We were intrigued when we found out that Indigo Editing Senior Editor (and NWBL contributor!) Kristin Thiel has a story in the new collection Men Undressed: Women Writers and the Male Sexual Experience. The anthology’s editors asked women to explore sexuality from a male point of view—to engage in “fictional cross-dressing” that, as the press materials for the book point out, has been done by acclaimed male writers “from D.H. Lawrence to Philip Roth.”
Thiel will read her story, “Patient,” tomorrow night at Powell’s, along with fellow contributors Lidia Yuknavitch and Kate Zambreno, who will read from her new book, Green Girl.
We asked Thiel if she was nervous about her first reading. “I’m not nervous about criticism (i.e., from males saying ‘that’s not right’),” she says. “In part because I stand within a group of writers . . . and there is safety and strength in numbers; in part because I can ‘hide’ behind fiction—this is just one guy! one made-up guy telling one made-up story!; and in part because I haven’t received any criticisms (yet), so it’s easier to be brave when no one’s shaking a finger in my face.”
She says it’s more nerve-wracking to think about having written about sex “and reading aloud and maybe talking about the sex written and read.”
“But I also think it’s important enough to overcome nerves for. Not talking more about sex, sexuality, and gender differences and similarities is how we got in some of the messes—depression, insecurity, self-loathing; gender-based violence—that we’re in right now.”
Wish we could be there.