J.K. Rowling took a break from owning trolls on Twitter to owning the BAFTAs red carpet on Sunday. 

The author looked straight-up magical in a long-sleeved, fitted maroon gown with a thigh-high slit. 

She paired the gown with purple pumps, a sparkly clutch and some serious statement earrings. 

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” took home an award for best production design, but we’d say Rowling herself won the award for best selfie of the night, posing with “Beasts” star Eddie Redmayne and Emma Stone.

Swoon. So much to obsess over, so little time. Check out the rest of the looks from the show: 

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No. Those who expressed their disappointment in Beyoncé losing the Album of the Year Award at Sunday Night’s Grammy Awards were not overreacting.

Yes, there are ostensibly “more important” things going on in the world than a multi-millionaire superstar losing one award on a night where she won two others, but it’s possible ― and even necessary ― to care about more than one thing at a time. 

And this is worth talking about. 

On a night that opened with a very political message from Jennifer Lopez who quoted Toni Morrison and said that “at this particular point in history, our voices are needed more than ever,” Beyoncé losing Album of the Year, the most important award of the night, felt like a much bigger loss than the usual award show snub. 

Adele’s “25” is a good album. It was an immensely successful album. After five years outside of the limelight, Adele came back with a highly anticipated record that sold over 8 million copies in the United States alone in 2016. “Lemonade” sold only 1.5 million.

If the criteria for Grammy wins was based solely on records sold, then maybe Adele’s win for Album of the Year would make more sense, maybe it would be easier to accept. But even Adele herself said on stage that she couldn’t “possibly accept this award,”(though she did) and that “The ‘Lemonade’ album is just so monumental.” 

She’s right. Again, “25” was a good album! But “Lemonade,” whether you enjoyed it or not, was a cultural event, a moment in which Beyoncé put all her personal, spiritual, and artistic cards on the table. It was a cohesive body of work that, as Beyoncé described it in her only acceptance speech of the night (for Contemporary Album) gave “voice to the pain,” and strength, of black women.

“Lemonade” said something and meant something to so many people, especially young women of color who saw themselves reflected in the stories and tableaux crafted by Beyoncé and her team (both in video and in song). Arguably the most popular black singer in the world had not only churned out a stellar piece of work, she’s also chosen for that work to be black as hell, specifically black, unavoidably black. 

Because of “Lemonade,” phrases like “Becky with the good hair” and “Jackson Five nostrils” and “hot sauce in my bag” entered the mainstream lexicon. While others tried to claim them, dismantle them, and rework them for their own use, they still remained to intrinsically ours, so intrinsically black. That was huge. That was a moment. 

Lauryn Hill was the last black woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. That was in 1999. Since then, Beyoncé has become the most-nominated woman ever at the show, with a whopping 62 nominations. Of the three times she’s been nominated for Album of The Year, she’s lost out to Taylor Swift, Beck, and now Adele. As Adele said to the press Sunday night, “What the fuck does [Beyoncé] have to do to win Album of the Year?”

The disappointment and even the outrage flooding Twitter and Facebook in the aftermath of Bey’s snub should really come as no surprise. The Grammys have a long legacy of using important and popular black artists like Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar to boost ratings while failing to give them the big noms and awards of the night. But, damn.

If even Beyoncé can’t get the top award of the night for a record like “Lemonade,” after turning in an incredible performance (while pregnant with twins, no less), what exactly does that say about the black experience in America? Seriously? Yes, Beyoncé is the winner of many awards. She’s rich and successful and has definitely benefited in the past from her light skin and bleached locks. It’s interesting how, now that she’s incorporated her blackness and her politics more explicitly in her music, no longer here to just grind and sing catchy love songs to the masses, the systemic realities of being a proudly black woman in a white-dominated industry have come to light. 

What’s important to remember is that Beyoncé is an artist. And that’s what’s so frustrating about America’s love of black culture. So often, black entertainment is sought after and greedily consumed, but it’s delegitimized as art because of its inherent blackness. Look at the histories of black musical art forms like jazz and hip-hop, cultural phenomenons that were looked on as nothing but fads until they were validated by white audiences and artists who consumed and regurgitated them for the mainstream. 

That’s why “Lemonade” has meant so much to so many black people who needed (and continue to need) an album like this to exist. It’s nice that Adele said something in that moment up on stage. Though some chafed at her mention of what “Lemonade” meant not only to her but to her “black friends,” the album’s significance as a specifically powerful black cultural moment should have been acknowledged, and celebrated. It’s sad that it wasn’t the Recording Artists Academy that thought that was worth celebrating.  

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Beyoncé and Adele stole the show during the live portion of the 59th annual Grammy Awards, but the pre-telecast ceremony had a must-see heartwarming moment courtesy of Jesse & Joy. 

The brother and sister duo took home a golden gramophone for Best Latin Pop Album for their LP “Un Besito Más,” the chart-topping group’s first Grammy ever. The win was emotional for the siblings because of the album’s connection to their late father, who died in 2013. 

 “Oh my God, I’m going to try not to make it a habit to cry every time,” Joy Huerta said on behalf of the group. “We want to thank God, our fans, the Academy. This means so much to us. The name of the album ‘Un Besito Más’ is a song we wrote for our daddy who passed away.”

