How the Literati Is Like a Beauty Pageant

1. It’s who you know.

2. Dismissal has as often to do with fringe factors as not having the right face.

3. Pick a lane, but not any lane. Pick one that thrills the right sort of audience, deals with the right political agenda, and/or trending ideas, i.e. in writing, against the current, but not too much so to not make people uncomfortable about the wrong things; in pageantry, with the current, since those in power can snap you like a twig.

4. Ostracizing becomes a relay sport, kind of like in high school.

NOTE: Major difference: pageantry; the panel will give more favorable reviews if bosom buddies and late-night calls to hotel rooms; literature; being too close to gatekeeping professionals leads automatically to near-invisibility and being left to own devices.

5. Devices are all one has. One has better learn how to use them. 

6. If anybody is ever rude to you - sneeze muffin.*

7. The swimsuit round is the definitive round.

A year ago, I applied, at my publisher’s request, and his enthusiasm grew fast on me, to a Debuting Writers’ Seminar, a multi-day affair cocooned inside a larger literature festival, a prestigious and time-honored tradition among up-and-coming writers. There was a numbered amount of seats at the table, and my publishing house vowed to cover my expenses should I be accepted.

I will now proceed to include a translated copy of the application letter I sent to the governing office. The original text was in Finnish, and attached there was a picture of me, the one at the top of this post.

"Hello!

I am of course very interested to join the Debuting Writers’ Seminar at the Festival! I am overjoyed that you should consider me a participant, especially since I feel my presence in the realm of Finnish Literature may not be as straight-forward as many other budding writers’.

My poetry book, La Nueva Gramática de la Quimera Negra, was published by Palladium Kirjat in November 2022. Please find attached a couple of excerpts from the review by Jaana Hyyryläinen in Nokian Uutiset – the same article appeared in Aamulehti in the beginning of December during the Tampere Book Fair weekend – and a few shorter clips from Anne Välinoro’s review, written for Kulttuuritoimitus.fi after the launch party at the Helsinki-based bookstore Rosebud Sivullinen 1/23/23.

The work, like all my writing, is in English despite its Spanish name. I transitioned into English, a more varied, and for me, a more natural creative language, at about 30 years of age, first in my journals, then, as my skill and moxie grew, to public writing. You will find the literary blog I meticulously wrote from 2016 to 2019, negotiating a wide variety of themes ranging from popular culture to the arts to relationships, under the title Mrs. Dalloway’s Coffee Break, exclusively written in English. In the blog, there are so far about 170 pieces, and it has had an international following, from Scandinavia to the U.S. to the U.K. to Germany and France and to the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Czech Republic, Canada, South-Korea, Brasil, et cetera.

I self-published my first short stories, a series of eight pieces of fantasy-oriented as well as classic feminist erotica, as separate small booklets in 2020 during the sweeping pandemic layoffs that affected my life as well as most everybody else’s. Despite my high literary ambitions and profound faith in myself and in the fact that I have something unique to say that is specifically mine and no one else’s, I have worked my entire writing adult life as a low-income blue-collar worker, and my Working Class identity is perhaps the most important thing, a key factor, to keep me grounded and humble and honest, something to have affected my entire world view and values, and I doubt I’ll ever lose this identity, even if I should one day be so lucky as to earn my living as a writer.

The slow burn of La Nueva Gramática de la Quimera Negra becoming an actual published work after self-publishing it for the first time in 2021 has also been like a ravishing dream come true, while having altered my day-to-day life little or not at all. Since then, I have self-published another poetry book, a sort of sequel to La Quimera Negra, and began a series of short stories I am considering as a new booklet publication.

The feedback on the work itself, and especially on my recitals from it, has been overwhelmingly positive, and an audio book is under consideration. So far, the events I have participated in with my poems have been somewhat small gatherings, but then again I think it suits better for me to recite my work in smaller places for their intimacy, and I think, especially for someone who writes pieces of erotic nature, the ambiance is of paramount importance. I have participated both in so-called high literature events as well as underground, marginal ones; niche projects having to do with my field of specialty, and I do wish to be part of yours, too – while it is the best life imaginable, a writer’s life is also lonely at best, and one cannot press enough the importance of fellowship and the support of others dealing with the same issues. I see absolutely no problem in the fact that I write in a different language than most in our country.

During the spring, I attended the Tampere festival Elävän Kirjallisuuden Festivaali, where I recited both my own and the English poetry of J.K. Ihalainen. At the Nokia Library, I was interviewed as the new local voice of literature, and my interviewer Sara Lahtinen impressed me endlessly by having immersed herself fully in the work: the shelfful of reference works, curated by her – the plays and novels, the music as well as films mentioned or referred to in La Quimera Negra, was nothing short of magnificent. I feel extremely lucky that both her, and all my interviewers, along with my publisher, have seemed to possess an almost intuitive, magical connection to the work and what I am trying to convey with it, and I can’t thank my lucky stars enough to have had my work fall into such loving hands.

