This photo is from 2013. (So, this is not my wedding dress.) Justin and I were marching in Doo Dah, an annual Fourth of July parade in Columbus, Ohio, where anyone can participate.
If you couldn’t tell by the bandana, handcrafted undies and world title belt, we were Macho Man Randy Savage, who is one of Columbus’s favorite native sons, and his manager wrestler wife, Miss Elizabeth.
Justin bought a box of Slim Jims to throw out to the crowds like candy. (I was sure to move us several spots behind the vegan cheerleaders marching in the parade so as not to be rude. Like any self-respecting face wrestler manager would do.)
If you hadn’t watched Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth wrestle as a kid, the Slim Jims were really the only visual cue as to who we were dressed up as. We were relying heavily on Justin’s ability to imitate Macho Man’s growly, “OH YEAH.”
So, imagine our dismay when, only 50 feet into the parade, we were out of said Slim Jims. A bit overzealous with the jerky toss part of our plan, naturally.
It was… awkward. Especially when the grassroots parade would stop and we had to stand in place for a minute or so in front of the same group of people. We just kept doing the same posing, waving and growling over and over again, like wind up dolls with red cheeks that deepened the longer we stood in front of the same people.
But as we marched and waved to many (mostly) blank faces, we also got a few outrageously happy, “OH MY GOD IT’S MACHO MAN.” There were hugs, photos, high fives.
The people who got it, loved it. We were their favorite thing.
I think Justin is a lot like that too.
I get him.
I love him.
He’s my favorite thing.
And I wouldn’t want to walk through life or throw beef sticks at strangers with anyone else.
*****
“The best thing you can do with your life is tackle the motherfucking shit out of love.” Cheryl Strayed
You are the foundation for my future. That foundation is so ridiculously, life-makingly, goosebump-inducingly fun.
But I know I was not always easy. You were often better friends than I was. I squirrel myself away when I hurt. Bury myself in the caverns of my mind, throwing you off the scent of my wound. Isolated but not alone.
I know I would never just let you have it, take my pain for me, no matter how many ways you asked for it. Some ancient manifestation of pride would make me keep you at a distance, would not let you see an open fit of tears whenever something spoiled.
Only my mom got to hold me through something like that. Once. When my college boyfriend broke my heart.
You remember.
I know you do.
Because you carry my scars as if they were your own. Trapped securely under bell jars in the recesses of your own hidden caves, the trails to which are lined with lavender and guarded by fearsome wolves with fur the color of your hair. Blonde and black and brown and pink and red. You’ve all sacrificed parts of yourselves to be my protectors.
Whenever I ran, I knew you weren’t far behind. The peace that gave me, even when I pushed you away, always lured me back to the light.
You’ve shown me how to love and to forgive. You were the guides and the guard rails. You saved me from the nights, my shining armor.
I want to say thank you. For loving me first. Ceaselessly. Sisterly.
Oh, writers. My favorite kind of people. They’re the best at describing what love looks like, tastes like, feels like, even when they fail at keeping it — and those keenly sensitive types often fail at keeping it — because they’re so observant, so prone to seeing the world, and thus love, in a new way and describing it like only they can. Their gifts are our worth more than a mine drowning in wedding diamonds.
“A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, 1929
At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that.
We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
Comedy sets
I also have a weak spot for comedians. I’m marrying one. Comedians are like writers but harder and rawer around the edges (a nice balance for a writerly softie like me). But underlying their calloused scorn is always, always something deeper than the rest of us would be willing to journey down. The greats make you laugh because they understand something you haven’t seen or thought about yet. They’re ten steps ahead of you, of all of us, in putting it in words. And their brilliance is making you laugh at something so very real and, sometimes, find hope in a place so terribly dark. Just like love.
“It’s just a ride” by Bill Hicks, 1993
The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are.
The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly colored, and it’s very loud, and it’s fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, “Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?”
And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, “Hey, don’t worry; don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.”
And we … kill those people.
