statement
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Friday July 16, 2004
Contact information: http://www.annacamilleri.com/
or c/o Arsenal Pulp Press
103, 1014 Homer Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada, V6B 2W9
About the Editor
Anna Camilleri is a Toronto-based writer, and performance poet. She
co-edited
Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002) which was
short-listed for a Lambda Award, and she cofounded the performance troupe
Taste This with whom she collaborated to publish Boys Like Her:
Transfictions (Press
Gang, 1998) to critical acclaim. She has performed in Canada and in the US
for
nearly a decade. Anna curated Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Strange Sisters
2002 series, and she is the Performing Arts Artistic Producer with Mayworks
Festival of Working People and the Arts. Her next book, I Am a Red Dress, is
due out in fall 2004 with Arsenal Pulp Press.