I am a frequent contributor to the Feminist Book Club blog and podcast. My creative nonfiction essays have appeared in Fourth Genre and Phoebe and my criticism has appeared in Esquire. A former tattoo magazine columnist, I have also published blog posts, essays and branded content on websites like Nerve, Refinery29 and Gothamist.
Contact: samdawnpaul[at]gmail.com
Books
In new books by Marie-Helene Bertino, Melissa Broder and Sloane Crosley, grief creates alternative realities and mourning makes new worlds.
Across Time and Space: The Trials and Triumphs of Nine Women, Nine Writers
Melissa Febos has made a career out of telling her own story. Her work is deeply personal, sometimes painful, and always resonant. Her memoirs and essays stand out even beyond the import of her experiences and her talent because they are always interwoven-almost bursting-with poetic and philosophical references and insights that help connect her own experiences to universal ones.
Sam reviews Jessie Gaynor's debut novel The Glow, a comedic, timely, and sometimes cringe-worthy take on the business of wellness.
When asked to pick an emotion from Baking by Feel , I gravitated immediately toward caring. Caring is what I strive to be, even when it is not exactly how I am feeling in the moment.
By / February 15, 2023 This post may include affiliate links, which means we make a small commission on any sales. This commission helps Feminist Book Club pay our contributors, so thanks for supporting small, independent media!
By / March 6, 2023 This post may include affiliate links, which means we make a small commission on any sales. This commission helps Feminist Book Club pay our contributors, so thanks for supporting small, independent media! The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li is, in its way, a love story.
By / January 31, 2023 I want to read more utopian fiction-fiction that imagines that another, better world is possible, and considers the ways that we might get there. In literature and TV, dystopias abound, and I can see their appeal. I find them too often relatable, and regularly riveting.
At the start of Emma Straub's newest book, This Time Tomorrow, Alice Stern is not unhappy with her life. She just isn't sure whether it's the one she would have chosen. There are minor spoilers in this review!
Sam considers Mattie Kahn's new book Young and Restless: The Girls Who Sparked America's Revolutions and the powers and pitfalls of girlhood.
CNF
My mother is screaming and crying on the phone. Her voice shakes with rage. "You'd be so pretty if you'd fix your teeth," she stammers. "But you don't care about being pretty."
Tattoo