Miranda July

Miranda July (born February 15, 1974) is a performance artist, musician, writer, actress and film director. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, after having lived for many years in Portland, Oregon. Born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger, she works under the surname of "July," which can be traced to a character from a "girlzine" Miranda created with a high school friend called "Snarla".

Background
Miranda July was born in Barre, Vermont, the daughter of Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. Her parents, who taught at Goddard College at the time, are both writers. In 1974 they founded North Atlantic Books, a publisher of alternative health, martial arts, and spiritual titles. Miranda was encouraged to work on her short fiction by author and friend of a friend, Rick Moody.

Miranda grew up in Berkeley, California, where she first began writing plays and staging them at the all-ages club 924 Gilman. She later attended UC Santa Cruz, dropping out in her sophomore year. After leaving college, she moved to Portland, Oregon and took up performance art. Her performances were successful; she has been quoted as saying she has not worked a day job since she was 23 years old.

Filmmaking


Filmmaker Magazine rated her number one in their "25 New Faces of Indie Film" in 2004. After winning a slot in a Sundance workshop, she developed her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which opened in 2005. The film won The Caméra d'Or prize in The Cannes Festival 2005.

Beginning in 1996, while residing in Portland, July began a project called Joanie4Jackie (originally called "Big Miss Moviola") which solicited short films by women, which she compiled onto video cassettes, using the theme of a chain letter. She then sent the cassette to the participants, and to subscribers to the series, and offered them for sale to others interested. In addition to the chain letter series, July began a second series called the Co-Star Series, in which she invited friends from larger cities to select a group of films outside of the chain letter submissions. The curators included Miranda July, Rita Gonzalez, and Astria Suparak. The Joanie4Jackie series also screened at film festivals and DIY movie events. So far, thirteen editions have been released, the latest in 2002.

At her speaking engagement at the Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco's Mission District on May 16, 2007, July mentioned that she is currently working on a new film.

Music
She recorded her first EP for Kill Rock Stars in 1996, entitled Margie Ruskie Stops Time, with music by The Need. After that, she released two more full-length LPs, 10 Million Hours A Mile in 1997 and Binet-Simon Test in 1998, both released on Kill Rock Stars. In 1999 she made a split EP with IQU, released on K Records.

Multimedia
In 1998, July made her first full-length multimedia performance piece, Love Diamond, in collaboration with composer Zac Love and with help from artist Jamie Isenstein; she called it a "live movie." She performed it at venues around the country, including the New York Video Festival, The Kitchen, and Yo-yo a Go-go in Olympia. She created her next major full-length performance piece, The Swan Tool, in 2000, also in collaboration with Love, with digital production work by Mitsu Hadeishi. She performed this piece in venues around the world, including the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

In 2006, after completing her first feature film, she went on to create another multimedia piece, Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely are Not Going To Talk About, which she performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.

Her short story The Boy from Lam Kien was published in 2005 by Cloverfield Press, as a special-edition book with illustration by Elinor Nissley and Emma Hedditch. Her next story, Something That Needs Nothing, was published in the September 18, 2006 issue of the New Yorker magazine. No One Belongs Here More Than You is a 224-page collection of her stories which was released on May 15, 2007. It won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award on September 24, 2007.

July is also the founder of the online arts community Learning to Love You More, founded with Harrell Fletcher and Yuri Ono. Established in 2002 the site provides assignments for amateur artists to complete and submit to take part in the communal arts project. Interview with Yuri Ono can be found at InDigest Magazine. Learning to Love You More also released a book of the online art in 2007.

Personal
July dated Radio Sloan from the Need when she first moved to Portland. She went on to date K Records founder Calvin Johnson. As of September 2005, July is dating artist/film director Mike Mills.

Johanna Fateman, of the post-punk band Le Tigre, has referred to July as being her "best friend from high school".

In a 2007 interview with Bust magazine, July spoke of the importance which feminism has had in her life, saying, "What's confusing about [being a feminist]? It's just being pro-your ability to do what you need to do. It doesn't mean you don't love your boyfriend or whatever...When I say 'feminist', I mean that in the most complex, interesting, exciting way!"

Publications

 * Jack and Al (Fall 2002) (Mississippi Review)
 * The Moves (Spring 2003) (Tin House)
 * This Person (Spring 2003) (Bridge Magazine)
 * Birthmark (Spring 2003) (Paris Review)
 * Frances Gabe's Self Cleaning House (Fall 2003) (Nest Magazine)
 * It Was Romance (Fall 2003) (Harvard Review)
 * Making Love in 2003 (Fall 2003) (Paris Review)
 * The Man on the Stairs (Spring/Summer 2004) (Fence Magazine)
 * The Shared Patio (Winter 2005) (Zoetrope: All-Story)
 * Something That Needs Nothing (September 18, 2006) (The New Yorker)
 * Majesty (September 28, 2006) (Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)
 * The Swim Team (January 2007) (Harper's Magazine)
 * Roy Spivey (June 11, 2007) (The New Yorker)

Books

 * The Boy from Lam Kien (July 1, 2005) (Cloverfield Press)
 * No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories (May 15, 2007) (Charles Scribner's Sons)
 * Learning to Love You More (with Harrell Fletcher) (Fall/Autumn 2007) (Prestel Publishing)

Albums

 * 10 Million Hours a Mile (1997) (Kill Rock Stars)
 * The Binet-Simon Test (1998) (Kill Rock Stars)

EP's

 * Margie Ruskie Stops Time EP (1996) with music by The Need (Kill Rock Stars)
 * Girls on Dates split EP with IQU (1999) (K Records)

Short Films

 * I Started Out With Nothing and I Still Have Most of It Left
 * Featured in Emily B. Kingan's documentary The Portland Girl Convention (1996)
 * A Shape Called Horse on Video Fanzine #1 (Kill Rock Stars)
 * Atlanta (1996) on Audio-Cinematic Mix Tape (Peripheral Produce)
 * The Amateurist (1998) on Joanie 4 Jackie 4Ever
 * Nest of Tens (2000) (Peripheral Produce)
 * Getting Stronger Every Day (2001) on Peripheral Produce’s All-Time Greatest Hits (Peripheral Produce)
 * Narrator on Matt McCormick's The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (2001) on Peripheral Produce’s All-Time Greatest Hits (Peripheral Produce)
 * Haysha Royko (2003)
 * Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? (2005) (Wholphin (DVD))
 * Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (Spring 2007)

Full length

 * Jesus' Son (1999) (Lions Gate Films) (Acted)
 * Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) (IFC Films) (Wrote, directed and acted)

Music videos

 * Sleater-Kinney - "Get Up"
 * Blonde Redhead - "Top Ranking"

Performances

 * Love Diamond (1998-2000)
 * The Swan Tool (2000-2002)
 * How I Learned to Draw (2002-2003)
 * Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (2006–Present)

Interviews

 * Miranda July interviews Khaela Maricich, and vice versa
 * Video Interview with Miranda & Harrel on designguide.tv
 * Miranda July interview on KCRW's Bookworm
 * Interview with The Onion A.V. Club
 * Interview on Naughty Secretary Club
 * Interview by Apple Inc. (requires Quicktime Player)
 * Video Interview on SubmarineChannel, recorded on 2007-08-24