And ahead of the live ceremony that was filled with messages of political resistance, Jesse & Joy dedicated their Grammy to Hispanics and marginalized groups in the United States. 

“We are so proud to be Mexican-American, so this goes to all the Hispanics out there in this country,” Joy Huerta said. “To every minority group, we are with you, we stand with you.”

Jesse & Joy shared a video of their speech on their Instagram, with a Spanish and English caption that read: “This is for all the #Latinos all over the world!!!

The duo, who earned their first Grammy nomination in 2013 for their album “¿Con Quién Se queda el Perro?,” also shared a message of unity via a press release shortly after their win.

“We are overwhelmed with joy and honored to receive such recognition for this album, which has been so special to us and dedicated to the memory of our dear father,” the group said in their press statement. “Our world is faced with difficult times and we are just grateful that as Mexican-Americans our music can be heard across the globe and hopefully make a positive impact towards human love and respect regardless of race, nationality or religion.”

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As the results of the 2016 presidential election trickled in on Nov. 8, 2016, all eyes were suddenly glued to the center of the electoral map: Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin ― Midwestern states that had previously swung Democratic ― were looking likely to go for Republican candidate Donald Trump. And they did (Michigan and Wisconsin by impossibly slim margins), allowing Trump to eke out a surprise victory. 

Though the Midwestern states typically enjoy attention during presidential elections, this unexpected outcome has sparked a lasting fascination among liberals and pundits who can’t understand how they got it so wrong. What’s really going on in the middle of the country?

To writer and critic Mark Athitakis, it’s not so difficult to understand ― at least if you’ve been paying attention. His slim new book, The New Midwest: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction of the Great Lakes, Great Plains, and Rust Belt, dives deep into Midwestern literature, unpacking the mythology of the region and how today’s writers are complicating our simple idea of the Heartland. “There are some things that make [the Midwest] specific and some things that make it unique,” he told The Huffington Post in a phone interview, “but I think it would be helpful if we got past this conversation ... that everybody in the Midwest is all this one way.”

For those who have been reading the great Midwestern fiction of recent years ― Marilynne Robinson’s Iowa novels, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House, Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, and even out-of-print works like Divine Days by Leon Forrest and On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch ― it’s clear that the region is more than a cesspool of white resentment, but also more than a simple place full of homespun virtue and redemptive hard work. Athitakis parses how the best Midwestern fiction punctures the region’s superficially comforting image and re-examines its past to uncover a less idyllic, more troubled history. 

HuffPost spoke to Athitakis about The New Midwest, what we can learn about the Midwest from its great fictional chroniclers, and why it matters:

You write that you don’t really find it helpful to talk about the fiction of the Midwest as a piece, all together, and you break it out into different themes. Which to me raises the question: What even inspired you to write a book about Midwestern fiction if you don’t see it as a cohesive whole?

I think I wanted to unsettle the canon of Midwestern literature as we understood it. Even today, people will say, “Oh, Midwestern literature, of course that’s Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Saul Bellow, Nelson Algren.” I felt that’s one, two, maybe three generations past. What I was hoping to do here is raise some of these complications.

You’re absolutely right that there’s not a monolithic Midwest. There’s an urban Midwest, there’s a white Midwest, there’s a black Midwest, there’s a Hispanic Midwest. There’s various class strata in the Midwest. What I wanted to do was [...] take a look at some of these themes that seem to kind of adhere to the Midwest ― that it’s the region of hardworking immigrants, that it’s the region of sturdy families, it’s a region of farmlands, or even just in terms of the novel, that it is a place of the very four-square, conventional novel. And I thought that was a good framing device. Let’s take a look at the books that challenge those ideas of what the Midwestern novel is.

So for instance, when I was thinking about religion, obviously Marilynne Robinson is an important writer on that front. One thing that gets short shrift, I think, when a lot of critics write about Marilynne Robinson ― there is this reflex to say, “Oh, it’s about Iowa and it’s about religion,” and that there’s something sort of comforting about the way that she writes about faith. But these are kind of difficult books that deal with institutional racism and fractures within these Iowa communities. 

I don’t write much about Garrison Keillor, I think I only mention him in passing. But he’s maybe the most obvious example of “here’s what the sturdy, folksy Midwestern culture is.” And I don’t have a lot of abiding anger toward Garrison Keillor. I think in some ways he’s a good writer and an interesting entertainer. But that’s not the kind of Midwest that is interesting to me.

You also note that much of today’s Midwestern fiction that you’re interested in is set in the past rather than contemporary. Why do you think that is? Do you think that has something to do with the idea of unsettling the mythology of the Midwest?

It’s hard to say without interviewing every single individual author, but I think there’s plainly an urge to try to look at this and recapture it and maybe try to salvage it from the folklore that has attached to it.

I would say that’s pretty plain if you read the “Last Hundred Years” trilogy that Jane Smiley has published over the last three years. These three big, sweeping novels, which start out as seeming like it’s just going to be a fairly polite tale about an Iowa farm family, but I think maybe the more ... maybe sinister is the wrong word, but the more complicated argument that Jane Smiley is making is that what happens in this small Iowa farm town is something that radiates to encompass a lot of things that have happened in American culture in the past 100 years.

