Panel: Reflections on the legacy of Dodie Bellamy’s The Letters of Mina Harker

Writers reflecting on the legacy of Dodie Bellamy’s The Letters of Mina Harker, a pivotal publication to feminist and New Narrative literature, featuring Dodie Bellamy, Eileen Myles, London Pinkney, Julian Talamantez Brolaski and Jeanne Thornton. Moderated by Megan Milks.

Bellamy's new book Bee Reaved, and newly re-released, The Letters of Mina Harker, are out now by Semiotext(e).  

Watch on YouTube. 

Dodie Bellamy's writing focuses on sexuality, politics and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, the essay and poetry. In 2018–19 she was the subject of On Our Mind, a yearlong series of public events, commissioned essays and reading-group meetings organized by the CCA Wattis Institute. In October 2021, Semiotext(e) published Bee Reaved, an essay/memoir collection circling around grief, loss and abandonment; and a new edition of her 1998 PoMo vampire novel The Letters of Mina Harker. With Kevin Killian, she co-edited Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977–1997.

London Pinkney is a writer, editor and educator. She is a fiction MFA candidate at San Francisco State University. Pinkney is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Ana. Her work can be read in various places, including Mirage #5 / Period[ical], Black Warrior Review’s Ugly Boyfriend and OmniVerse. She’s from the Los Angeles area. 

Eileen Myles (they/them) came to New York from Boston in 1974 to be a poet. Their books include For Now (an essay/talk about writing), I Must Be Living Twice/new and selected poems and Chelsea Girls. They showed their photographs in 2019 at Bridget Donahue, NYC. Myles has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX. 

Julian Talamantez Brolaski (it/its/itself) is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books 2017), Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012) and gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), as well the recipient of the 2020 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry and a 2021 Pew Foundation Fellowship. Brolaski is also the lead singer and songwriter for Juan & the Pines, whose albums include Glittering Forest (2019) and Saddest Songs (forthcoming). Brolaski’s poetry was recently included in When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020) and We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat 2020).

Jeanne Thornton is the author of Summer Fun, The Dream of Doctor Bantam and The Black Emerald, as well as the copublisher of Instar Books and the coeditor, with Tara Madison Avery, of We're Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in n+1, WIRED, Harper's Bazaar, Evergreen Review and other places. She lives in Brooklyn.

Megan Milks is the author of the novel Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body and Slug and Other Stories, both published this fall by Feminist Press. Their personal history of early online fandom, Tori Amos Bootleg Webring, is recently out from Instar Books as part of the Remember the Internet series. Also out this year is We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, an anthology of essays and artwork responding to the legacy of Ann M. Martin's iconic series, coedited with Marisa Crawford. 

Connect 

Dodie Bellamy - Website | Dodie Bellamy - Instagram 

Eileen Myles - Website | Eileen Myles - Instagram | Eileen Myles - Twitter

London Pinkney - Instagram

Julian T. Brolaski - Website | Julian T. Brolaski - Instagram

Jeanne Thornton - Website | Jeanne Thornton - Instagram | Jeanne Thornton - Twitter 

Megan Milks - Website | Megan Milks - Instagram | Megan Milks - Twitter