All posts tagged: Girlhood

A Celebration of Modern Girlhood, Laufey Brings Jazz to a New Generation

A Celebration of Modern Girlhood, Laufey Brings Jazz to a New Generation

When I sit down to talk to Laufey, it’s been a little over 72 hours since Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated album The Tortured Poets Department, and the ascending Icelandic-Chinese jazz singer admits she hasn’t listened to all 31 tracks just yet. But she’s got a pretty good excuse, one that Swift can probably empathize with. She recently embarked on a world tour in support of her Grammy Award–winning album, Bewitched, and late last month released a dreamy deluxe edition, Bewitched: The Goddess Version, unveiling four new songs that infuse her youthful sensibilities with a timeless genre. Which means that even though she found herself in New Orleans yesterday and Atlanta this morning, she’ll go to sleep tonight, if only for a few hours, in Nashville, after taking the stage at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in a pink cowboy hat, on her 25th birthday no less. But so far the classically trained musician from Reykjavík surmises that Swift’s album is about being a performer on the road, falling in and out of love, and …

A Messy Queer Girlhood in Singapore

A Messy Queer Girlhood in Singapore

Dinner on Monster Island by Tania De Rozario When I’m reading publisher emails and combing through book catalogs, I try to keep in mind that some of the best books can fly under the radar, especially books by authors from outside of the U.S. So when I spotted Dinner on Monster Island, I flagged it immediately and added it to my list of books that I wanted to look into more later. Tania De Rozario’s essay collection Dinner on Monster Island follows her messy life as a biracial, fat, queer femme growing up in Singapore. Many of her essays center around girlhood and the intense fatphobia and queerphobia she experienced. While in her younger years, she was required to do extra exercise because the government deemed her BMI too high. At her all-girls school, the administration made it a priority to find and punish girls suspected of lesbian conduct. And De Rozario’s classmates made fun of her mixed heritage. Everything about her school experience told her that she didn’t belong. De Rozario grew up with …