I think maybe that there is this feeling among a lot of writers that the Midwest as it’s been presented doesn’t really adhere to what a lot of the reality is.

To the extent that these novels recently are really grappling with social justice issues like race, gender, gender identity, etc., do you think there’s a particular concern with how these social justice issues manifest in the region, or is it of a piece with a national trend to write about these topics?

I think there’s a few ways to answer that question. I think certainly you can’t talk about the Great Migration without talking about the Midwest. I think that’s plain.

I close the book with a longer essay about a novel called Divine Days by Leon Forrest, who is an African-American novelist. He had started his career writing experimental fiction about the South. Toni Morrison was his editor. His final big book was this 1200-page epic that encompasses a black family that had migrated up to Chicago from New Orleans, deals with the legacy of slavery, deals with the relationships between black and white. It is, in many ways, a celebration of Chicago’s South Side culture even while it criticizes some of the cultural elements of it, especially when it comes to religion. I would say that is something that is a uniquely Chicago story, and a uniquely Midwestern story.

I think also a book like Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House deals very explicitly with the relationship of the African-American community to Detroit, and what kind of responsibility does a city like Detroit have toward its citizens, especially once the community starts collapsing. She does an interesting job of paralleling the larger civic collapse that happens in Detroit with what’s crippling that family that she writes about, who are forced to take on different paths because they have the support system of a family, but they don’t have that larger superstructure looking out for them.

Another one: Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You is an interesting look at what happens to an Asian-American family in Ohio in the 1970s, where they are treated as a foreign ... more of a curiosity, where I don’t think that would necessarily happen in a more pluralistic culture, say on the East Coast or the West Coast. So I think there are some unique aspects to the Midwest when it comes to that.

One book that I think didn’t get a lot of attention when it came out, and I think it’s an interesting example: Rachel Louise Snyder’s novel What We’ve Lost Is Nothing, which is set in Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Oak Park has become this long-running experiment in how you integrate a community. They have laws on the books that try to ensure black and white families live close to each other, because there are enough studies that show that integrated communities can be more successful, lower crime rates and that sort of thing. And she spotlights the sort of reflexive racism that still kicks in when events happen in this neighborhood.

It speaks to this perhaps stereotypically Midwestern spirit to try to enforce ways for different types and groups of people to get along, but also reveal some of the challenges connected to that.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the political aspect. I don’t know if you could have known, when you began writing this, how much the Midwest would have become the focus of political attention by now. What do you make of the conversations that have been had in the media and political circles about Midwestern voters recently and what needs to be done to speak to them?

I wrote the book pretty much in the first half of 2016, where Donald Trump was obviously a presence, but I think there was still a lot of wishful thinking going on that there really wasn’t going to be a lot of people voting en masse to make him the Republican nominee and the president. In some ways, I was as shocked as anybody, but once you saw how things broke down ... I’m not entirely shocked that this had happened, once I’d had a moment to think about it.

I did write a piece, “11 Works of Midwestern Fiction for the Trump Era.” Even though we’ve had eight years of Obama, we’ve had a long period, starting from the Rust Belt era in the ‘70s, where a lot of people who’ve been raised in manufacturing areas have been left behind and not a whole lot has been presented to them as opportunities to improve their status.

I don’t buy into the argument the Midwest is uniformly anything, but certainly not uniformly this hotbed of angry white racist resentment. I think there’s a pocket of that. If you even go back to read Joyce Carole Oates’s 1970 novel, Them, which is covering a lower-middle-class white family in Detroit, which does feel that sort of resentment about what’s going on in racial politics and feels very disassociated from it. So it certainly exists. I think there isn’t one reason that made the region go toward Trump, but I think there’s a variety of economic and cultural forces and long-standing frustrations that, perhaps if you read a little of the fiction of the region, wouldn’t come as so much of a surprise.

I don’t know if you saw, but President Obama gave an interview to The New York Times, and he talked about how much reading fiction helped him during his presidency, as a way to remind himself about broader truths. Do you think reading fiction about the Midwest is a really important way for politicians and citizens to connect with what’s going on in the country?

I think it certainly couldn’t hurt. I see these stories that come up every few months that say fiction helps improve our capacity for empathy, and part of me wants to say, even though I’m a book critic ― well, talking to people will do that as well! I think what we’re seeing here is we’re in an environment now where all of us need to develop our reflex for trying to understand where other people come from, or people who are different from our experiences, our economic backgrounds, our geographical backgrounds, our understanding of what politics means, our idea of what place means. 

I think there’s a little more urgency to remove ourselves from our bubbles. Maybe one way to start the conversation is to say that the Midwest is not a monolithic place. There are some things that make it specific and some things that make it unique, but I think it would be helpful if we got past this conversation to say that everybody in the Midwest is all this one way. Perhaps the book can do a little bit to spotlight some of the diversity of the region. 

Obama talked about the importance of stepping into somebody else’s shoes for a while, and I think that’s probably a very valuable thing to do these days. 

