News related to Dora: A Headcase

by Lidia Yuknavitch

Joan of Arc Sci-Fi Movie in Works Based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s Novel (EXCLUSIVE) by Dave McNary, Variety

03 Mar 2017|

Scott Steindorff and Dylan Russell of Stone Village Productions have won a competitive auction for movie rights to Lidia Yuknavitch’s sci-fi novel “The Book of Joan.”

The book is a re-telling of the Joan of Arc saga in a terrifying future where the heroine has emerged to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed. A group of rebels unite to dismantle the iron rule of a dictator, galvanized by the heroic song of Joan, a child-warrior who possesses a mysterious force.

“I am...Forward

The beauty of being a misfit, by Helen Walters

05 Jan 2017|

Misfit is a funny word. And yet even for those who don’t, as Lidia Yuknavitch does, identify as a “card-carrying misfit,” it likely brings along a twang of recognition. After all, everyone everywhere has experienced at least a moment or two when, actually, everything everywhere didn’t seem to fit quite right. Right?

As a writer and memoirist, Yuknavitch is also the patron saint of misfits. And she came to TED in 2016 to reassure her compadres in the room—“I’m never the only one”—and in her...Forward

Lidia Yuknavitch included in “Top 10 talks from TED 2016,” by Kevin Chesters

25 Feb 2016|

Nothing gets the brain cells sizzling quite like the TED conference. After taking in 100 of the stimulating talks and demos last week, Kevin Chesters, executive planning director at Mcgarrybowen, picks out those you simply cannot afford to miss.

7. Lidia Yuknavitch
Her presentation was probably the one I remember most from the week. She gave a spellbinding talk on what it is to be a misfit, taking us through her life that has involved two failed marriages, dropping out of college, prison, and...Forward

The misfit’s journey: Writer Lidia Yuknavitch tells her story at TED2016. Posted by: Kate Torgovnick May

19 Feb 2016|

“You can be a drunk. You can be an abuse survivor. You can be an ex-con. You can be a homeless person,” she says. “You can lose all your money or your job or your husband or your wife or, the worst thing of all, a child. You can even lose your marbles.


“You can be standing dead center in the middle all of your failure,” she says, “and still I’m only here to tell you: you are so beautiful and your story deserves to be heard. Because you, you rare and phenomenal misfit—you new...Forward

“The Woolf Girl,” by Catherine Hollis, Public Books

17 Dec 2015|

Narrative tropes reoccur across Yuknavitch’s work, both fiction and nonfiction: the stillborn daughter, the filmmaker husband and son, violent sex, and the redemptive power of art. In Yuknavitch’s antic novel Dora: A Headcase, a hilarious retelling of Freud’s infamous case history, a ragtag bunch of teenage art punks turn the camera on Freud himself. Though primarily narrated by Ida/Dora, here the art collective wrests power from the authoritative case history. When Yuknavitch’s Freud...Forward

“The Wild, Remarkable Sex Scenes of Lidia Yuknavitch,” by Garth Greenwell for The New Yorker

25 Aug 2015|

The Small Backs of Children is Yuknavitch’s second novel, and her first book to appear from a major press. (She’s also the author of a memoir, The Chronology of Water, and three books of short fiction, two of them with the avant-garde publisher Fiction Collective Two.) In all of her work, sex, violence, and art are inextricably linked. Her new novel centers on a photograph of a girl taken in an unnamed, war-torn Eastern European country, her image haloed in fire, captured at the moment when...Forward

Behind the Curtain: Meet the People Who Make the Portland Art World Possible. Who really creates high culture’s high season? The local specialists behind the scenes. By Fiona McCann for Portland Monthly Magazine

24 Aug 2015|

PAGE MAKER


The designer behind every Hawthorne book


Adam McIsaac: CREATIVE DIRECTOR / Hawthorne Books


Forty-one books, on subjects ranging from Portland food to lobotomies: that’s the entire oeuvre of Hawthorne Books since the small independent publisher started in 2001. Adam McIsaac has designed—from cover to cover and each page in between—every single one. “Every letter in those things, I’ve touched, for good or ill,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated by the shape of...Forward

The Rumpus Interview with Lidia Yuknavitch, by Alden Jones

13 Jul 2015|

Sometime in 2011, at the house of friends in Portland, Oregon, I idly picked up and began to read the book sitting on the side table. It was a paperback bound in a strip of gray paper by an author whose name was unfamiliar to me. Within the hour, I looked up and said to my host, “Either you are giving this book to me or you’re going to need to walk me to Powell’s, because I’m not getting on a plane back to Boston without this book.”

