FEM press: FEMINISTA (and Prince) gets Frisky!

This is what is so awesome about the interwebs. The Frisky posted a Q&A with me today and used the wrong pic. One e-mail and it's changed!

I talk in this Q&A about how the whole Raven episode in the book was inspired by my CA-RAY-ZEE interview with Prince, then known as The Artist. I know I keep promising to write up the whole INCREDIBLE story of my Prince interview and I will! Soon! I promise! It's just so long and complicated, I can't find the time. But when I do, it will not disappoint!

In the meantime, here's my answer from the Q&A to give you a taste:

The Frisky: Feminista doesn’t just send up feminism, but also magazine publishing and pop culture, from Sydney’s wild but successful boss Myrna to The Raven, who is like a tranny Prince (your first magazine interview subject). How much of your experience in magazines wound up in Feminista?

EK: I love that you made the Prince connection. My Prince interview is such an awesome and unbelievable story. I had just started writing professionally after quitting my PR job at Tommy Hilfiger. I had sent my clips to In Style and one Friday afternoon they left me a frantic message. Turns out they wanted me to interview The Artist (as he was called then) and it could happen at any moment so they wanted to have me on standby. Of course, I’m psyched, but I’m also suspicious because they had never worked with me and I was so green. So I asked, “Why me?” They tell me he specifically asked for an African-American female writer and I thought, Out of the whole Time, Inc. network, I’m all you got? At that point in my career, anybody would have been more qualified than me! So in the book, the idea that Sydney is offered this cushy contract, even though she was previously just a temp, is derived from the fact that I got drafted into the big leagues under the Prince Rogers Nelson affirmative action plan!

You know what? I just looked at the transcript of our IM chat from ten years ago. I'll give you a little teaser until I can post the whole story.

And yes, of course I still have it! But do you know how LIVID I am that I lost The Manifesto he tried to strongarm In Style into printing? It was like 25 pages and had like a picture of an eye where it should have been just an I. It was in hieroglyphics!

This whole IM bit (which was like ACT 2 of The Prince Saga, Act 1 being our hour-long phone call a few weeks before) started when a woman called me at home and said, "This is Paisley Park calling. The Artist would like to chat with you. Are you on AOL?" I SWEAR. I SWEAR. I SWEAR.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in front of my computer in my janky little Fort Greene studio and...

NPG---**: high

Ekj4: hi 2 u

NPG---: r u alone?

Ekj4: sure am

NPG---: have u ever spoke in private chat space?

Ekj4: all the time!

Ekj4: i'm a terrible typist though

NPG---: would u like 2 go a room?

This actually goes on for a while after we hooked up in a chat room called 'a matter of time'. How weird is this? And how dirty does this sound? Trust me, it gets soooooooooo much better. More soon.

**He told me not to divulge his IM name so when I handed the transcript in to my editor he was identified as NPG--- with the 3 numbers excised.

FEM funny: Who dat Frisky FEM?! LMFAO!

A couple weeks ago, Rachel Kramer Bussel, this super cool chick, cupcake enthusiast and author of all these great books of erotica, sent me an email raving about how much she loved FEMINISTA. She asked me if she could do a Q&A and proceeded to send me 15 awesome questions that I labored over like it was my dissertation.

Then she invited me to read at her In The Flesh series of women reading erotica (<-- HATE the way my #naturalhair reads on camera). I felt like a total prude for my selection which was the only one that didn't include graphic mentions of pulsating or dripping genitalia. And when I DID have awesome sex scenes in my first book, BLING, the only person who asked me about it was Diane Sawyer live on GMA which was a spectacular #FEMfail.

Anyway, Rachel told me she sold the Q&A to The Frisky, awesome site, and today she sent me the link. Imagine my surprise when I clicked it and saw...

Who dat girl?! LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, actually I do kinda know who that is. That pic appeared in my Six Figure Sister Q&A. It's a model from a stock image. Funnily enough, I told SFS that I was totally jels of her hair and some of the chicks in the FB group I run for WOC asked if that was me so don't go jumping all over Frisky for this flattering mistake...

Although it IS hella funny! I almost don't want to send the e-mail to Rachel telling her that's not me! Yesterday I joked that FEM met the white people with glam faux hair. Today FEM meets the white folks as a whole 'nother person rocking a 'fro! The irony of this is too too too good!

Especially since I am DYING to have this hair and every day, I stand in front of My Guy after I've co-washed and fluffed my #naturalhair and say, "Doesn't it look...bigger?" And every day he stares at me for five seconds and says, "It looks exactly the same." #menknownothing

Anyway, that really is what I said in the Q&A. It got severely cut down. I feel like I should, at some point, just post the whole thing in its entirety here. And maybe I will. But in the meantime, check this one out!