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To some, Feb. 13 is simply another box on the calendar ― 24 hours removed from a holiday both revered and reviled, but another day just the same.

To other, more enlightened individuals, Feb. 13 is Galentine’s Day, an occasion for women to celebrate their female friendships in the style of Leslie Knope. (If you haven’t seen that “Parks and Recreation” episode, well, it’s the best Galentine’s gift you could receive.)

One such enlightened individual is Lin-Manuel Miranda, the “Hamilton” creator and potential MacPEGOT-er who can put together a rousing Spotify playlist in his sleep. This Galentine’s day, he’s done just that, compiling a holiday-specific mixtape that pays homage to iconic ladies in music history. 

Queen Latifah, Florence, Santigold ― the girl gang’s all there. And unlike the Grammys, Miranda gave Beyoncé (Destiny’s Child, to be exact) the No. 1 spot she deserves.

Enjoy Galentine’s Day, ladies.

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Riz Ahmed, a fresh-faced candidate to become the internet’s newest boyfriend, rapped in a bathing suit on Sunday’s season premiere of “Girls.”

Here’s a GIF. You’re welcome.

On the heels of his Golden Globe-nominated role in the bleak miniseries “The Night Of” and his turn as a Rebel Alliance fighter in the battle-torn “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” it appears Ahmed is finally getting to have some fun.

On “Girls,” he plays Paul-Lewis, a Long Island surfing instructor who takes a liking to Hannah while she attempts to write an article about how wealthy women are co-opting the waves just like they co-opted yoga. Hannah being Hannah, she has no patience for surfing lessons or sand ― until Paul-Lewis shows her some special attention. (Beware spoilers below!) 

Out dancing one night, after Hannah spills some sort of red cocktail all over her bosom and grinds on the floor, Paul-Lewis steps up to the DJ booth for a little surprise: “Slow Jamz.” Ahmed displays his well-documented rap skills, ripping through one of Twista’s verses from the 2004 hit, featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx. Paul-Lewis flashes his nipple, plops his scantily clad leg on the table and crystallizes Hannah’s affection. “I’m gonna fuck him,” she screams from the crowd of supportive onlookers. She’s right.

As things tend to go for Hannah, not everything comes together seamlessly after she and Paul-Lewis sleep together. Turns out, he’s in an open relationship and his girlfriend is arriving in a few days. But Paul-Lewis has such surfer-groove charm that Hannah is drawn to him anyway. (Is she even still working on her article at this point?) He’s about to become a blip on her ostensibly maturing radar before being thrust back to the clamor of New York City. If only there were more! “Why get mad at fun, right?” Hannah asks reluctantly. 

It’s lovely to see Ahmed smile, something he hasn’t done much of onscreen since breaking out as Jake Gyllenhaal’s antsy assistant in 2014’s “Nightcrawler.” Paul-Lewis doles out wisdom from the School of Chill Vibes, like, “If you look down, you’re gonna fall down. That’s what I always say. Just like life.” He reflects a recurring “Girls” adage: escaping the big city provides a clarity and a sense of possibility only achieved through a temporary reprieve from the claustrophobia. Most importantly, he raps in a bathing suit. 

Thanks, Riz. We love to see you smile. 

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Gospel singer Shirley Caesar gave life to our social media feeds in November by inspiring the viral #UNameItChallenge. But her significance seems to have been lost on whoever created one of the video montages for this year’s Grammys. 

In the video dedicated to the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement Award winners, of which Caesar was this year’s recipient, viewers saw footage of fellow gospel singer Cece Winans where Caesar should have appeared.

Not only did the video’s creators seem misinformed as to what the singer looked like, they also misspelled her last name.

*Sighs.*

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World, repeat after us: “Asians do not all look the same.” 

Luxury fashion company Burberry tweeted a photo on Sunday of “Rogue One” actor Riz Ahmed at the British Academy Film Awards. But in a particularly cringeworthy move, the brand identified him as Dev Patel, who’d just won Best Actor In A Supporting Role at the ceremony. 

The company quickly deleted the photo and eventually tweeted correctly-identified pictures of both Ahmed and Patel. A spokesperson also released a statement, noting that Burberry said sorry to both actors individually and apologizes “unreservedly” for the embarrassing blunder. “This was a mistake that should not have happened and was corrected immediately,” the statement, obtained by Mashable, explained. 

Still, Twitter called Burberry out for confusing two actors of South Asian descent who just don’t look anything alike.

While we wish mix-ups like this were unprecedented, there’s been an unfortunate number of these incidents. Just last month, a fake news story identified Doris Truong, a Washington Post editor, as the Asian woman who’d snapped a photo of Rex Tillerson’s notes during his Senate confirmation hearing. 

“The woman at the hearing wasn’t me. I wasn’t there, and I don’t know who she is,” Truong wrote in the Post, regarding the story. “What we have in common is that we’re both women, and we’re both Asian.”

And in an isolated move days later, a photo of Noor Tagouri, a Muslim-American journalist, was attached to a story about Noor Salman, the wife of Orlando night club shooter Omar Mateen. 

