Alison Bechdel speaks at Smith College, discusses career

BY EMMA QUIRK ’26 STAFF WRITER

On Thursday, March 2, 1,300 people gathered in Smith College’s John M. Greene Hall to listen to award-winning cartoonist and lesbian icon, Alison Bechdel. According to Bechdel, it was her fourth time speaking at Smith, and the largest, most highly attended venue yet.

For some, this was their first time engaging with Bechdel, while for others it was one of many. “Bechdel is very much a celebrity of my childhood … I was pretty young when I was reading her ‘[The] Essential Dykes to Watch Out For’ … and my mother is a superfan,” Saira Sukthankar ’26 said. After attending this event, she felt as though she had “developed an independent relationship with [Bechdel’s] work.”

Throughout her talk, Bechdel discussed her various books and the inspiration behind them. Beginning with “The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For,” her first collection of comic strips that followed a group of lesbian friends, she explained how she stumbled upon Adrienne Rich’s writing in college. Inspired by Rich’s exploration of “the way lesbians were historically rendered invisible,” she began this project. “I didn’t see people who looked like me or my friends reflected anywhere in our culture. We were literally undetected, omitted from the record,” Bechdel said.

As she continued writing and drawing, her work became more po- litical, and she began exploring how being out as a lesbian is inherently political. She claimed it “felt like sort of a political act, even a radical act,” to be out and proud about her identity. However, her comics didn’t originally intend to be political statements. “In the early 1980s, I wasn’t addressing people who thought I didn’t exist. Or shouldn’t exist. It was just for me and for my friends, for ourselves,” Bechdel said.

Lia Di Lisio ’26 was excited to hear that the original intended audience was Bechdel’s friends. “I enjoyed learning that ‘[The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For]’ was created for her and her friends. This work gave us comedy, representation and exposure to the inherent politicization of queerness,” Di Lisio said.

Bechdel shared the way her worldview shifted after she came out as a lesbian.

“Once I came out and found myself outside of that [white middle-class] world … It was amazing to suddenly have this perspective. You couldn’t see how things worked when you were on the inside, but from the outside, it was suddenly revealed it was like I woke up from a dream. And I was becoming woke,” Bechdel explained. She acknowledged the queer people and movements before her that allowed her to live her life in the way she has. “‘Fun Home’ and [‘Are You My Mother?’] … are both ways my life was made possible by liberation movements of the 1960s — women’s liberation and gay liberation — which both came out of the civil rights movement,” Bechdel said.

She stated that “Fun Home” and “Are You My Mother?” are also about “how [her] parents had missed out on much of the possibility and promise of those things.” Her existence was possible because of the previous generation, and she has, in turn, opened up doors for the generations after her.

This notion resonated with students, who were able to realize their own position as queer people in our current society. “Although it shouldn’t surprise me, I didn’t expect her to be so politically moved. I forget that the queer people of the generations before me didn’t really have a choice but to be politically moved,” Sydney Bloom ’26 said.

Bechdel’s presentation emphasized how individual contributions to visibility, like her comic strips, are important to improving the world for future generations. “People like her have helped set up a society where I can be proud of who I am,” Di Lisio said.

Lydia Moland speaks about her new book

BY LUCY ISAACS ’25 STAFF WRITER

On March 2, the Odyssey Bookshop hosted Lydia Moland, author of “Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life,” published in October 2022 by the University of Chicago Press. Moland, a professor of philosophy at Colby College, provided a brief but comprehensive overview of Child’s work as an active proponent of abolition in the 19th century.

Born in 1802, Child was a Massachusetts abolitionist who published a number of texts advocating for racial equality, and her activism frequently took the form of prose. Describing Child as a “prodigious writer,” Moland detailed Child’s initial career as a novelist, poet and author of “The Frugal Housewife.” Moland further explained how the trajectory of Child’s life shifted upon her introduction to the abolitionist movement via William Llyod Garrison, prompting Child to dedicate her literary talents to anti-slavery activism.

Moland expressed excitement at the talk’s proximity to Northampton, MA, as Child lived in Northampton for a number of years, described by Historic Northampton as a period in which she attempted “to grow sugar beets to undermine the plantation sugar trade.”

Holding that abolitionist women were hardly a monolith, Moland shared a portion of her book in which she describes the “in-fighting” that occurred within abolitionist movements, specifically concerning the “woman question,” which asked to what extent women should publicly be included in anti-slavery activism. Moland specifically described Child’s complex relationship with fellow abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman and the internal division that ensued amongst abolitionist women, as they debated the complicated role they played within anti-slavery movements.

Moland, whose previous academic works have focused primarily on philosophy, cites the shift in topic as a product of former President Donald Trump’s election. “I found myself after that election desperately looking for examples in our history of what people had done when there was a moral emergency in the country — a sense that our country’s values were under attack and that it was going to take all hands on deck to right the ship. Obviously, the Civil War was a kind of emergency, and since I know 19th-century history fairly well, I decided to start there,” Moland said of her decision to research abolitionists in an interview with the Mount Holyoke News.

Moland initially learned of Child’s work when doing archival research, coming across a letter that Child had written to a friend. In her interview, Moland described being drawn to the prose’s “blend of wit, self-deprecation, wisdom and solidarity,” prompting her to explore Child’s life and work. Moland was subsequently frustrated by Child’s historical neglect and inspired to bring attention to her activism.

