A Brand New Novel
Josephine Baker, the early-20th-century African-American dancer, comic, and singer–hugely famous in Paris. Did you know that she was also a spy for the French Resistance during WWII?
Callout
Tag Archives: women’s rights
The best way to defeat Planned Parenthood
Two questions on my mind about abortion and Planned Parenthood: 1. Some of the most outspoken opponents of abortion rights today are acting out of guilt and shame. They’ve impregnated women in the past who have then had an abortion. I know several of these men, all with multiple abortions in their histories. When they needed abortions, …
Continue reading “The best way to defeat Planned Parenthood”
Walking the Slut Walk Every Day
I’m going to miss Slut Walk Spokane today. And I feel bad about that. Because, after a lifetime of shame and denial, I would so love to march down our streets in my skimpies and proclaim myself a sexual female with pride and unabashed joy. I love sex. I enjoy it most in the context …
Coco and A’isha: Women Who Aspire, Inspire
Given in marriage at the tender age of nine to her father’s best friend, the Prophet Muhammad, A’isha relied on her intelligence and her wit many times to overcome the obstacles women faced in 7th-century Arabia. “Coco Before Chanel” shows us how, 13 centuries later, women still had to scheme and fight to achieve their fullest potential. This remains true for many women throughout the world today.
Frantic, fabulous touring!
Dear Reader, Traveling to foreign countries, being on TV and the radio, it all sounds so glamorous! And it is … but it’s also very hard work. I arrived in Stockholm at about 4 p.m., to greet my publisher Shadi Bitar of Earbooks, waiting for me bearing a sign with his own name on it …
In Denmark: Talking about free speech
Every cloud, the saying goes, has a silver lining. And so it goes with “The Jewel of Medina,” being yanked out of publication by Random House, the world’s largest English-language publisher, just months before it was scheduled to appear on bookshelves in the U.S., then being the subject of threats in Serbia and an attack …
Child Bride: A’isha’s age at marriage
Dear Reader, People believe what they want to believe. That’s something I’ve learned these past months during the controversy that has surrounded my book, “The Jewel of Medina.” Some Muslims want to believe my book is “pornographic” or that it is disrespectful to Islam because they are used to racist treatment by non-Muslims. Even more …