So come on, people. Can we actually learn from Burberry’s mistake this time? 

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Since 2007, photographer Substantia Jones has celebrated Valentine’s Day by taking pictures of couples in love ― often in various states of undress. What separates her work from the barrage of lovesick images circulating the internet around this time of year, however, is that Jones’ subjects are fat. 

“There’s this curious misconception that fat people don’t experience love, sex and romance,” Jones explained in an email to The Huffington Post. “Or perhaps that they aren’t worthy of having satisfying relationships.”

Jones’ ongoing photo series hopes to do away with this false impression by generating stacks of images that too often remain invisible ― images of fat people in love affairs. The series is called “The Adipositivity Project” (adipose meaning “of or relating to fat”).

“Positive and neutral depictions of fat love certainly aren’t represented in media and culture, so folks assume they don’t exist,” Jones, who has described herself as “part fat, part feminism, part ‘fuck you,’” continued. “A common element in romantic love is the drive to proclaim it loudly. I want to bullhorn these proclamations [of fat love] as far as my photographs will reach.”

Along with depicting a wide range of body types, Jones also attempts to represent other communities often overlooked in mainstream depictions of romantic love, including participants of color, people with disabilities and LGBTQ individuals. This year’s series, for example, features an image of Sam, a trans man in bed with his partner. Sam penned a statement to accompany his image, which Jones passed on to HuffPost. 

“I was designated female at birth,” Sam said, “but my gender has always been male. When I was old enough to do something about it, I did [...] What is relevant is how at home I feel in my body now, how much easier it is to look in the mirror and be happy with what I see, how I’ve learned to accept and even love my body now in a way I never could before. My manhood isn’t defined by what’s between my legs, but how I live my life.”

Over the past decade, Jones has witnessed society evolve in its acceptance of bodies and relationships that depart from traditional norms, an advancement she values immensely. Yet in recent months, the artist reported noticing a break in forward momentum, in part, she says, because of the political climate that is throwing so many Americans off their usual course. 

“To be honest, after years of advancement in fat acceptance and awareness of sizeism, we seem to be stalled because of the political and social free fall we’re currently experiencing in the U.S.,” Jones said. “Quite understandable. Not only are we distracted by what’s happening to our country, and worried about the future, but we’re also occupied with protesting, phone banking and raising our collective voices in anger over our inept new government and the fascist policies they’re installing.

“Meanwhile sizeism continues. Weight bias continues. Young girls jeopardizing their health, happiness and even their lives for the sake of chasing an unattainable beauty ideal continues.”

This Valentine’s Day, take a moment to celebrate all the ways bodies can be. If you and your bae are interested in posing for a future shoot, contact Jones at adipositivity@gmail.com.

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Virginia Woolf ― legendary modernist author, preeminent intellectual and feminist thinker ― is finally getting a romantic biopic of her own.

It was revealed last year that Woolf’s romantic relationship with brilliant socialite and writer Vita Sackville-West would be portrayed in an upcoming film, “Vita and Virginia.” The movie, Variety recently reported, will star Eva Green (”Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”) as Woolf and Gemma Arterton (”Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters”) as Vita Sackville-West.

The film, which will span 1927 and 1928, is more directly based on a stage play by Eileen Atkins, who cowrote the film script with director Chanya Button. “‘Vita & Virginia’ will be a visceral love story, a vivid exploration of creativity, and an energized perspective on one of our most iconic writers,” Button told Variety.

Atkins, a devotee of Woolf who has previously played the author both in a one-woman show based on A Room of One’s Own and in her own “Vita and Virginia,” pieced together the play’s script from actual letters exchanged between the two lovers. In a 1991 interview regarding her one-woman show performance, Atkins emphasized the importance of using the author’s own words: “What’s interesting is what Virginia wrote herself,” she told The New York Times. “I didn’t see the point of doing a play about someone whose own work was so brilliant.”

Virginia Woolf’s emotionally tempestuous, boundary-pushing fiction was matched by her tragic but full biography: Born Virginia Stephen, she lost many of her beloved family members to various illnesses as a young girl. After a lifetime troubled by deep depression, she died by suicide at 59. 

Renderings of Woolf, such as the Nicole Kidman-starring film “The Hours,” often fixate on her mental health ― sometimes at the expense of other aspects of her vibrant life. In her 1991 interview with the Times, screenwriter Atkins repudiated the idea of Woolf as a dour, depressed figure. “People automatically think of suicides as desperate people, whereas actually I think Virginia was very sound, very sensible, very illuminating,” she said. “Everyone wanted her at parties.”

As a young woman, Woolf became a prominent intellectual and a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an influential salon of philosophers, writers and artists. Her fiction, which includes Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, as well as her nonfiction, most notably A Room of One’s Own, speaks for itself. She married writer Leonard Woolf, and they enjoyed an unconventional but deeply caring marriage; he provided emotional and domestic support for her career, and together the couple founded the Hogarth Press.

Then, of course, there’s Woolf’s passionate affair with Sackville-West. The couple met in 1922, when Woolf was 40. Sackville-West, a decade her junior, was married to Harold Nicolson, a politician and diplomat, but had already engaged in multiple long-term love affairs with other women. Their romance began as a friendship, with Woolf more tentative and shy about pursuing a sexual relationship, but the two became passionately devoted and remained so even after their romance fell apart.

