Literary Pixie

How to Value Your Own Thoughts

By Samantha Emily Evans

In 2019, after a series of traumas that were too powerful to simply write about and keep on being a manic pixie dream girl, I had to take action.

I didn’t feel safe enough to use my real name or to accept my thoughts and feelings, and thus, I created a fictional character to speak for me. Sammy Ginsberg.

After years of therapy, I realize now in order to survive challenges that I didn’t have the support or skills to handle, my brain decided the best way to cope was to disassociate.

For six weeks, I let Sammy Ginsberg take control of my life and speak for me. That’s when I wrote and published How to Value Your Own Thoughts, here for you to read now.

I took it off my blog for years while I pursued a job as a teacher. Now, I have decided to just be a teacher.

My hopes in sharing my blovel is to discuss the ideas within it and support each other in our experiences while being humans on this planet that we call home.

Thank you for reading!

Love,

Sammy

Introducing Sammy Ginsberg

Hi Again!

The First Time

If You Want to Cry, You Cry

How Not to Quit Your Job

The Bad Bitch is Back

10 Things to do before my 28th Birthday

1. Go on a month long trip around England visiting four literature festivals and blog about them, call it the Literary March.

Tamworth Literature Festival

Boring or a Bitch

Shouldagone

What did you think?

Essex Book Festival

Silence

Indecision

Imbalance

STEM

Self-Validation

Seeking Validation

The Price of Validation

Teignmouth Poetry Festival

Solo-Female Traveler

Poetry is Radical Genuineness

The Ecstasy of Nothing

High Desire for Sex

Cry Like a Man

Ghosting

The Definition of an Asshole

Why Not to Drink Tequila

A Bad Sexual Experience

Was It My Fault?

Most Likely Bisexual

You Can Suck My Clit

Never Ever Getting a Boyfriend Ever Again Ever

Nod and Smile

Buy the Cow

Huddersfield Literature Festival

Crazy for Loving You

A shaggy goat with a red decorative item around its neck stands on a desolate landscape by a body of water, with mountains in the background and a sunset sky.
William Holman Hunt: The Scapegoat, 1854.

References

Poems

Songs

Places

People

  • Anthony Poulton-Smith is a freelance journalist and author, with 94 books. He has worked as a ghost-writer and written many articles, innumerable crosswords and puzzles. Most of his books are about the origins of place-names and travel from yesteryear.
  • Sianne Ngai is a writer who teaches at University of Chicago. She completed her PhD at Harvard in 2000. Her research interests are in aesthetic theory, critical theory, American literature, feminist and queer studies, and cultural studies with books Ugly Feelings, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting; The Theory of Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgement and Capitalism Form; and Ugly Thinking.
  • Sara Maitland was born in 1950, the second of six children. She studied English Literature at Oxford University. Her first novel, Daughter of Jerusalem, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1978. Since then she has published novels, non-fiction (especially theology) and short stories. She has two children and a granddaughter, but lives on her own in as much silence as possible on a high moor in S.W. Scotland.
  • Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. Her bestselling collection of Dear Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things, was adapted for a Hulu television show and as a play that continues to be staged in theaters nationwide. Strayed’s other books are the critically acclaimed novel, Torch, and the bestselling collection Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes. Her books have sold more than 5 million copies around the world and have been translated into forty languages. Her award-winning essays and short stories have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, and elsewhere. Strayed has also made two hit podcasts, Dear Sugars, which she co-hosted with Steve Almond, and Sugar Calling. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
  • Steve Almond is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His recent books include the novel All the Secrets of the World, which has been optioned for television by 20th Century Fox, and William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life. For four years, Steve hosted the New York Times Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed. He is the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant in fiction, and his short stories have been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica, and Best American Mysteries series. He also publishes crazy, DIY books.
  • Oprah Winfrey is an American actress, author, producer, talk show host, and media proprietor. Her syndicated daily talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, ran from 1986–2011 and was a genre favorite. Winfrey is a prominent philanthropist and the first African American woman billionaire.
  • WH Auden was a British-American poet. Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.
  • Marsha Linehan is the developer of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a treatment originally developed for the treatment of suicidal behaviors and since expanded to treatment of borderline personality disorder and other severe and complex mental disorders, particularly those that involve serious emotion dysregulation. In comparison to all other clinical interventions for suicidal behaviors, DBT is the only treatment that has been shown effective in multiple trials across several independent research sites. It has been shown both effective in reducing suicidal behavior and cost-effective in comparison to both standard treatment and community treatments delivered by expert therapists. It is currently the gold-standard treatment for borderline personality disorder.
  • The Snuts are a Scottish indie rock band formed in 2015, originating from West Lothian, Scotland.
  • William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism. These features were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, according to whom the world itself should be read as a system of visual signs. For Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. Of all the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt remained most true to their ideals throughout his career. He was always keen to maximize the popular appeal and public visibility of his works.
  • Allen Ginsberg was a prominent American poet and writer who led the Beat Generation, a 1950s literary movement that rejected traditional values. He’s best known for his poem “Howl”, which became internationally famous after an obscenity trial in 1957. The long poem, which begins “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”, captured the frustration of many Americans, particularly young people and minorities, with the social conditions of the 1950s.
  • Ariana Grande is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. Grande became famous for her role as Cat Valentine in the Nickelodeon shows Victorious (2010–2013) and Sam & Cat (2013–2014). In 2011, she signed with Republic Records and released her debut album Yours Truly in 2013. Known for her four-octave vocal range and whistle register, Grande has won two Grammys, a BRIT Award, and numerous other awards.
  • Roger McGough is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children’s author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please, as well as performing his own poetry.
  • Jacqueline Saphra  is a poet and writer. Her debut collection The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions was nominated for the Aldeburgh Prize. Works since then include If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women and A Bargain with the Light: Poems after Lee Miller.
  • Christina Rossetti is a poet who lived from 1830 to 1894 in London. She came from a family of great thinkers and artists, most notably her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a founding member of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. She is considered be one of the greatest poets of the Victorian period.

Books & Articles & Podcasts

Literary Pixie Dictionary

  • asshole: noun, a person who has treated you like you are stupid, when you are intelligent and deserve equal treatment and respect.
  • boyfriend: noun, a man or boy that a person is having a romantic or sexual relationship with
  • girlfriend: noun, a heterosexual female possessing those traits and characteristics which are conducive to a heterosexual male’s ideal of a committed, romantic companion.
  • lover: noun, Someone you have or have had sexual relations with who you like very much and continue to care about and emotionally support often without rules around exclusivity.