Rebecca Blevins

I'm a huge fan of #redlipstick lately.

My daughter saw a paper or sign or something with “Elon Musk” written on it, and someone had added an F, so now it reads

FELON MUSK

I’m a part time librarian and I just want to echo what I’ve seen other librarians say recently: there is a HUGE uptick in requests for social justice, climate justice, abolition, history, etc books and I just want to say nobody is giving up the fight. If anything people are fighting harder #library

Utah senators Mike Lee & John Curtis are Mormons. I asked them to do something about Musk’s illegal takeover.

Curtis sent this form letter containing a year’s supply of bologna. I’m no longer LDS, but helping a felon put a billionaire in charge of destroying the government feels very…“king-men.”

“I don’t think the United States Senate should vote for a single nominee until this is over!” - @chrismurphyct.bsky.social

Remember when they wouldn’t shut up about Hillary’s email server?

How is this not a bajillion times worse?

List of senators and their phone numbers. Put pressure on them to do the right thing!

Time for malicious compliance, everyone.

Gov agency OPM sent out a memo instructing workplaces to remove all verbiage and inclusivity for trans people. They’re requiring detailed reports on actions taken, due February 7th, sent to:

defendingwomen@opm.gov

You know what to do.

I had fun putting together this vintage-inspired outfit I wore to two appointments today. #vintagestyle

I just learned that being an undocumented immigrant isn’t illegal unless they’re deported then reenter without permission.

Many undocumented immigrants pay taxes. The government relies on them as farm & ranch workers.

Nearly half of undocumented immigrants entered the US legally. #themoreyouknow

I seriously thought those pears were a painting at first.

I am very excited to read this project of yours!

My father-in-law would. I posted a pic praising Bishop Budde and he stole it. Reposted with hogwash about “justice.” Right, because oppressed people are the oppressors. 🙄

Notice the date on this: December 16th, 2023.

He’s been up to this for a while, folks. Still want to pretend he doesn’t hold racist & xenophobic views?

Looks like this was from 2023 so he’s been doing it for a while.

I found this 1950s porcelain-and-brass pill box for a song at a little antique store. Going to clean it up and use it! #vintage

Guess it’s time to pick my pen back up and continue writing the feminist YA horror about a group of teen girls trapped in a school with a monster while a nameless, faceless, governmental entity studies them…

I loooove old glass. It’s not great to use for food/drinks but I use it for other things like vanity storage.

Ignore the powdered sugar all over me from the stollen I finished, because I have to share one of my favorite vintage pendants with you.

I personally associate lily of the valley with Hekate. It’s lovely, unobtrusive, and toxic when ingested.

Feels very appropriate today. 😘

Wait, do you live in Utah? Selfishly I hope so. I desperately need to know more people who live here who think like you do.

Bishop Marian Edgar Budde is a hero. A true follower of the Jesus I followed when I was a Christian, and the Jesus I still try to be like even though I no longer claim that label.

Imagine who we could be if we were fiercely brave in our compassion and love? If we truly saw others as equals?

"Bags packed, passports ready." You and your ilk brought this on and you're ready to leave??? This is EXACTLY why we are where we are. Dr. Frizzle @swilua.bs... • 6h O fae/faer • she/her we are trying extremely hard to ignore the shit out of the nonsense because those of us in

In 1933, the Nazis began to imprison, torture, castrate, and kill queer people

In 1939, Hitler authorized a euthanasia program for disabled people

In 1941, this program became the model for the death camps

They target the smallest minorities first and then escalate: that is the playbook

This is why I love thrifting for vintage things. What children’s book writer wouldn’t love a 1935 hundredth printing edition of Winnie the Pooh for $1? 😍

I love this so much!

At the inauguration, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wore a distinctive collar adorned with cowrie shells, which are believed to offer protection from evil in African traditions.

This choice mirrors the late Justice Ginsburg’s practice of using collars to convey a message.

Congratulations, America.

The cries of the innocent will soon have many of you wailing like Lady Macbeth attempting to scrub her hands.

I personally solemnly swear to keep shining beacons of refuge and safety for those who can’t provide it for themselves.

Recording for the future. 1/19/2025 in the Utah Valley

I had the thought to record egg prices, but this is better.

Of course there are legitimate cishet white men to learn from. I have taken workshops, intensives, and attended lectures by them. I’m not saying we should not have any cishet white male authors. But they have dominated the landscape for far too long, become the kings of it, and that has caused a problem. There’s a reason why at nearly every author event I ever went to, popular mid-list male authors would sit for hours with circles of people around them, hanging on their every word. I never saw mid-list women authors with similar book backlists earn anywhere close to the same attention or respect. 9

The single biggest thing I learned from my master’s program, the single biggest thing that made me a deeply better writer was deeply immersing myself in books, lectures, and workshops by authors from as many different walks of life as possible. Authors who have vastly different experiences and cultures. The choice does not have to be choosing between a problematic/r*p*st author and their work. Their work will probably never quite hit us the same after that anyway. We need to allow ourselves the grief that goes alongside that knowledge. 10