Along with a number of gorgeous love letters, Sackville-West inspired Woolf’s unusual novel Orlando, a lyrical ode to a gender-shifting, heroic figure. In 1927, Woolf noted down the idea she’d had for the novel, describing the protagonist as “Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other.” The novel opens with Orlando as a 16th-century male nobleman, but he later wakes to find himself a woman: “Orlando stood stark naked. No human being, since the world began, has ever looked more ravishing. His form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman’s grace.”

Suffice to say that literary buffs, fans of period pieces and romance aficionados alike should be eagerly awaiting this film’s release.

H/T Jezebel

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It’s been only a few months since Cooper Hefner, Hugh Hefner’s 25-year-old son, took over as chief creative officer at Playboy. But the magazine is already shaking things up for the March/April issue.

Yes, Playboy is bringing nudity back.

On Monday, Hefner tweeted out a statement indicating that the magazine’s removal of nudity from its pages last year “was a mistake.” He elaborated further by saying the publication is “taking [their] identity back and reclaiming who [they] are.”

The magazine removed nudity from its pages last year, a move that was met with much criticism. Hefner himself had gotten into hot water with company executives when he publicly disagreed with the decision prior to his promotion to COO.

“I didn’t agree with the decision because I felt as though millennials and Gen-Y didn’t view nudity as the issue,” Hefner said in a video interview. “The issue was the way in which nudity and the girls were portrayed.”

His statements about the company reverting back to its roots with this year’s March/April issue echo those same sentiments.

“This is a remarkably special moment personally and professionally that I get to share this issue of Playboy magazine with my Dad, as well as with readers,” said Hefner in a press release. “It is a reflection of how the brand can best connect with my generation and generations to come.”

In addition to adding nudity, the March/April issue of Playboy will bring back some old franchises (”The Playboy Philosophy,” “Party Jokes,” etc.) and omit the phrase “Entertainment for Men” from the cover.  

Of the removal of that phrase, Hefner said that the magazine “will always be a lifestyle brand focused on men’s interests, but as gender roles continue to evolve in society, so will we.” 

The March/April issue features a slew of nude women, though notably not very diverse, as well as interviews with Van Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Scott, and the month’s playmates.

Playboy’s March/April 2017 issue is available for download at Playboy.com and hits newsstands nationwide on Feb. 28.

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A new series of uplifting cards is spreading a message of love and kindness in honor of Valentine’s Day.

Kindhearted Cards is the brainchild of Emily Barker, a creative advertising professional. Barker collaborated with some designer and teacher friends to create cards that espouse tolerance and celebrate differences.

“I think kindness is key, now more than ever,” Barker told The Huffington Post. “From ‘build the wall’ chants in the cafeteria to the countless off-camera acts of intolerance, it feels like an especially tough time for kids who may feel different from others. We all know voices of hate can be extremely loud, so I wanted to create a platform that amplifies messages of love and acceptance in time for Valentine’s Day.”

Parents and teachers can log onto the Kindhearted Cards website to print out the free cards and give them to children to sign and distribute to their classmates on February 14. The site also offers resources for parents to guide conversations with their kids about the value of differences and lesson plans that teachers can use to accompany the cards.

Kindhearted Cards has been successfully kid-tested, said Barker, who works for HuffPost’s parent company AOL. 

“A whole school did a pre-Valentine’s Day Week of Kindness and featured the cards,” she explained. “They really resonated with kids and encouraged them to appreciate what makes each of their classmates unique. I’ve also heard from a number of parents who have already printed the cards out for their kids to give out on Valentine’s Day.”

Although Barker does not have children, she said she has many young cousins and believes in the promise of kids to stand up for love and acceptance in the future. And she wants Kindhearted Cards to help inform their relationships with each other.

“I hope that kids have fun passing out these cute cards, and that there’s a lasting impact on continuing to celebrate diversity of all kinds,” Barker said. “I hope the cards provide more of an understanding of differences, and help kids walk away with a greater appreciation of what makes each of us unique.”

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Accio hilarity.

A bookstore owner stepped into a Twitter feud between British author J.K. Rowling and TV personality Piers Morgan ― and it’s straight up magical.

Over the weekend Rowling and Morgan got into quite the argument. It all started when Rowling tweeted how delighted she was to watch Morgan “being told to fuck off” by comedian Jim Jefferies on the latest “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

The author of the beloved “Harry Potter” series had apparently had enough of Morgan defending President Donald Trump’s travel ban on the HBO show.

Morgan, not appreciating the criticism, hit Rowling back.

Rowling, not one to back down from a Twitter tit-for-tat, tweeted this gem in response:

And that’s when Simon Key, the co-owner of Big Green Bookshop in North London, England, got involved.

He told Sky News that since Morgan “clearly spends all day on Twitter staring at his timeline” that he’d tweet the entirety of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at him.

On Feb. 11, Key tweeted out the first of a planned 32,567 tweets to Morgan.

Since then, Key has tweeted most of the book’s first chapter.

