Mom, I'm happy to write my bio first if that's what you decide you need.

But before we get there, I want to spend some time with your trepidation about putting information about yourself online by weaving together a few themes around… I don't know. Let’s call it 'public expressions of selfhood.'

To begin with, I'll set the bar real low: with James Joyce himself. We know way too much about JJ. His life is totally available for public consumption—people write entire articles about his eye issues being caused by syphilis. You can comfort yourself that no matter what we say in our bios or throughout this inter-generational epistolary reading experience, we will absolutely not be revealing anything so private as that.

With that low bar cleared, let's raise it a notch with Chris Kraus and the concept of "autofiction.” For my purposes today, I'm going to choose a narrower definition of autofiction, and call it a genre of autobiographical fiction in which a first-person narrator shares the same of the author. I mention Chris Kraus specifically because I like her autofictive novel I Love Dick. I like that the point of the novel isn't how "true" any of it is, but that that truth is irrelevant in the face of meaning. It's not the exact details of our lives that matter here; it is the act of communicating with each other as readers that matters most. This isn't an invitation to make things up or lie—to actively engage in making fiction—but to invite you to see yourself through a particular lens. A lot falls away when you focus on yourself as an English major, teacher, and reader.

I mention Chris Kraus because her work ties into another aspect of public selfhood that I’d like to touch on. I Love Dick is also a work of feminist art theory, posing the question “Who gets to speak and why?” It often feels that men are themselves first, and women are wives and mothers before they have selfhood—especially in situations where other people are talking about the woman in question. For example, on a recent walk I saw a bench with a little memorial plaque. The woman memorialized in this beautiful spot—with its perfect view of golden grass, dotted with oaks, flowing away across the valley to a crest of grey-green ridgeline—was thus acknowledged: as a wife and mother and grandmother. The accompanying quote (“I have to say… …isn’t this nice”) is surely the definitive speech act of her life. I looked up her name after I got home and I believe this woman was an art researcher with a prominent museum. The erasure of her beyond her feminized roles of service is enraging for me.

This memorial bench did get me thinking about how I might memorialize you (which you are not allowed to find morbid since you were the one who, during my most recent visit, showed me where you keep the box that is to hold your ashes in your columbarium slot when the time comes). I already have plenty to say about you beyond your wife-and-motherhood—I promise if I ever get you an in memoriam bench, it'll have a damn good inscription—and I’d like to know more. You get to speak about yourself because you are a unique human individual and deserve to have space given to your complexities beyond your "Mom-ness.”

That being said, you can do this in a way that leaves out personally identifying information. No need for place names, exact dates, specific institutions; we don’t even have to reveal your name. After all I’ve written today, it would actually be hilarious to never reveal your name (did you know that’s the kind of literary joke I like? Look at us—learning about each other already!) and just call you Mom the whole time. Certainly no one will find out anything that could be a concern for your security and identity; and I will use [redacted] if I think you’ve included something that shouldn’t go online.

Besides. The internet is a big place, and websites about reading Ulysses are pretty niche. Websites about reading Uly with your mom are even rarer. I promise I won’t make us trend on #booktok. It is simply conceptually important to me that our writing be publicly available (who gets to speak? Me and my mom. Why? Because I said so.). That doesn’t mean anyone is actually going to read it. (And really you and your data are way more "out there" on Facebook and through your browsing history and your air miles card. An unpromoted webpage is nothing compared to the insidious miasma of surveillance capitalism choking us all to death.)

Having said all that… I want to respect your decision to write about yourself in your own way; a "bio about books” sounds wonderfully creative. Just know that it is very okay for you to talk about yourself and your experiences! The way you got your degree is, I guarantee you, fascinating and important—as is the rest of your life.

I also can’t help but think that, if we’re circumspect enough, people will assume I’m just writing both sides of this conversation by myself, and that is also hilarious to me.

Take a few days with this if you like. It’s going to take a little while for your copy of Uly to reach you, seeing as how the part of the world where you live is less hyper-capitalistic than the part of the world where I live. And there's no real timeline; it will be wise to do a little reading every day for the sake of habit formation and remaining engaged, but this is our inter-generational epistolary art project and we get to do it how we want.

Love,

K.

Ps. If you scroll past the first few paragraphs of very detailed and rather gruesome medical stuff at the beginning of that syphilis article, it is super interesting. Would recommend.