“Shut him up! I’ve got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.”
It’s just a ride.
But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride.
And we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now…
Between fear and love.
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded…
And we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
Song lyrics
Of course, the trick is picking one that can be read without immediately thinking of the melody. I can’t read aloud the lyrics to “Something,” one of the greatest love songs of all time, without putting on my best George Harrison voice by the second verse. “Into My Arms” is perfect. All poetry and longing limbs outstretched, doubt in God but faith in love. That’s as non-traditional as they come.
“Into My Arms” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, 1997
I don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms
And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms
But I believe in love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candles burning
And make her journey bright and pure
That she will keep returning
Always and evermore
Penny Wade is a young social worker in South Boston, earnestly trying to help others, while also hoping to find love.
Online dating seems like the perfect way to meet new people, and distract her from a painful past. After a string of disastrous first dates, she finally meets a man and tumbles into love with him. Her happiness is short-lived, however, when digital dating turns deadly as a killer scans dating profiles to select his targets.
Penny must manage her challenging caseload, including a particularly heart-tugging case in which she’s working to support a depressed young mother and assess allegations of abuse, while also trying to find a murderer before she is “ghosted” for good.
Author Lucy English
Lucy’s writing power comes in the form of a deft balance of empathy and humor, both of which underlie the juicy thriller at this story’s heart.
Below, the author gives some great insight on how she’s worked to nail that voice (because it is work and she’s refreshingly honest about that), how she balances writing with being a single mother of two boys (Lucy, you’re a hero), what writing tools she uses, why she writes and social workers, and more.
I think I started for the challenge. Then I got hooked. The stories and characters exist for me now, so I’m sort of compelled to write them down. I remember once reading an interview with Alice Walker about how she entered the story world and saw stories unfold that didn’t feel like they were coming from her. I thought that was strange but now it happens to me. But to be clear, it didn’t just start happening on its own. I had to really put in effort and I still do have to work hard at the writing. People who want to write tell me “I don’t have stories in my head.” Well, neither did I. I started out in a very mechanical way. I decided to write a mystery because it would have lots of structure to guide me. I need a crime, and suspects, and red herrings, and a good flawed heroine. It was only through that process that things began to come alive.
I love that I get to live different things through Penny. In some ways she’s very intentionally unlike me because I want to see what it’s like to be someone else. I can sort of live an additional life through her and expand my experiences and gain compassion in different ways that in my “real” life.
I love that I get to live different things through Penny. In some ways she’s very intentionally unlike me because I want to see what it’s like to be someone else.
What does your daily writing process look like when you’re working on a novel?
I’m not terribly consistent. Sometimes I write sitting on my bed, sometimes in my little home office, which is a tiny stand-alone building in my back yard. Sometimes I write in my dining room at my big farm table covered in crumbs and sticky smears from boys. If I listen to music it’s usually classical, but mostly I prefer quiet because when I’m really writing (as opposed to doing research or planning), I go into Penny’s world and I don’t want anything anchoring me back in mine.
Are there any rookie mistakes you made when writing your first book that you would offer up to new writers as things to avoid or at least be aware of?
I had tons of mistakes in my first book. I worked with a great developmental editor, who helped me to do three major redrafts! I think the main thing I learned was that the story can take on a life of its own and I have to respect that. I had the murderer wrong at first in Ruby Milk. Ooops. I learned that there’s some stuff I don’t get to control and if I’m stubborn, I’ll just end up going back and re-writing because the story knows, and I need to listen. I think my advice would be to first plot things out as well as possible so that the structure for the book is solidly in place, then truly enter the world and write the flesh onto the bones. When I get stuck I grab a spiral notebook and interview my characters to find out what I need to know. This is really great because they know what’s happening and are always willing to help.
Do you have a set amount of words you write each day or how do you approach meeting a book deadline?