Despite her expressed admiration, Moland did not shy away from leveling criticism against Child when she felt it warranted, nor from addressing the privilege Child possessed as a white woman who had continual access to formal education. Moland urged attendants of the talk — who joined both in person and virtually — to pair the reading of her book with “The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet and a Contessa Moved a Nation” by Linda Hirshman and “The Grimkes:

Toward the end of her presentation, Bechdel came back to Adrienne Rich. Bechdel explained that she drew on a paper scroll each day to get out of an inspiration rut, and thought of the words “Transcendental Etude.” She could not remember right away where she knew this from “but it was deeply familiar.” It is the title of a poem by Adrienne Rich, one that had been “pretty formative” to college-aged Bechdel.

“I realized that [rediscovering Transcendental Etude] actually helped the ending of my book, my final chapter, a quote from her final stanza. [Rich is] not concerned with virtuosic display, or the narcissistic longing for eternity, she’s interested in a different kind of creative. One that involves the musings of a mind, body,” Bechdel said. Like the students who see Bechdel’s books as formative for them, Bechdel was constantly inspired by Rich.

After her presentation concluded, Bechdel was joined on stage by Nanci Young, the Smith College archivist. Young asked about the intention of including historical refer- ences in her work, such as political t-shirts and pins. “I very consciously thought about what I was doing as a kind of archive,” Bechdel said. In this discussion of archives, Young encouraged audience members to visit the Smith archives and see Bechdel’s work that is preserved there. Once this portion ended, there was a book signing, and the night was over.

Overall, Sukthankar and Di Lisio left the talk feeling content and inspired. “She used the space really well, with large projections of her work, which she worked into her talk seamlessly. She was funny and interesting,” Sukthankar said. Bechdel “is truly a role model,” Di Lisio stated.

“The best way to describe the way I felt during the event is full of love,” Bloom said. “I would take time to look around and I saw so many different kinds of queer people. The ones that warmed my heart the most were the old lesbian lovers. They were the kind of people who made me feel seen because they reminded me that the love I feel has existed for decades.”

Glascock contestant Portlyn Houghton-Harjo talks poetry

BY JESSE HAUSKNECHT-BROWN ’25 MANAGING EDITOR OF LAYOUT & FEATURES EDITOR

Portlyn Houghton-Harjo, a senior at Pratt Institute, is “very excited” to be representing her school at the 100th annual Glascock poetry contest. After Houghton-Harjo had heard that the Pratt writing program had a call for submissions and decided to enter her poems, she was chosen for the contest.

Mount Holyoke has hosted the Glascock poetry contest every year since 1923 and has invited other colleges to join since the competition’s second year. As described on their website, the “Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest is the oldest continuously-running poetry contest for undergraduate students in the United States.”

The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family” by Kerri Greendige, both of which are available for purchase at the Odyssey Bookshop. Moland also urged the audience to explore the collected works of bell hooks, stating that she tries to read hook’s “All About Love: New Visions,” at least once each year.

Moland does not intend for her most recent book to serve as her final piece on Child’s work and life.

“I’m right now writing a few pieces about her more philosophical writings as well as some of the tensions in the abolitionist movement about women’s involvement. And I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of many of the other things she’s done — she also wrote a history of religion and edited a book on religious tolerance that I think would be interesting to think more about,” Moland said to the Mount Holyoke News.

Though the talk concluded at 8 p.m., Moland lingered to speak with audience members and sign copies of her book, which are currently available at the Odyssey Bookshop. Moland will be speaking at the Boston Athenaeum on March 20, for which in-person and virtual tickets can be purchased online.

When she was younger, Houghton-Harjo’s parents read her Emily Dickinson poetry, Shel Silverstein books and Tim Burton’s “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.” She explained that she “loved how these writings dealt with death, love and change.”

Houghton-Harjo first began writing poetry for a poetry unit in middle school, then, in her first year of high school, her English teacher encouraged her to share one of her poems with her parents.

“I did, and people said it was good, so I kept going,” Houghton-Harjo said. “Soon after, I participated in a young Mvskoke women’s writers workshop with Joy Harjo — no relation — and Mary Kathryn Nagle. I was also mentored by the poet Jennifer Foerster for the [For] Girls Becoming program, which paired young Mvskoke women with a mentor in the arts.”

Houghton-Harjo acknowledged that she was very lucky to have these writing opportunities when she was younger and credited them as one of the reasons why she stuck with writing. Lots of things inspire Houghton-Harjo to write and she describes herself as “a very observational writer.” She is also inspired by being Mvskoke and Seminole.

“I think that part of being a poet is finding a bit of inspiration in a lot of things, so I could list so much here. Right now, I’m working on my thesis which focuses on the cyber world, death/mourning rituals and Indigenous states of mind,” Houghton-Harjo said.

She is currently writing “cyber-Indigenous-horror poetry,” which she describes as “good ol’ experimental poetry inspired by folktales, folk art and loss in the digital era.” She also enjoys painting and sewing and altering her clothes; she tries to be “as multidisciplinary as possible.”

Houghton-Harjo is majoring in writing with an emphasis on poetry and hopes to minor in book arts. She has an internship at the Center for Book Arts and enjoys printmaking. “The possibility of language as visual art is vital to my practice. I grew up around art, so I try to keep my finger on the art world pulse. Being in New York, it’s pretty easy. Betye Saar’s work is a major inspiration to me right now. I’ve always loved horror movies and stories, so that’s a big inspiration,” Houghton-Harjo said.

The Glascock poetry contest will be held on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1. The weekend will include a roundtable discussion with the judges, the contest itself and a poetry reading by this year’s judges: Eileen Myles, Evie Shockley and Hoa Nguyen.