But we can fill some of that emptiness and heal some of that pain by actively looking for new favorite writers who have so much depth and experience and beauty to share with us. It’s our responsibility to choose and lift the voices of other incredible artists—those who have not had the same privileges and access to resources and who have not, to our knowledge, harmed people. Ultimately, we each have to settle with ourselves and our own consciences to determine whether or not we will still consume art we already own by people like Gaiman. That isn’t something anybody else can do for us. 11

What Gaiman did is inexcusable. He hurt people over and over again. Part of the penance for that should be the reduction of his words in spaces where he could continue to cause harm. His work may have had worth to students, but he has lost all moral credibility as a teacher I would choose to learn from. I want to be able to respect my writing instructors, and there are plenty of other excellent instructors I can offer students and clients as examples. Not only can we do better, we must do better. Let’s continue forcing these vile people out of the murky holes they think they’re safe in and into the light where they will be held responsible for their actions. They deserve to be silenced so that other incredible voices can speak. 12 [end of article]

It’s just that cishet white men built a world they owned and silenced anyone who dared try to expose them. These men gained a sense of invincibility, of being untouchable. They convinced themselves that no one would listen to those they hurt. They banked on people not trying to defend themselves. And if the survivors tried, those men had so much power that who would believe a woman, child, or other vulnerable person? Over and over, survivors were accused of trying to climb ladders, and of not saying no firmly enough, and asked what they were wearing. The men and their cronies further hurt and silenced survivors. 5

The discussion about separating a person from their art—sorry, a r*p*st from his art—is overwhelmingly because we have an emotional attachment to that art. That is difficult because art moves us in a way not much else does. And so we struggle with that part of ourselves we have built from a harmful person’s—sorry, an assaulter’s—art. (Calling it what it is makes it feel more uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Good.) So many of us still unknowingly assign male artists a gravitas that we don’t afford any others. We so often assign learning from them a higher value than learning from others, either because of what we perceive those authors as having achieved or because exposure to their art has moved us in a way that other art has not. 6

And yes, their work may be incredible, but how many other voices would we know if they had the same publishers and marketing and true equal opportunity? Perhaps the only reason we haven’t learned from these other types of authors is because we have not had exposure to them. And that’s not because they’re not good enough. It’s because historically we buy more books from cishet white male authors. More is spent on their marketing.They are still regarded as being overall the highest experts in their fields. They’re given more respect. We’ve been taught that their works are the most important. We have worshiped the very ground they walk on, and oh, how the mighty are falling. 7

Thankfully, that landscape is showing signs of change, although not nearly quickly enough. But it’s those signs of change that allow abuse survivors to speak up at all. As a society, we still center male authority as the most important because it’s what we’ve been taught since birth. That seems normal to us because that has been our normal. It was for me. So many of us still reach for prominent male teachers to learn from because we want the same successes they have, and we think that if we follow what they do, they will help us to become our best artistic selves. 8

Why We Shouldn’t Separate Abuse from Art By Rebecca Blevins TW: discussion of Hitler, Gaiman, & SA I want to address fellow writers regarding the idea of separating other writers from their art, especially after what has come to light regarding Neil Gaiman. Say I was at the thrift store and came across a most exquisite painting by an unknown painter. I buy it, then hang it in a place of honor in my home. It causes me to feel things that teach me precious truths about being an artist. 1

Say I learn how to paint better by studying that painting. It becomes my most treasured possession. I then use it to teach valuable skills to other painters, who do beautiful things with those skills. And then someone comes to my home and shows me irrefutable evidence that the painting was done by Hitler. (He actually was a painter.) I would go through stages of grief for who I thought the painter had been because of his art. For anger at how many people he hurt. I might try to find a way to continue to enjoy the painting. I’d feel some guilt at valuing the part of myself that unknowingly learned from such a monster, even though I never would have brought the painting into my home had I known. 2

But the painting is genuinely good. And art is born from all kinds of feelings and emotions, right? Would it really be so bad to continue to use it, to appreciate that side of the painter? Would knowing who the painter truly was change the value of the painting to me? Couldn’t I still use it to teach? It’s not the painting’s fault that it came from such a vile person. But try as I might, I would never be able to look at the painting exactly the same way again. Maybe I’d even begin seeing some harsher aspects of the painting in a different light due to a better understanding the artist’s true nature. 3

Would I feel comfortable continuing to use that painting to teach those techniques to other painters, especially descendants of those whose families he harmed? Of having them sit in my painting class, trying to block out their own pain so they could learn from the example of historically recent harm I brought into what should have been a safe learning space? Especially because we ask people to get vulnerable when learning about creativity? No. I wouldn’t. You know why so many abuses have come to light lately that it feels like an epidemic? They’re not new. This kind of abuse and depravity has been with humanity since the dawn of time. 4 [Rest of article in next two attached posts, 12 total images]

Too many people still value cishet white male authority even when their actions should remove their teaching credibility. I wrote this because we writers _must_ remove men like #NeilGaiman as mentors/teachers regardless of their skill. There is no amount of learning that can outweigh the harm.