Red Hen Press, the Pasadena nonprofit publisher, has released “Nine Grudges: The Spiteful Origins of the Happiest Dyke on Earth,” the debut memoir by the Tucson storyteller and comedian Molly McCloy.
The book turns on a letter. In 1992, at 22 and on the cusp of her college graduation in Olympia, Washington, McCloy wrote to her father asking him to apologize for nine instances of mental, verbal and physical abuse. He wrote back. The memoir revisits each of the nine grudges, and asks whether holding one can be a more powerful act than forgiveness.
The manuscript won the 2023 Quill Prose Award, Red Hen’s annual prize for a work of prose by a queer writer, which carries $1,000 and publication. Carlos Allende judged that year, according to Poets & Writers. The same manuscript won first place for nonfiction in the 2023 Book Pipeline “Unpublished” contest.
McCloy is a four-time winner of The Moth’s StorySLAM and a Lambda Literary fellow. She holds a master of fine arts in nonfiction from The New School, teaches writing at Pima Community College in Tucson and performs stand-up there. Her storytelling was profiled in O magazine in 2018, and excerpts from the memoir have appeared in Blue Mesa Review and Foglifter.
KJZZ, the Phoenix public radio station, interviewed McCloy on its program “The Show” in March about the approach behind the book — using humor and a sense of agency to write about the abuse she suffered as a child — and about the trauma writing lessons she publishes on Substack.
Advance praise came from writers working similar ground. “Nine Grudges grabs hold of you like a best friend ready to divulge terrible, wonderful secrets. Funny, soulful, absolutely unafraid to look life in the eye, Molly McCloy’s tough and tender voice is addictive. An electric debut!” wrote Michelle Tea, author of “Knocking Myself Up,” in a blurb the press published. The novelist Ann Cummins compared McCloy’s voice to Dorothy Allison’s in “Bastard Out of Carolina.”
McCloy will celebrate the book’s release with a launch party at Red Hen Press’ offices and event space at 1540 Lincoln Ave. in Pasadena on Saturday, September 19, at 4 p.m. Attendees can RSVP at https://partiful.com/e/c98mdtDwGYLjPnbaWeef?c=LqSlFRYk.
Red Hen Press was founded in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull and publishes poetry, literary fiction and nonfiction from 1540 Lincoln Ave. in Pasadena. It describes itself as the oldest nonprofit literary publisher in Los Angeles, and it announced nine new board members on Sept. 3.
The press also told supporters in June that it faces what it called a serious financial threat, with losses leaving a funding gap of approximately $500,000, and that without additional support it will be forced to make critical decisions about its future.
Its 32nd annual benefit gala is set for Nov. 8 at the Palladio Banquet Hall in Glendale, an evening of dinner, readings and a live auction. McCloy is among the authors hosting tables, the press said.