In writing mode, I’ll often set a goal of 2,000 or 3,000 words per day but I don’t hold myself to it. Some days I’ll write 5,000 in what seems like just moments. Other days I need to do research, fix a problem, or just move slowly because that’s the kind of day I’m having. I try to remind myself that I do this by choice and for love, so there’s really no urgency beyond my own momentum.
In writing mode, I’ll often set a goal of 2,000 or 3,000 words per day.
How do you write while working and being a mother? I know that sounds trite, but I mean it. Any tips on juggling everything and working writing into a busy schedule?
I’m very lucky that I work from home for my day job so I don’t have to put on makeup or commute. That saves time. However, I think my real secret is that I don’t watch tv. The New York Times reported that the average person watches five hours per day. I’m sure people are doing other stuff while they watch, but I can’t imagine multitasking writing a book with watching tv! I think that’s my best secret time saver! Otherwise I try to keep the calendar organized with the boys’ activities etc. and I don’t take on a lot of volunteer stuff at their schools or anything like that. (Bad mom confession: I don’t really enjoy that stuff anyway.) As I write this, I’m on vacation with my boys on Cape Cod. It is 6 am and they’re still asleep. My brain works best early in the morning. I think knowing when you’re sharpest is important. I can do twice as much per hour at six in the morning compared to nine at night.
Why write about social service professionals? What challenges present themselves when writing about a world you know intimately in real life and how to you face them down?
I write about a social worker because I admire them enormously. While I’ve worked with them in a liaison capacity, I’ve never been one, and one-on- one work isn’t my strength. So, I’m not overly close to it. I think that helps because Penny can make mistakes and it doesn’t freak me out as a professional. Think how boring it would be to read about Penny the Perfect Professional!
As someone working in the corporate world, I find I need to create “the business case” to get large employers to provide helpful benefits and supports for employees. That’s just how big organizations work — lots of decision makers and a need for a rational case to spend money. I’m inspired by the world of social work because it’s full of people who are doing the right thing because it’s the right thing. There’s a purity there that I appreciate and want to celebrate in my books.
Do you have any book recommendations for aspiring writers?
Writing funny stuff can be hard and there are tons of really bad books about it on the market, so one of my favorite book recommendation is The Hidden Tools of Comedy by Steve Kaplan. He basically says that funny is an ordinary man or woman, without special skills or knowledge, up against seemingly insurmountable odds, and never giving up. That’s Penny. That’s me. That’s all of us, right? Life is funny!
I also love Story by Robert McKee, which is actually about writing screen plays. I love books on writing screen plays because the story elements are so well thought out and there’s something clean about how good plots are described.
A window seat on the sunshine side, a whole aisle to myself, and a fun page turner. This is basically first class, right?
I love books on writing screen plays because the story elements are so well thought out and there’s something clean about how good plots are described.
Do you have any podcasts you listen to or tech tools you use to help you with the writing process?
I learn much better when I read the written word, so I have tons of books full of highlights, notes and post-it flags, but I tend not to listen to podcasts when it comes to content on writing. The tool I use is Scrivener, which is software that helps to organize a book. I can see a list of chapter folders containing each scene on the left-hand side. I name the scenes and that makes it easy to move around in the book. I don’t always write scenes in order. It also helps me to keep notes like what day it is in each scene, etc. It isn’t a perfect tool but it’s way better than trying to deal with an enormous Word document.
Penny Wade! How did you approach character development for Penny in order to make her a dynamic, multi-dimensional female protagonist?
Penny’s character was inspired by social workers. She’s fighting an uphill battle trying to help people in a system where few resources are available. She gets in trouble for getting too invested in her clients and spending too much time. She wears herself out physically and emotionally trying to help while also trying to create a life for herself separate from work. She has demons to deal with including having lost her little sister to a heart defect when she was young. The drive to “fix” and “save” is deep-rooted in Penny. She also has her struggles in relationships with men, and her own decisions about what she wants from a relationship. She isn’t the white-picket-fence type, and isn’t sure how to construct the life she wants because she doesn’t have a template like “get married, move to the suburbs, have kids”. Penny is dynamic and complex and very real to me, so the challenge isn’t making her those things, but getting her on the page effectively.
