Today marks the ten year anniversary of the first Feminist Mormon Housewives post. (You can read that first post by clicking here, though you should know that the subject matter is highly controversial. What else would you expect, right?)
Ten years … that’s a decade, folks. If we were celebrating ten years of marriage, Hallmark says that the appropriate gift would be either tin/aluminum or diamond jewelry. So this:
… or this:
Tough call.
In the blitzy, blurry, quickfire world of the Internet, ten years is a long time for a blog to exist and thrive. The readers and writers have been part of something important here. And we want to celebrate. So we thought … how about a book? What if we compiled some standout blog posts from the past ten years — the funny ones, the touching ones, the angsty ones, the inspirational ones — and printed them up all nice? What if we selected some based on how they fit into the ten-year timeline, showing the progression of our community, and others based on pure popular vote? What if we added essays from readers?
And that’s what we’re gonna do, friends. In the next few months, you’ll see occasional posts that ask you to read a few posts and then weigh in by voting for your favorite. By the end of 2014 (fingers crossed!), we should have a shiny volume available for purchase and display, full of classic posts and a few brand new offerings.
While I busy myself with reading through the archives and whittling down the contenders, here’s how you can get involved:
Option 1: Submit an essay
Since the book is a celebration of fMh’s first ten years, we’re especially interested in essays that feature the blog in some way. For example, you might write about how you came to discover fMh, a particular blog post that helped you at a pivotal time in your life, friendships you’ve made through the fMh community, or your own faith/feminism journey over the last ten years. We’re still in the early-early stages of creating the book, so I can’t offer any firm parameters or deadlines just yet, but if you want to start thinking about and writing a possible submission, please do! You can send polished drafts to feministmormonhousewives [at] gmail [dot] com.
Option 2: Suggest your personal favorites
Do any previous posts really stand out in your memory? Are there ones you return to often for hope or insight? In the comment section below, feel free to share links to or titles of any posts that you especially love. (Heads up: including a lot of links in a single comment may cause it to be caught in the spam filter, but the moderators will set it free eventually.)
Thanks for your part in the first ten years, and I hereby raise my aluminum can of Diet Coke to wish us another ten to come.