“Obviously I’m sending it in bitesize chunks,” Key told Sky News. “Which hopefully he’ll be able to cope with rather than giving him the daunting process of reading a whole book.”

Your move, Morgan.

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Singer-songwriter Tom Goss casts a spotlight on LGBTQ relationships across generations with the new video for his heartfelt ballad, “More Than Temporary.” 

The Huffington Post got an exclusive look at the new video, which begins with a commitment-shy gay man parting ways with a date. After the man observes several older, same-sex couples canoodling across town, his hesitation about the date subsides. The clip concludes with several “When Harry Met Sally...”-style video testimonials from real-life couples. 

Goss, who originally hails from Wisconsin, said he “really wanted to create something that honored LGBTQ seniors and long-term relationships” with the song, which is featured on his 2016 album, “What Doesn’t Break.” 

“I’m grateful to those that have come before me. They have paved the way for the rights and privileges that I take for granted,” he told The Huffington Post. “Hopefully this video can highlight the beauty and inspiration of LGBTQ seniors, and in turn, give an example to those that are hesitant to dive into love.”

The 35-year-old singer has had a busy year. In March 2016, he put a same-sex spin on the Dusty Springfield classic, “Son of a Preacher Man,” with a video that racked up over a million views on YouTube. Citing Dave Matthews, David Gray and Seal as artistic influences, Goss said he “absolutely” feels a responsibly to tackle queer themes in his musical output. 

“The entertainment industry, as a whole, has ignored queer themes and stories,” he told HuffPost in October. “That’s only now beginning to change. It’s is my responsibility to work to transcend those boundaries, to tell these stories as accurately and authentically as I possibly can.”  

For the latest in LGBTQ culture, don’t miss the Queer Voices newsletter. 

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Blue Ivy Carter stole the show multiple times at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday.

But she wasn’t the only kid who enjoyed the festivities. In fact, many other artists brought their biggest little fans to the Grammys ... and watched them totally slay the red carpet. 

Here are eight photos of kids who got to stay up past their bedtimes to celebrate their parents Sunday night.

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Illustrator Sarah Andersen is known for capturing the good, the bad and the downright hilarious parts of being a lady. And in her upcoming book, Big Mushy Happy Lump, she hits the nail on the head when it comes to female friendship. 

As Andersen explained to The Huffington Post, she draws inspiration for her comics from her own life.

“I try to write about my personal experiences that I think are universal, and I think women connect to that and enjoy seeing themselves in comics,” she said. “I also try to write about experiences that send a message of personal acceptance.”

Scroll below to see six hilarious illustrations from Andersen’s Big Mushy Lump that sum up just how awesome having a BFF(AEAEAEAE) really, truly is. 

All illustrations are from Big Mushy Happy Lump (c) 2017 by Sarah Andersen (Andrews McMeel Publishing).

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It’s been five years since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, but his parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, who have both displayed unwavering strength since the tragedy, say his legacy lives on through them.  

“He’s not here, his voice isn’t here, he’s not physically here but he’s here through us,” Sybrina Fulton told The Huffington Post this month. “We’re gonna speak for him; he’s the voiceless.”

Fulton has done just that over the years. Fulton and Trayvon’s father, Tracy, have relentlessly worked to keep their son’s spirit alive while speaking out about the circumstances that led to his death. Now Fulton and Martin have written a book on the enduring life of Trayvon, titled “Rest in Power: A Parents’ Story of Love, Injustice and the Birth of a Movement.” 

Martin was fatally shot on February 26, 2012 by then-neighborhood watch guard George Zimmerman, who claimed he fired his weapon at Martin because he said he believed him to be “a suspicious person” who posed a threat. Martin, who was walking home from a nearby store, was wearing a hoodie and holding a bag of Skittles in the moments before he died. His killing ignited a wave of intense protests that denounced police brutality and ultimately birthed the Black Lives Matter movement.

Fulton and Martin mourn the loss of their son every day, and some days are more difficult to endure than others which is why they admit it took them five years to put their feelings into words in the form of their latest book. And while there are several books that focus on Trayvon and his death, his parents say they don’t adequately capture the details of Trayvon’s life because, simply, no one ever knew him like they did.

“We didn’t really want to write the book because it’s just reliving the story of how our son was taken away from us,” Martin said. “This was our opportunity to let the world know who Trayvon Martin really was.”

Still, through this book and other methods of outreach, they continue raise awareness around issues of policing in America and share messages of empowerment and healing.

“We just want people to take something away from the book, take healing away, take awareness away,” Fulton said. “Take something away that they can hold on to from the book.” 

But Fulton and Martin say their work certainly doesn’t stop there. The two plan to continue to fight for equality, uplift communities of color, identify ways to police the police and help others heal through times of devastation.

“You don’t want it to be a moment you want it to be a movement,” Martin said. “You want it to go from a movement to making progress. You want it to go from making progress to making change ― and that’s what we’re all about, making change.”

The Huffington Post is a proud media partner of Chicago Humanities Festival’s two nights of conversation with Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, in collaboration with the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Chicago Urban League. For more information about how to attend, click here for the February 16th event and here for the February 17th event. 

