Fallen Women (Catapult column)
A monthly column on women coded as villains in pop culture, the power in their badness, and how they shaped fans for good.
"A rich, nuanced exploration of women’s anger from a diverse group of writers," forthcoming from Seal Press: October 8, 2019.
Lilly Dancyger is the Memoir Editor of Narratively, a Contributing Editor and Writing Instructor at Catapult, and Assistant Books Editor at Barrelhouse. Her essays and journalism on sex, politics, and culture have appeared in Rolling Stone, The Rumpus, the Washington Post, Psychology Today, and more. She's the editor of Burn It Down, an anthology of essays on women's anger, forthcoming from Seal Press. Lilly is also at work on a memoir about her father's art and heroin addiction, and the legacy of both in her life. Follow her on Twitter at @lillydancyger
Featured Clips
How T Kira Madden’s ‘Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls’ Made Me Stop Playing the Grief Olympics (Ravishly)
The best memoirs are the ones that not only bring you into the experience of the writer but shift your understanding of yourself in the process. T Kira Madden’s debut, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls did this for me to a degree I’ve never experienced.
In Search of Smoky Cafes: On Anais Nin’s diaries, the creative life, and (not) time-traveling in Paris
I understood of course that time had passed since the 1930s in Paris just like it had in New York, that many of the same problems likely existed there. But in a much more visceral way, it was easy to believe that the uncorrupted, smoky, jazz-filled utopia of Nin’s Paris was a real place I could travel to if I wanted it badly enough.
How I Learned to Stop Judging And Love Insta-Witches
When I was thirteen, I discovered witchcraft. More accurately, I started paying attention to it. It had always been around me, in the silk-wrapped tarot deck on my mother’s dresser, and the sage she burned every time we moved into a new apartment. But when I was thirteen, I dove in and studied with a hunger and dedication I had never applied to anything before, and one that I never quite matched again; not even when I went to graduate school ten years later.
Personal Narratives in the Trump Era
As a writer and editor of personal narratives, I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis since the 2016 presidential election. I’ve been wondering if there’s space for the personal and internal in a world so politically fraught; with people having their rights stripped away in new and horrifying ways every day, what place do I have reflecting on the past traumas, joys, and humiliations of my own life?
Passing as Privileged (Excerpt from "Without A Net" Anthology)
As I awkwardly wiped condensation from my plastic cup of wine onto my dress slacks, it occurred to me that I’d done such a good job of making something of myself that I’d made my past invisible.
The Man Who’s Been Fighting for Medicinal Psychedelics for 45 Years
A consensus is building that demonized drugs like LSD and MDMA have significant therapeutic value. Rick Doblin has been preparing for this moment since he was 18 years old.
Wearing Dead People’s Clothing
It’s not unusual to keep talismans of people we’ve lost — often jewelry given as gifts by the deceased while they were still alive, or sometimes inherited. Photographs, letters. But wearing a dead person’s clothing (not clothing that they gave to you while they were living, but articles that they put on their bodies while those bodies still breathed) provides a feeling of corporeal closeness that’s hard to replicate.
Spanking, caning and consent play: how feminist porn frees women from shame
According to feminist pornography producer Pandora Blake, who runs the fetish porn site Dreams of Spanking and frequently portrays fantasies of “non-consent”, the answer is a no-brainer. “Absolutely.”
I could have been the little boy in the overdose photos
A photo recently blazed across the Internet: an Ohio couple in a car, both passed out, having overdosed on opiates. The woman in the passenger’s seat is pale and ashen. Her head is lolled over to one side, her mouth agape. She looks dead. It’s a deeply disturbing image, even before you notice the child in a car seat behind her, looking right into the camera.
The Real Reason Nobody is Talking About the DNC Fraud Lawsuit
Distrust of the mainstream media is not just an alt-right problem. Some on the left also believe that the major news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times are in the pocket of big government and are committed to telling us the party line.
The New Alternative to ‘Female Viagra’ Is Zapping the Brain
For more than a decade now — in a search that began shortly after Viagra hit the market in 1998 — pharmaceutical companies have been hunting for a female answer to the little blue pill, with little success.
After-School Satan Clubs Are Coming to an Elementary School Near You
The Satanic Temple, a Salem-based political organization with a focus on the separation of church and state, recently launched a secular after-school program to counteract what they see as harmful proselytizing by Christian evangelical programs across the United States.
Meet the 'Hamilton Electors' Campaigning for an Electoral College Revolt
Two Democratic electors are hoping to convince their colleagues to select someone other than Trump for the presidency. Michael Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington state call themselves the Hamilton Electors, in a nod to Alexander Hamilton’s explanation of the Electoral College.
Apparently, Even Scientists Don't Know What the Hell Is Going on When You Orgasm
It’s not just a snappy sitcom plotline: The female orgasm is a giant mystery. And not just to the average man, either. Turns out, top researchers and even women themselves have a hard time making sense of what actually happens to the body and the brain during climax, according to research by neuroscientist Nicole Prause and her colleague Greg Siegel.
In a recent study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, Prause and Siegel—who hoped to glean insight into arousal and orgasms as a way to tre