I think we meed to find this model and tell her she's got an awesome book out!!!! LOL!

FEM fashion: SJP covers Glamour

I have to check out the credits in this issue of Glamour to see who made these jeans SJP is rocking. They look hawt. In the Q&A, she also mentions a brand of jeans called Malibu that were sent to her by the company (nice life) "that have cashmere in them, but you can toss them in the wash". You don't say? Must keep an eye out for those. That sounds divine.

Right after that appreciated fashion tip (just looked up Malibu, they sell for $160- $200 so that actually was not appreciated) she says this:

And I always reach for this black Guy Laroche dress that I’ve had for 10 years: I’ve worn it to birthdays, funerals, everything. I’ve never dry-cleaned it!

Wow, how funky of SJP. And I don't mean "cool". WTH?

Oh and she also talks about her new twins and being a working mom. Don't you love how I mention THAT like it's a footnote to her fashion musings? #imwrong

F-clip: You go, Meredith Baxter!

So I saw this allusion to Family Ties mom's gayness on Perez the other day.  Then I saw people tweeting about this today but I just got around to actually reading the whole story.

So she was married three times and it was only seven years ago, when she was 55, that she realized it wasn't that she picked the wrong guys, it was that she was going for the wrong GENDER?  And then she only came out publicly because of the Perez post?  Wow.

See, this is why I regret being one of the few women who got out of Sarah Lawrence without having a lesbian experience.  What if Ellen is my true soul mate?!

Check out Meredith telling all to Matt Lauer on the Today show.  Good for her!

FEM Press: FEM meets the white folks!

As soon as I found Carleen Brice's blog "White Readers Meet Black Authors", I loved it simply for the URL, http://welcomewhitefolks.blogspot.com. 

And today FEM meets the white folks!  (Good thing she used a pic of me with my faux "mainstream" hair, right? lol My Guy hates this pic because he says I look like a wax figure which is spot-on but I used it as my author photo because a friend took it and he didn't charge me. Times is hard, yo.)

Here's my full answer to the ever-present "bitch lit" question:

That came out of an early Publisher's Weekly review and I embraced it.  It signals to people that this is not your typical fluffy chick lit. I know people will receive that label differently depending on what they are projecting onto the word "bitch" but I think the same could be said for Sydney.  Some people say they love her, some people say they can't stand her -- and I love both reactions equally.  When a character that I dreamed up in my head can provoke such a  visceral reaction, I'm happy.

Funny thing is I read a non-fiction book called "Am-bitch-ous" while I was writing this and that was something I really wanted to touch on in the book: female ambition. In 2009, there are so many women who are not comfortable being the boss, making a lot of money, or saying "I got where I am because I work hard and I'm good at what I do".

I think everyone loves Beyonce, this global superstar who literally has it all at 27, because she always takes the "I'm so blessed just to be here" road and shunts all of her aggression and ambition off on an ALTER EGO.  I swear I could write a whole DISSERTATION on the meaning of Sasha Fierce which is at once totally brilliant and totally terrifying that you have to go to that extent to be wildly successful and still be liked if you are a woman.  Meanwhile, her husband, the former drug dealer who once shot his brother, stabbed a record executive, brags endlessly, like all male rappers, about how much dough he makes, can let everyone know exactly who he is.  The difference in what they each had to do to get and maintain their success is ASTOUNDING.

But I totally get why women do that.  Because when you don't humble yourself and play the good girl, you become labeled a diva or a bitch or an ice queen. You become Anna Wintour or Hillary Clinton or J. Lo in the early years before she learned the Hollywood game and realized she needed to tone down her badass Bronx swagger to keep getting cast in romantic comedies. *sigh*

Check out the full Q&A here.

Thx Carleen!

FEM update:  In response to Naturi Beauty's comment "I wish that all women could be their Sasha Fierce and Beyonce selves and be okay with it. We are all beautifully complicated and the yin and yang exist in all."  <--- That's exactly what it means to be a FEMINISTA.  It means you can be BOTH and you don't have to dropkick your ambition to Sasha Fierceland!

FEM press: FEMINISTA is haute lit!

First, Publisher's Weekly called me "the pioneer of bitch lit" which turned into me trying to create a whole new genre and now I'm becoming known as the chick lit killer!  When did I become so badass?  I'm just a quiet, unassuming gal. -;

Much ♥  to Britni, aka @prisonerswife, for this awesome Q&A in her haute lit series.  We got a lot of RTs on this one. Let's do it, FEMS! (<-- why am I turning into @iamdiddy?)

To all my ADD people (and in this new media landscape, aren't we all ADD to some degree?), I talk about my focusing techniques in this Q&A which includes listening to the same song for HOURS at a time. 

Get your flow on!