If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be and why?
One would have to be Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser mysteries series and role model for me. His books dealt seriously and sensitively with important social issues. Like Penny Wade Mysteries, they were set in Boston.
I’d also have many dinners with Robert B. Parker’s character, Spenser. He would be single. We’d go to the Bristol at the Four Seasons in Boston, where he often drank and dined. A key scene in my first book, Ruby Milk, is set there in homage to Parker and Spenser.
I think the third person would be Eva Peron. There are so many different takes on her life, but there’s no doubt it was interesting and she was a talented, brilliant, and brave woman.
A sticker on a car in Columbus. A strong, certain word for a strong, certain statement (those are supposed to be ovaries, ICYMI).
I like this Ruthie’s use of the present tense. Is you still here, Ruthie? Is you a ghost? Is is a bold choice. Is we ever really anywhere? Do we ever leave? I’m into it, Ruthie.
From the Blue Line. A train car interior covered in black plastic, bearing a single word: “Hide.” An alien looked down from the ceiling, as if he was climbing through, trying to get to his very important business meeting in The Loop. It’s an ad for the movie “Alien: Covenant.” Creepy. Cool. A word like “Hide” becomes immediately off-putting when placed inconspicuously in a daily setting. It feels more off-putting than someone actually yelling, “HIDE!”
At an Ohio hotel’s continental breakfast. It’s never too early for farm puns.
You’re right. It was won by Native American genocide, but, like, I get what you’re saying. Saving this for character dialogue someday.
Irving Park. An example of how we still mark our territory and claim it. Someone is homesick.
First place “Most Magical” pie at an Ohio county fair. When making this recipe at home, don’t forget you need two fluffy bunnies and the lady bugs must be of a friendly disposition. <3
A little free library. With an even littler step ladder. <3 <3
Chain restaurants such as Applebee’s and Buffalo Wild Wings
Motorcycles
Lunch (Our preference for healthy snacks instead of overpriced salads could undoubtedly improve our bottom line at the annual OOCFOM trophy ceremony, but the money saved has been spent on extra avocados. It’s a wash.)
Dinner dates
Diamonds
Credit and the credit card industry
Class
Excellent work. Remember our purpose, as fairly and democratically voted on during our first convention: We only kill things that deserve to die anyway. They’ll thank us soon enough.
As we strategize for the next quarter’s purge, please consider the following. I am available to present a cumbersome, confusing deck of these items with point and counterpoint information in an unnecessary 2-hour long meeting. Please refer to bullet number two and you’ll understand why I sent this via Facebook message instead.
I knew you’d check this before email, too. But I’m happy to provide other accommodations if desired.
Puppy mills
The 80-hour work week
Thanksgiving
Timeshares
Formal dining rooms
McMansions
Coal mining
Gender reveal parties (I know we started this one, but let’s fess up to our mistake and then also kill it… the parties and gender. Not the babies. Unless that’s what the woman chooses no later than six weeks into her pregnancy. You get me, right? Of course you do. We’re all the same.)
Armoires or at least the cunty way people who have them pronounce it
Separating loads of laundry by color (I’m certain the right research could prove we’ve already hung this one out to die……………)
Shoddy, cheap blenders that only work for, like, four veggie power shake smoothies and then have super dull blades even though you take them to Don at the farmer’s market every Saturday to get sharpened
The term Millennials
Thank you for your consideration.
Yours in society’s misguided notions of generational homogeny and homos in general,
In high school, I said a lot of dumb stuff, but this may have been the dumbest: “Work hard, play hard.”
I loved that saying. It was a four-word philosophy that underlined the fact that no one adult could touch me. I was in National Honor Society, got early acceptance into college, and my room was clean. Suck it, authority figures. I work really hard, so I can party all I want.
I wasn’t wrong, but stay with me…
This belief held strong throughout college. My freshman year I won a university award for having the highest GPA in my dorm. My RA also told me I had one of the highest write-up rates of anyone in the dorm, which means I got busted partying. A lot.