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A third grader from Georgia is channeling her love for American Girl dolls into an initiative to bring joy to children with cancer.

Nine-year-old Bella Fricker is the founder of “Peace. Love. Bracelets.” ― a business through which she sells homemade bracelets to raise money for bald American Girl dolls. Bella donates these dolls to little girls battling cancer. So far, she’s purchased six dolls and gifted four. 

Bella’s mom, Valerie Fricker, told The Huffington Post that her daughter came up with the idea for this project back in October.

“Unfortunately, four children in our community over the years have had cancer and really left an impression on her,” said the mom. “I have been personally involved in the fundraising efforts within the community in the past.”

She added, “I think she has just taken her love and passion for American Girl dolls and turned it into her passion with wanting to make little girls feel happy when they’re in the hospital and have lost their hair.”

Bella told HuffPost that one little girl named Lily Anderson, who passed away in 2012, was particularly inspiring to her. One day in October, she decided to do something for other children like Lily. “I was just sitting in my room one day unfolding a table, and my mom comes and she’s like ‘what are you doing?’” Bella recalled. “And I was like ‘I want to make a business to help little kids in the hospital.’”

The third grader has a mini office in her playroom, where she makes bracelets, packages them and ships them to her buyers. Anyone can order a bracelet online, and there’s a choice of custom options and “grab bags.” Valerie thinks her daughter has sold around 500 bracelets so far. 

The Frickers connected with Laurie Cole at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) to coordinate the doll donations. 

“She works with different child life specialist and doctors and nurses within the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center to find a candidate for the doll,” Valerie said. “Most of the time, donations are just collected at the door. It is a very rare occasion that you get to actually meet the recipient of a donation, but Bella’s dream was to meet the little girls herself and give them these dolls.”

Bella’s dream has come true, and she’s been present to gift the dolls to their new owners. 

“If she is lucky enough to find some information out about the little girl first then we go to the American Girl doll store and purchase an outfit or two,” the mom explained.

“For example, if they are a softball player, then Bella will get a softball outfit. If they are a ballerina, Bella will get a ballet outfit,” she added. “She also likes to give them a coloring book and crayons and a bracelet making set, so they have something to do during chemotherapy or hospital stays.”

Bella’s immediate goal is to donate 15 dolls to children at CHOA. Next, she wants to raise enough money to donate 20 dolls to kids at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and 10-15 dolls to patients at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. 

“I hope I get enough money to buy a lot of dolls and give them to other hospitals around the county,” Bella told HuffPost.

Valerie said her daughter is considering raising money to buy Build-A-Bear stuffed animals for kids who don’t play with dolls. They’re also taking the steps to become 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a functioning website. 

Ultimately, the mom is happy to see her daughter touch families’ lives. “I hope people are inspired to do good for others by reading about Bella’s mission,” she said.

Visit Bella’s Facebook page to purchase a bracelet and donate to the cause. 

The HuffPost Parents newsletter offers a daily dose of personal stories, helpful advice and comedic takes on what it’s like to raise kids today. Sign up here.

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The walking goddess known to mortals as Beyoncé took a cue from her more celestial siblings during a performance at Sunday night’s 59th annual Grammy Awards.

The artist, who took home awards for Best Music Video and Best Urban Contemporary Album, performed just two songs during the ceremony ― “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles,” from the album “Lemonade.” Throughout her time onstage, she used imagery that appeared to draw from myths about divine motherhood found in several religious traditions. 

Twitter fans were quick to point out the religious references. Some suggested that she was embodying Oshun (also spelled Osun), a Yoruba deity associated with love, fertility, and female sensuality. Oshun is often depicted wearing yellow and surrounded by sweet, life-giving water. Folktales told about Oshun claim that she was involved in the creation of the world, and that all living things owe their existence to her.

As a result of the slave trade, a reverence for Oshun and other deities whose origins lie in African spirituality, like Yemonja, was carried across the Atlantic. Yoruban female deities are still worshipped in countries like Brazil and Cuba. 

Beyonce has channeled Oshun before, in the song “Hold Up” from “Lemonade.”

Others suggested that Beyoncé was evoking the Virgin Mary during her Grammy performance. In the Christian tradition, Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ ― the holy woman who brought God into the world. 

In religious art, Mary is often depicted with a halo surrounding her head, symbolizing the fact that she is no ordinary woman. 

Another ode to Christian art was reflected in the way the stage was set. For part of the performance, Beyoncé walked on a long table surrounded by chairs ― evoking Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” But this time, it was Queen Bey at the head of the table.

Several other fiercely feminine religious myths made an appearance in the performance. At one point, a special effect made it seem as if Beyoncé had multiple arms. It could have been a reference to Hindu deities like the mother goddess Durga, or Kali, who is associated with death, sexuality, and motherly love.

Later on during the show, Beyoncé lay on a bed of flowers, a possible reference to the Roman goddess of love, Venus.

The performance came days after Beyoncé announced to the world that she was pregnant with twins. Her epic tribute to divine motherhood ended with a quote from the poet Warsan Shire, whose work featured heavily in “Lemonade.”

“If we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious,” she said.

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