About

Grab the Lapels was created in 2013. That’s grandma age in blog years, and I’d like to think of myself as a learning grandma blog. Firstly, I started GTL in reaction to my time reviewing books for online magazines/review sites. Every time the editor sent me a book, it was by a man, and the last book I reviewed threw me for a loop. It was so derogatory toward women, that my scathing review wasn’t even published. Hence, GTL was born. In the beginning, I put all my efforts into small-press books, avoiding anything published by the “Big 5” in the U.S., so you’ll notice a lot of “off the beaten path” books early in my posting.

Afterward, I changed my reason for continuing GTL and started focusing not only on books by women, but by and about fat women. Oftentimes, it seemed that I could not find a novel in which fat characters were treated as human beings. Instead, the focus was dieting, exercise, and self-loathing, all until a man tells the protagonist she (it’s almost always a she) is worthy of love, so she becomes happy and life gets real magical. Can you hearing me sighing? I am. Over the years, I found more books in which fat women demanded equality, to simply be seen as a human, but a weird trend cropped up: fat women and fashion. I can only read so many books about independent fat women sewing “quirky” clothes. Plus, the cause was mostly taken up by writers with young adult audiences. I’m still waiting for those adult characters.

Later, I wanted to “expand the margins,” so to speak, by including nonbinary and transwomen authors. I had never excluded transwomen from GTL, but hadn’t considered where nonbinary writers fit in. I wanted to add each author’s pronouns after his/her/their name in my posts to be inclusive. The challenge cropped up when I realized that while loads of authors include pronouns in their social media profiles, most do not. I felt foolish hunting around for an author’s pronouns, like I was trying to be performative instead of genuine, and thus stopped.

In another effort to be more inclusive and transparent, I tried adding content warnings. So hard! Your content warning needs are not obvious, and given that around 1,400 people follow GTL (yes, I know about bots), I cannot, with my free time and unpaid efforts, go through lists of content warnings and get them all. I’m careful about noting sexual assault, child death, and animal cruelty, but sometimes I forget the baby died in the horror novel, or the dog ran into the spooky woods and all we heard was a yip, never to see the dog again. I largely stopped writing content warnings because again, it felt performative.

Now, I’m no longer limiting GTL to women, transwomen, and nonbinary authors. Yes, you read that right. I’m widening the margins even further. Grab the Lapels will now post reviews of books by men and transmen, though with attention paid to selecting and favoring novels by oppressed people — women, Black, the colonized, Asian, disabled, Native American, socioeconomically disadvantaged, LGBTQIA, Latin American, immigrants — just like I always have.

Maya Angelou

My name is Melanie, and I’m a former adjunct professor who taught composition, creative writing, and fiction. Currently, I’m an adult student in an ASL interpreter training program (more here about that), so you’ll read lots about D/deaf and hard-of-hearing folks on my blog.

Still Curious? Take a behind the scenes look at Grab the Lapels in my interviews with the following venues: 

25 comments

  2. We’re so lucky to live in an age when women’s voices can be heard…compare to the age of the Brontes when women had to write under male or androgynous names –Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) and Ellis Bell (Emile Bronte).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. I was a numerologist, but now I’m a Numerosymbologist. I’ve been studying, practicing and developing Numerosymbology for about 20 years.
    This millennium, beginning with ‘2’, absolutely encourages and moves the feminine to rise. It began in the 20th century (the 2, as leader, being introduced), and it is so noticeable with not only women coming to the fore in so many areas, but the right brain of both genders being given more rein. The figure for ‘2’ represents the appearance, the Coming, of an integrated humanity. About time.

    Like

    Reply

  6. I just wanted to say that I’m very impressed with your blog, as well as the direction you’ve taken. Publishing does indeed seem to be mostly dominated by men, and books written by men are almost always taken with greater seriousness than similar books written by women. Which is a real shame.

    In recent years, I’ve stumbled across so many fantastic works by writers like Holly Goddard Jones, Kelly Braffet, Lauren Grodstein, as well as older books by women that have simply been forgotten (like Agatha Christie’s Autobiography, which is simply wonderful). It is a real pleasure to find a site devoted to encouraging readers to pick up more books by women.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks for your kind words! I recommended your blog to someone today because I am impressed with the way that you think about the importance of stories for boys. As I mentioned in a comment on one of your posts, boys stories shaped me a lot because there aren’t really that many for girls that have the same transformative power and don’t involve meeting/liking/dating a boy. I should read more children’s and young adult books for girls that are about real lives (I also commented on this in a different post of yours). I remember liking The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson quite a bit. I’m currently re-reading it, and I pointed out to my husband that the book almost reads like a precursor to Lynda Barry’s book Cruddy, which is a mind-blowing work of fiction (Gilly is 11, the girl in Cruddy is in her early teens). Are you on the comic book group on Google+? I feel like that’s where I found your page. I look forward to reading more of your posts!

      Like

      Reply

  9. I came across your blog via ANZ LitLovers and was really impressed with the Cris Mazza review/interview – both the experimental writing and the body image problems (they are very familiar, I have a family full of women who talk, talk, talk and make me join in). In my own writing I specialise in early Australian women’s fiction and representations of women, and re one of the comments above, you might one day try a 20 year old Australian girl’s cry from the heart (published in 1901) My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. I can sympathize with your viewpoint on male characters by men, but there are plenty of female writers who write male characters, notably in the crime genre – PD James and Ruth Rendell, for instance. Some of my strongest characters are female – Tana Standish, psychic spy, Catherine Vibrissae, the avenging Cat and Laura in my Tenerife thriller Blood of the Dragon Trees. (I do have strong male protagonists, too – Leon Cazador, half-English half-Spanish detective in Spanish Eye).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Of course people can write characters unlike themselves, but I got tired of reading stereotypes of women, so I set off on my own path. Even women write stereotypes of women, which is lazy, and possibly ingrained prejudice.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. Thank you for the interview with Jodi Paloni, and I appreciate your comments above. At Press 53, we publish more women than men (about 60/40) for similar reasons: as a man, I find that the women take me to places the men don’t; they constantly surprise me. If you’d be interested in reading another one or two of our story collections by women, let me know. Also, check out our book page on our website titled #kickasswomenwriters
    Best,
    Kevin
    Press 53

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks, Kevin. I enjoyed organizing a book blog tour for Bonnie ZoBell, also published with your press! I like the attention to short stories; most presses ignore short stories, but that’s all you guys do, if I remember correctly!

      Like

      Reply

  17. Hi Melanie, thanks for your comment over at Rhapsody in Books. We actually aren’t blogging for much longer. But interesting to hear about your MFA. My husband leaves this weekend for a week, as he does every June, for the Program of Liberal Studies Summer Symposium at Notre Dame. Mostly they focus on “great books” (as “traditionally” defined) but in any event they always have a good time. Then all year long most of the participants do zoom “book club” meetings once a month to discuss further (and there they branch out for a more diverse selection). Anyway, thanks again for your comment!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Oh, cool, I haven’t heard of that program before. I still live in South Bend (we ended up buying a house here), and everything goes crazy with graduation then reunion weekend and both ND and Saint Mary’s and then the summer camps. Does he get to stay on campus when he’s there? I know staying in a dorm is a big deal to some alum, but I also know a few of the older dorms don’t have A/C, and it’s in the low 90s here.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to Nik Morton Cancel reply