I thought this was super cute. I could “do it all” and was good at it all.
Lol at 21-year-old me.
In hindsight, this “work hard, play hard” aspect of my personality was less indicative of my work ethic and talent and more indicative of my need for extremes. I’m an absolute perfectionist when it comes to work, and as impulsive and destructive as a rock star when it comes to play.
“Work hard, play hard” was an excuse for not taking care of myself — at work or at play.
As far as mental health issues go, I could have been handed a much shorter stick than chronic impulsivity and a preference for extremes, but it was a beast to break regardless.
That’s because it was such an elusive problem to nail down in the first place; I had also tricked myself into believing the myth — my apartment is paid for, I had fun last night, why am I so sad all the time?
Luckily (well, it felt lucky later… at first it sucked), once you get out of school there are fewer ways to litmus test yourself to ensure you’re working hard. There are industry awards and maybe an employee of the month title you can take home, but for the most part, the paycheck is the prize. And that doesn’t feel good enough when you’ve been getting weekly, sometimes daily reminders that you’re working your ass off.
This is a good thing though and here’s why: You’re forced to address what’s really going on if you want to be happy.
Even if it’s not as extreme as my version of “work hard, play hard,” I think a good swath of us born in the ‘80s have the desire to do both. I’ll stop you right there, though, Millennial-haters. This is not to admit we’re entitled little punks who need put in our place.
Today’s young adults don’t want a trophy for everything because they’re egomaniacs. They want a trophy for everything because they need that dopamine rush of getting an A or a pass or some kind of positive indicator of their success, their worth.
The need for that rush was instilled in them as young as second grade and only got hungrier as they were validated test after test after test the next decade and a half of their lives.
That’s a hard habit to break and one that I think adds a unique challenge to getting through your 20s in the 2010s.
(It’s not just us who struggle with this either. Work, being busy and self sacrifice, are glorified to the point we make ourselves sick. The supportive parent who has no life or identity of his or her own is as American as apple pie. And we collectively honor that! Call them heroes! But what’s heroic about not taking care of yourself?)
The #struggleisreal is reflected in all this nonsense about Millennials killing off industries. One thing headed to the Millennial morgue that I find particularly interesting is this: Vacation.
Why would we “kill” vacation?
The company that researched published this 2016 report, Project: Time Off, clearly has a stake in making you want to go on more vacations. However, I think there are some interesting nuggets in here:
24 percent of Millennials forfeited vacation time the previous year
22 percent of Boomers forfeited vacation time (22 percent compared to 24 percent doesn’t seem like a huge difference but is when you consider that Millennials probably have a lot less time to forfeit)
43 percent of Millennials met the qualifications for the term of being a “work martyr,” while only 29 percent of all workers qualify as “work martyrs”
48 percent of Millennials said they wanted their bosses to think of them as “work martyrs”
Millennials are nearly twice as likely (42 percent of Millennials versus 24 percent of others) to shame colleagues for taking the vacation time to which they’re entitled
34 percent of Millennials worked every day of their vacation
Yikes.
There are so many reasons for these numbers. A big one is fear. We’re afraid not to have a job, to lose a job. We graduated in the midst of the recession. Jobs, good paying ones, seem hard to come by and we’ve watched whole industries crumble in our brief lifetimes. We need this job. We’re stressed about student loan debt that’s racking up interest. We’ll do anything for this job. We’ll be martyrs for this job. Whatever you want, we can do it.
But none of the pieces I’ve read about Millennial work martyrdom have really pointed to this: Extreme work is what so many of us have been trained to do. Overachieving and racking up titles for our resumes to get into a good school. Competing with the next overachiever to just have a spot in a class we want to take. Spending every free moment volunteering so we can get likes on social media or doing a second job to pay for that schooling, etc.
I don’t think we know how to take vacations. “Trophies” are more rewarding to our dopamine needs.