I have participated in many different kinds of projects having to do with Erotic Art, both literary and visual arts; my self-publications as well as La Quimera Negra have been on display or for sale at the work studio of Jouko Ollikainen, the Gallery and Graphics Workshop Himmelblau, the Antiquarian Bookshop Lukulaari – making an exception for me in what they carry at their store, which was both extremely flattering and simply a lovely thing to do, at the Italian Fashion Boutique Delizia in Hämeenlinna, at the Second-Hand and Vintage Boutique Helga-Neiti, at Gallery Pirkko-Liisa Topelius, at different kinds of erotica-themed parties around the country, as well as at fairs and other events in my own hamlet.

My next public recitals will take place at the Festival Painetun Sanan Markkinat in the village where I live, the beautiful borough of Siuro, in May, and before that, at a private party in Tampere at Club Mixei as part of a Latex Fetish show constructed and executed by Tiina Rikala.

Personally, I have never experienced a full-on ignoring or brushing off by the powers that be because of what kind of things I write about, or the fact that I write in English, although there isn’t an event or an interview where I don’t get to attack head-on this last question. Nevertheless, everything I do is de facto, or forced, in the very margins of literature, simply because of its genre and subject matter, and the fact that I write in English. My motivation for doing what I do hails strongly from my desire to – not exactly normalize, a term I shun – but to bring to the foreground and accentuate a woman’s right to her own pleasures and sorrows, to her own delightfully varied fetishes, and enjoyment derived from her body in exactly the way she pleases. The fact that I highlight the multi-faceted relationships and friendships between women over the traditional romantic male-female relationship makes me, I think, even more of an outsider, and although there is a strong sense of approval and love from everyone I talk to face to face about this, the fact of the matter is that while I am being thanked for being courageous, putting myself in the line of fire, a trailblazer, being called a writer that connotes the same meaning as it does for many others has proven an uphill road, and very difficult one at that.

One of my own literary heroes, Bo Carpelan, showed by example, how one can choose multiple identities in life and camouflage an outstanding wordsmith inside the cover of a totally non-bohemian personage, and write an impressive, awarded and celebrated body of work, and yet authentically remember who they are amid all the ruckus. The branding as an erotic writer is one I shall carry with pride, along with my identity as being working class.

I have yet to ever receive a grant for writing my stories. In addition to meeting new, inspiring people, feeding my soul, and spending time at a gorgeous locale, navigating the tempestuous waters of grants and fellowships, as well as other non-creative aspects of being a writer, is something I specifically feel like I could use help with and am eager to learn from others and better myself at the Seminar. All sorts of application-writing is far from my area of expertise, and I find it very stressful indeed, and receiving advice on this end would be much appreciated, even if I otherwise am a little hard at taking advice from others.

Other important things to know about me: I love the cinema; the language of movies was the very first semantic language and code I ever studied, and I have worked my entire life having to do in one way or another with films. I am the heaviest of all users of music: I can easily swallow Beyoncé’s hour-long dance album as hors d’oeuvres along with impressionist solo piano recital by Debussy as main course with pretty much anything by Bill Evans as dessert right after Iggy Pop has stopped raging in my headphone set.

As a uniform-clad worker I simply adore clothes, and in my free time I enjoy dressing up and looking my attitude. I continue to write in my journal with a pencil. Each poem I have ever written has been first a piece consisted of words on paper. My favorite alcohol is a New Zealand sparkling wine, my favorite tree the pine tree, my favorite city Paris. I could live on nothing but pasta and crackers. My favorite Beatle has varied over the years, each of the four has had a decent run at the top of the list. I have read Anna Karenina three times, once during each of my adult decades. When I am loading the furnace with firewood at my house, the Indiana Jones theme by John Williams starts playing in my head. When upset, I watch the Gilmore Girls. The only literary quotation I know by heart is one by John Updike; it is from, in my book, his masterwork, The Witches of Eastwick, and here it is, exquisitely translated by Eva Siikarla:

“Alex palasi näiltä retkiltään kurpitsanvärinen Subarun peräpää lesken savesta notkuen aina täynnä uskoa siihen, että naisten välinen liittolaisuus ylläpitää maailmaa.”

Thank you for your time, have a great week!"

The rejection letter I received consisted of a polite and impersonal uninvitation because of the overwhelming amount of applications, followed by wishes for many happy returns.

So this is a hello from the crypt, friends! I feel so happy, blessed even, to know you are still out there! One thousand and a six hundred views on Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break in one week's time! Welcome, new readers, ciao, old friends, and  haters, should there be any! Now, let's do this ♡

Tuija

Corset by Tiina Rikala; vintage kimono purchased at Vintage Garden, Tampere; vintage partition purchased at Vintiikki, Siuro; top hat and Jaws-tee model's own.

* This is part of Rachel's piece of immortal advice to Joey on the finesse of table-waiting on Friends the TV series, s6 ep12.