The book was Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The...Forward

Lidia Yuknavitch in conversation with Louse Bak on Sex City CIUT 89.5 FM

03 Dec 2014|

Lidia Yuknavitch discusses aspects of Dora: A Headcase with Louise Bak on Sex City, Toronto’s only radio station exploring sexuality and culture with depth, CIUT 89.5 fm. The show runs Tuesdays 11 pm Toronto Eastern.

To listen go to Sex City, CIUT 89.5 FM.

“The Story You Made of Me: An Interview Lidia Yuknavitch about Dismissed Narratives,” by Elle Nash for the Lit Reactor

21 Nov 2014|

Elle Nash:You are known for being a champion of owning your sexual/personal narrative in a world that tries to own it for you, from your body of work, to your workshops, to your work as a professor in helping others reclaim theirs. What motivated you to help others find their own voice?


Lidia Yuknavitch: Well to begin with, people helped me pull myself out of the gutter and discover an artistic path. I’d likely be dead, incarcerated, or just numb beyond words had key people in my life not...Forward

Lidia Yuknavitch’s work used as an example of Good Sex Writing: “What, then, makes ‘good’ sex writing?... anything by Lidia Yuknavitch.”

14 Nov 2014|

What, then, makes “good” sex writing? Deeper, more all-encompassing sex writing? Read Dorianne Laux’s poem “The Lovers,” Michelle Latiolais’s short story collection Widow, or anything by Lidia Yuknavitch. These are women who don’t separate sex — from language, from story, from what it means to be imperfectly human.

To read the entire article go to Bustle.

Caleb Powell’s Arguments Worth Having: Interviews/Conversations includes Hawthorne authors: Poe Ballantine, Gregory Martin, Frank Meeink, David Shields, and Lidia Yuknavitch

25 Sep 2014|

Caleb Powell is a writer, teacher and family man who lives in Seattle.

To read his interviews with Hawthorne authors and Eula Biss. Andie Trosper DeRoux, Saadia Haq, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Ander Monson, Peter Mountford, and Jervey Tervalon, go to Arguments Worth Having.

Welcome to Late Night Conversation. Tonight our featured guest is Tom Spanbauer in conversation with guest host, Lidia Yuknavitch.

15 Jul 2014|

Welcome to Late Night Conversation. Tonight our featured guest is Tom Spanbauer in conversation with guest host, Lidia Yuknavitch. Tom’s latest novel I Loved You More was recently published by Hawthorne Books. Other titles by Tom Spanbauer include Faraway Places, The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon, and Now Is The Hour.

Lidia Yuknavitch is a Portland-based author with titles available from Hawthorne Books. Lidia’s books include The Chronology of Water: A Memoir and the novel Dora: A...Forward

NOLA Studiola: Lidia Yuknavitch, by NolaVie

01 Jul 2014|

NOLA StudiolaWhat makes you laugh?

Lidia YuknavitchMy son makes me laugh, because his heart is still filled with the purity of children and his way of seeing and feeling the world is better than the word “joy.” But I also often bust a gut laughing when our human vulnerabilities are exposed without anyone suffering … little daily occurrences where our bofusness slips through … like when I walked around an entire day with my skirt on inside out, mistaking the attention for “damn, I...Forward

Tom Spanbauer, Chuck Palahniuk, and Lidia Yuknavitch at PNCA hosted by Monica Drake

18 Apr 2014|

Monica Drake at PNCA hosts a reading event with Tom Spanbauer, Chuck Palahniuk, and Lidia Yuknavitch at PNCA.

Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water discussed in Claire Dederer’s “Why Is It So Hard for Women to Write About Sex?” for The Atlantic

20 Feb 2014|

Not having sex, overthinking sex: the memoir’s swerve into unfamiliar interior spaces could be mistaken for the embattled retreat of fierce female desire. But The Chronology of Water, which barely created a ripple when it appeared in 2011, has lately achieved cult status as a testament to the opposite. Lidia Yuknavitch, a writer in Portland, Oregon, imparts a visceral power to the experience of lust, a power unmatched in any recent account I can think of. Hers is a tale from the edge: abusive...Forward

Katherine Brooks of Big Easy Pictures Options Lidia Yuknavtich’s Dora: A Headcase

22 Jan 2014|

Katherine Brooks has directed prominent television shows, as well as written and directed films which received acclaim. Her film and television credits include three seasons of the Emmy Award winning show The Osbournes, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, and MTV’s groundbreaking The Real World. While associated with MTV, she helmed the network’s There and Back, with Ashley Parker Angel and Tiffany Lynn, Meet the Barkers with Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, and directed and produced The Simple Life...Forward

Les Editions Denoel published Dora: A Headcase in France and will also be publishing Chronology of Water. Vive la France!

03 Dec 2013|

Les Editions Denoel published Dora: A Headcase in France and will also be publishing Chronology of Water.

Author photo by Andrew Kovalev.

Vive la France!

Lidia Yuknavitch Judges 2013-14 Doug Fir Award

02 Sep 2013|

From The Bear Deluxe:

$1,000 prize, publication, residency and manuscript review

The Bear Deluxe is excited to present the 2013-14 Doug Fir Fiction Award. We are pleased to welcome Lidia Yuknavitch as this year’s judge and to have Hawthorne Books and Ashland Creek Press as new partners along with the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.

September 3rd is the deadline, to read submission requirements, go to The Bear Deluxe.

Les Éditions Denoël releases Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel, Dora: A Headcase

30 Aug 2013|

French publisher Les Éditions Denoël releases Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel, Dora: A Headcase.

Lidia Yuknavtich’s Dora: A Headcase in Italiano!

17 May 2013|

Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel, Dora: A Headcase, out in Italy, molto bene!

Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dora: A Headcase reviewed by Persephone Magazine

03 May 2013|

A Declaration: Lidia Yuknavitch has done more for “the body as art form” than anyone in recent memory. Read Dora, and if you haven’t already, read The Chronology of Water.

To read the entire review, go to Persephone Magazine.

Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dora: A Headcase included in Flavorwire’s “21 Books Written by and About Women That Every Man Should Read”

12 Apr 2013|

Yuknavitch’s protagonist, the 17-year-old Ida, is a modern reincarnation of Freud’s famous bisexual case study Dora, whom our most famous shrink deemed “hysterical.” Ida may be a bit “hysterical” too — but she’s taking back the term. She’s raunchy, irreverent, filled with the desire to strip naked in the middle of “Nordfucks” or shave her head, sidekicked by a beautiful gang of weirdos. “I want to create new girl myths,” Yuknavitch said of the book. We think everyone...Forward

The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Scarboro and Lidia Yuknavitch by Roxane Gay

03 Apr 2013|

The RumpusWhat do you look for in a memoir? What stands out to you as “good?”

Lidia YuknavitchI look for the moment(s) in the story where the writer risked abandoning the glory of the self in favor of the possible relationship with an other. I don’t ever let the market tell me what a memoir is. The first best memoir I ever read was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. See what I mean? I also thought of The Lover by Marguerite Duras as a memoir. Most of Carole Maso’s books and Kathy...Forward

The Plumas Weekly: Feather River College’s Online Newspaper on Lidia Yuknavitch

02 Apr 2013|

Simply stated: She is important. Read. Her. Now.—Margaret Elysia Garcia

To read the entire post go to The Pumas Weekly.

Kait from the PDXX Collective interviews Lidia Yuknavitch

07 Mar 2013|

KaitWhat does sex do for a story?

Lidia I come from such a weird angle because I think desire and sexuality are in language. My job is to find the writing path that will surface that idea. In a way, I’m a little bit against the inserted sex scene because I don’t think that it happens in our bodies and real life, so why should we do that in our writing? The Americanized, market-driven sex scene dislocates sex from our real experience. I teach a workshop on sex, death, and memoir. The first...Forward

The Rumpus Review for Dora: A Headcase is in! “Yuknavitch rattles us, and in this debut novel, as in her previous memoir, it is a worthy and beautiful ride.”