That theory and data is, of course, completely incongruent with the stereotype that we’re lazy and entitled to time off, a stereotype that, I’d argue, comes into play because we do what we want outside of work. And we do what we want outside of work because we have learned to value “work hard, play hard.”
We want to be professional successes and bad bitches (and/or Bill Murray unaffected cool guy types). How does that shake out?
Many, many different ways. But, overall, we’re exhausted.
Live like we were dying and less like we we’re dying to live.
Etc. Etc.
But after a while, these maxims start to feel like new versions of “work hard, play hard.”
Working hard isn’t hard.
Playing hard isn’t hard.
Balance is hard.
To reclaim your time takes more than saying a hollow truism to yourself over and over. It’s just a starting point. Reclaiming your time, if you truly want to do it, requires making difficult choices about where you want to invest that time. It means getting that Google Calendar on fleek. It means being honest about why everyone else seems to take your time in the first place or why you seem to have so little of it.
Because, unlike Maxine Waters, your time is probably not being taken by an evasive witness at your congressional hearing.
Sometimes it’s not the other people we need to put boundaries on, it’s ourselves.
I’ve been reading Margaret Atwood’s 2000 book, “The Blind Assassin.” Have you ever read a book and/or writer and thought, “Why am I even trying? This is brilliant.”? That’s how Atwood makes me feel. She’s a triple threat–genius storyteller, wordsmith and rebel thinker. A tiny example, this description of a dress as “… something easy to overlook but sharp, like a common kitchen implement — an ice pick, say — just before the murder.” This book is riddled with mic-drop metaphor after mic-drop metaphor.
As you can see from above, I brought my book to a baseball game. We had to get cash out of a BMO Harris ATM to get nachos for, you know, game watching (book sneaking). I liked this ATM tagline alongside the info that, though be it 2017, seat vendors are cash only.
True. This bunting in a Lakeview window display made me double take. What does it mean?? What is true??? Better question: What is not true? WHY IS LIFE SO COMPLICATED?
Stickers in River North, like writing prompts shouting from the sidewalk. What would qualify as the Last Great Riot? Why?
We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago during my bachelorette weekend to see the Takashi Murakami exhibit. The art and curation were awesome, as expected, but I was drawn to the exhibition’s title, “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg.” It’s from a Japanese story about how an octopus will eat its own leg to save itself, knowing the tentacle will grow back. Murakami explores how artists do the same thing, but with no guarantee of regeneration. (See more of my pictures here.)
A clever name for a used clothes drop-off. USA GAIN, use again, etc. I get it… It makes me eyeroll every time I walk by it though, as if it’s saying, “Hey, it’s us again. You really need to purge your closet and donate it to us and also stop buying so much shit that doesn’t fit you.”
Server shirts at Girl and The Goat, the lightning hot Chicago restaurant. You can’t be in Chicago during baseball season without hearing “Go, Cubs, Go” chanted at least thrice. Here’s a fun take on that.
There are so many agencies in this city, it’s no surprise the science of user experience + graphic design is evident in the least expected places. I love this example from a building in the West Loop. It’s a map of all the restaurants and attractions nearby. A writer was probably the least important creative to making this happen, but there’s cute stuff in there.
I’ve amassed three in the course of the past few months. Perhaps this is how wannabe manic pixie dream girls ease into their early thirties. Give it ten years and we’ll be bringing muu-muus back.
Consent signs at music festivals
At Pitchfork, I saw several signs like this, reminding everyone that day drunk does not fair game automatically make. Are consent signs the new flower crown?
Polka dots + flowers + stripes = crazy no more. Proof we can all just get along.
Cryptic fashion pins
This looks like a cute bag with a pin of Garth praying.
In fact, it’s Mike Diana, an underground cartoonist who was the first person in the United States to receive a conviction of artistic obscenity. I got this pin as a gift for supporting this Kickstarter documentary about his work, the case and how artistry of all stripes can survive the minefield of free speech in America.
