Rickey Diamond
asked
Rickey Gard Diamond:
Since you're not an economist, why and how did you write Screwnomics?
Rickey Gard Diamond
Whatever my work, I always looked to money and economics for unraveling problems and understanding power and how things get done. I grew up and began writing in Michigan, where huge economic and political changes were happening. In the 80s, I moved my family to Vermont where I was a grad student and a then-single mom, but also working full-time. I edited a statewide newspaper on poverty issues, and in 1985, became founding editor of Vermont Woman, which continues to publish today.
Later I helped Community Action establish a Vermont food bank, a parent child center, and a domestic violence service, but I continued to write for Vermont Woman as a contributing editor. I went on to teach writing and literature, feminist and media studies at Vermont College of Norwich University for over 20 years, while publishing articles and short fiction. In 1999, Calyx Books published my novel, Second Sight, which was republished by HarperCollins in 2000. My short fiction, published in literary journals, came out in 2017, titled, Whole Worlds Could Pass Away: Collected Stories. Even in my fiction, I include social and economic changes, and how these affect people.
I wasn’t alone. Women's literature often looks at money, and my seminars at Vermont College reflected this intertwined interest, as did my work at Vermont Woman. In 2008, I presented at the NOW Economic Summit in Atlanta, just months before the crash. I titled it, “The Skewed Language of Economics is Greek to Me or How can We Grow a Sexy Economic Ecology?” I had read widely, taken some classes, and had noticed the deliberate obfuscation of economic language, and the sexual messaging behind money. It was the opposite of love-making. I’d also noticed money’s ownership by a relatively small number of elite men.
So I learned about healthier alternatives. In 2011, I wrote a series of articles on my economic research, called “An Economy of our Own,” aimed at women, who were in short supply on Wall Street and wherever big decisions about money were made. In 2012, I won a National Newspaper Association award for Best Investigative or In-Depth Series. It cited my “atypical” sources—by which, I think they meant women!
In 2014, I was awarded a Hedgebrook fellowship to work on what by then I had named Screwnomics. I had decided I needed to tell an economy “story,” in a more personal voice than “news” allowed. I had also convinced Peaco Todd, one of my faculty colleagues at Vermont College, that Screwnomics needed cartoons about women’s lives. Our laughter together has been a mainstay of this work, as we’ve continued to post Sunday toons on Screwnomics’ Facebook page and Twitter.
Call us “amateurs,” and I don’t mind. The Latin root of amateur is “ama,” meaning love. That’s exactly what this current love-starved economy most needs!
Whatever my work, I always looked to money and economics for unraveling problems and understanding power and how things get done. I grew up and began writing in Michigan, where huge economic and political changes were happening. In the 80s, I moved my family to Vermont where I was a grad student and a then-single mom, but also working full-time. I edited a statewide newspaper on poverty issues, and in 1985, became founding editor of Vermont Woman, which continues to publish today.
Later I helped Community Action establish a Vermont food bank, a parent child center, and a domestic violence service, but I continued to write for Vermont Woman as a contributing editor. I went on to teach writing and literature, feminist and media studies at Vermont College of Norwich University for over 20 years, while publishing articles and short fiction. In 1999, Calyx Books published my novel, Second Sight, which was republished by HarperCollins in 2000. My short fiction, published in literary journals, came out in 2017, titled, Whole Worlds Could Pass Away: Collected Stories. Even in my fiction, I include social and economic changes, and how these affect people.
I wasn’t alone. Women's literature often looks at money, and my seminars at Vermont College reflected this intertwined interest, as did my work at Vermont Woman. In 2008, I presented at the NOW Economic Summit in Atlanta, just months before the crash. I titled it, “The Skewed Language of Economics is Greek to Me or How can We Grow a Sexy Economic Ecology?” I had read widely, taken some classes, and had noticed the deliberate obfuscation of economic language, and the sexual messaging behind money. It was the opposite of love-making. I’d also noticed money’s ownership by a relatively small number of elite men.
So I learned about healthier alternatives. In 2011, I wrote a series of articles on my economic research, called “An Economy of our Own,” aimed at women, who were in short supply on Wall Street and wherever big decisions about money were made. In 2012, I won a National Newspaper Association award for Best Investigative or In-Depth Series. It cited my “atypical” sources—by which, I think they meant women!
In 2014, I was awarded a Hedgebrook fellowship to work on what by then I had named Screwnomics. I had decided I needed to tell an economy “story,” in a more personal voice than “news” allowed. I had also convinced Peaco Todd, one of my faculty colleagues at Vermont College, that Screwnomics needed cartoons about women’s lives. Our laughter together has been a mainstay of this work, as we’ve continued to post Sunday toons on Screwnomics’ Facebook page and Twitter.
Call us “amateurs,” and I don’t mind. The Latin root of amateur is “ama,” meaning love. That’s exactly what this current love-starved economy most needs!
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