28 Feb 2013|

J.A. Tyler, at The Rumpus reviews Lidia Yuknavitch’s debut novel, Dora: A Headcase.


“Like Salinger’s Holden and Chbosky’s Charlie and de la Pena’s Sticky Boy and Green / Levithan’s Will Graysons, Yuknavitch has written a frightfully insightful voice of youth, mimicking the language of our texters and status-updaters but with an angst and propensity for violence so explosive it puts Holden to shame.”


To read the entire review, go to The Rumpus.

Lidia Yuknavitch (l) and Monica Drake (r) with k.d. lang at the John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders: A Benefit for the Children’s Cancer Association’s My Music Rx.

14 Feb 2013|

Lidia Yuknavitch and Monica Drake with k.d. lang last night at the John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders: A Benefit for the Children’s Cancer Association’s My Music Rx.  Also participating was Carrie Brownstein, Peter Buck, Sallie Ford, Ben Gibbard, k.d. lang, Storm Large, Scott McCaughey, Colin Meloy, Eugene Mirman, and Laura Veirs.

The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Kat Meads, By Lidia Yuknavitch

29 Jan 2013|

Editor’s Note: When I asked Rumpus fave, Lidia Yuknavitch, to interview the quiet-yet-provocative force that is Kat Meads, I knew something interesting would result. Meads, long drawn to the overlap between history and fiction and to exploring the private side of political movements, has recently released a slyly intelligent, subversive novel, For You, Madam Lenin, focusing on Vladimir Lenin’s wife, Nadya Krupskaya, as well as other women drawn in to his turbulent orbit, including his...Forward

Congratulations, Lidia Yuknavitch! Dora: A Headcase makes Powell’s Books Satff Top Five List!

12 Jan 2013|

Congratulations, Lidia Yuknavitch for Dora: A Headcase making the Satff Top Five. Kim H said,

Yuknavitch is such a literary badass.

And Doug C says,

Thank you, Lidia Yuknavitch, for the meatiest, most-fun, most-challenging-to-my-sense-of-how-far-you-can-push-things book of the year.

Vanessa Veselka, author of Zazen, includes Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dora: A Headcase in her Best of the Small Press 2012.

02 Jan 2013|

Vanessa Veselka, author of Zazen, includes Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dora: A Headcase in her Best of the Small Press 2012.

Congratulations, Lidia Yuknavitch, Dora: A Headcase one of DailyCandy’s Best Books of 2012!

31 Dec 2012|

From DailyCandy:

Lidia Yuknavitch’s contemporary retelling of Freud’s famous Dora case study substitutes Dora for a punk, tech-savvy Seattle teen who runs with a posse of artists that includes a gay boy, a lesbian, and a straight girl. The voice is equal parts humor and anger and made us feel 17 again.

Lidia Yuknavitch’s Ida Bauer one of Flavorwire’s The Best Literary Heroines of 2012

30 Dec 2012|

From Flavorwire:

17-year-old Ida is a modern reincarnation of Freud’s famous bisexual case study Dora, whom our most famous shrink deemed “hysterical.” Ida may be a bit “hysterical” too — but she’s so many more things: raunchy, irreverent, filled with the desire to strip naked in the middle of “Nordfucks” or shave her head, sidekicked by a beautiful gang of weirdos. Plus, she’s recording everything in her punked-out Dora the Explorer purse. “I want to create new girl...Forward

Hawthorne Books releases Dora: A Headcase

For immediate release 13 Sep 2012

Contact: Rhonda Hughes

503-327-8849 rhughes@hawthornebooks.com |

Independent publishing house Hawthorne Books today announced the availability of Dora: A Headcase, the debut novel from award-winning author and memoirist Lidia Yuknavitch.

The novel is a contemporary farce based on Freud’s famous case study—retold and revamped through Dora’s point of view, with shotgun blasts of dark humor and sexual play, and has been called the female Fight Club.

Dora: A Headcase received a starred review in the September issue of Publishers Weekly. Other articles,...Forward