About the Book
Collecting the best of the underground blog Weird Sister, these unapologetic and insightful essays link contemporary feminism to literature and pop culture.
Launched in 2014, Weird Sister proudly staked out a corner of the internet where feminist writers could engage with the literary and popular culture that excited or enraged them. The blog made space amid book websites dominated by white male editors and contributors, and also committed to covering literary topics in-depth when larger feminist outlets rarely could. Throughout its decade-long run, Weird Sisternaming itself a website that "speaks its mind and snaps its gum and doesn't apologize."
Edited by founder Marisa Crawford, The Weird Sister Collection brings together the work of longtime contributors such as Morgan Parker, Christopher Soto, Soleil Ho, Julin Delgado Lopera, Virgie Tovar, Jennif(f)er Tamayo, and more, alongside new original essays. Offering nuanced insight into contemporary and historical literature, in conversation with real-life and timely social issues, these pieces mark a transitional and transformative moment in online and feminist writing.
Table of Contents:
"The Books of Feminists Are in Every Place (A Comic Diary)" by Amanda K. Davidson, May 2015
"Best Literary Sex: If Beale Street Could Talk" by Camille Wanliss, February 2017
"On Breaking the Bad Bitch Archetype in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child" by Naomi Extra, June 2015
"The Nuclear Family / The Nuclear Bomb: Revisiting Kate Zambreno’s O Fallen Angel in Trump America" by Sam Cohen, January 2017
[Trace Peterson piece on transfeminine poetic traditions] by Trace Peterson, December 2022
"The Coldest Winter Ever: A Coming-of-Age Tale & Hip-Hop Opera" by Vanessa Willoughby, January 2016
"A Witch’s Reading Report" by Grace Kredell, October 2019
"Fifty Shades of Grey & Why I Keep Defending Women’s Trash" by Caolan Madden, March 2015
"The White Male Canon in 90s Pop Songs" by Marisa Crawford, December 2014
"My Feminist Literary Grudges" by Olivia Campbell, November 2022
"Writing the Wound: A Letter to Hélène Cixous" by Zoe Tuck, July 2022
"Emily Dickinson: Subversive Kin" by Christina Olivares, October 2022
"The Honesty of Jean Rhys" by Kristin Sanders, September 2016
"The Many Names of Barbara Grier" by Megan Milks, November 2022
"Reproductive Agency in Sylvia Plath’s Three Women" by Marisa Crawford, October 2016
"Revisiting Raven: Thoughts on Zora, Nina, and Take-Down Culture" by Naomi Extra, January 2015
"ALL THE FEMINIST BOOKS: Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer" by Becca Klaver, December 2014
"The Tell-Tale Sign of Living: Blackness and Sensuality in Ntozoke Shange’s Nappy Edges" by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, October 2022
"YASSS and NAWW: bell hooks and Laverne Cox at The New School" by Morgan Parker, October 2014
"Sex Permeates Everything: The Poetry of Lola Ridge" by Terese Svoboda, February 2016
"The Limits of Representation" by Christopher Soto, October 2015
"On the Road with Sister Spit" by Virgie Tovar, March 2017
"We Out (T)here: Afrofuturism in the Age of Non-Indictments" by Morgan Parker, January 2015
"Bad or Boring: Doing Without Ethics in Poetry" by Caolan Madden, March 2015
"Yi-Fen Chou and the Man Who Wore Her" by Soleil Ho, September 2015
"We Were There: Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter at The New Museum" by Hossannah Asuncion, September 2016
"On Being Unreasonable" by Jennif(f)er Tamayo, October 2015
"The Zack Morris Cell Phone Aesthetic" by Becca Klaver, April 2015
"Soy Emo, Hemorragia: A bilingual guide to bleeding properly" by Julián Delgado Lopera, September 2015
"10 Images of Women Writing on Screen" by Li Patron, March 2016
"Black Grrrl Joy on the 30th Anniversary of Ferris Bueller: LaSloane Peterson’s Snow Day Off" by Aja Love, August 2016
"How Girls See Girls: A Closer Look at Pretty Little Liars" by Flannery Cashill, April 2017
"Twin Freaks: Being Both Victim and Protector" by Emily Brandt, November 2014
"Rejecting Forgiveness Culture: Women in Revenge Films" by Rios de la Luz, May 2016
"I’m Moving Out of Shondaland" by Morgan Parker, December 2014
"Chronology Doesn’t Always Feel Good: An Interview with Eileen Myles" by Cathy de la Cruz , October 2015
"It’s Kinda Creepy Because I Am: An Interview with Myriam Gurba" by Gina Abelkop, March 2016
"Tender Points: An Interview with Amy Berkowitz" by Geraldine Kim, June 2015
"Voice, Form & Politics: Talking with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan about June Jordan" by Marisa Crawford, March 2016
About the Author :
Marisa Crawford
is the author of the poetry collectionsDiary(Spuyten Duyvil, forthcoming 2023),Reversible, andThe Haunted House, and coeditor, with Megan Milks, ofWe Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays & Artwork from Grown-Up Readers.Marisa's writing has appeared inThe Nation,Harper's Bazaar,Hyperallergic,BUSTnd elsewhere. Marisa is the creator and editor-in-chief ofWeird Sister, a website and organization that explores the intersections of feminism, literature, and pop culture, and cohost of the nineties rock podcast All Our Pretty Songs. She lives in New York.
Review :
Praise for The Weird Sister Collection
“Weird Sister stands the test of time… the great variety of voices, topics, and approaches within this collection make it immensely appealing and important reading.” —BUST (“Lit Pick” Winter 2024)
“In this stimulating anthology, pieces balance a breezy style with intelligent interrogations of what it means to be a woman today. The result is an approachable examination of contemporary feminism.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Weird Sister Collection is a hilarious, delicious, and earnest dive into the intersection of feminism and culture. Reminiscent of not just zine-style writing but era-defining collections like To Be Real and Making Face, Making Soul, this experimental collection of writing is a must-have for anyone asking questions about identity, belonging, and the current and future state of not just feminism but all the intersectional ‘isms’ that can either hold our imaginations captive or free us.” —Samhita Mukhopadhyay, former executive editor of Teen Vogue
“Feminist thought is alive and well in The Weird Sister Collection. Whether it drives you to start a zine or tear down a statue of a Confederate general, one thing’s for sure: after you read this book, you won’t want to just sit there and suffer anymore.” —Rax King, author of Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer
“The Weird Sister Collection captures with audacious wit and unapologetic earnestness the zeitgeist of the eponymous blogging community that published at the intersection of the feminist and the literary. To read this book is to know that I am not alone in reading passionately in feminist community outside of the academy and traditional literary establishment. I am grateful for the space that Weird Sister made online and am immensely thankful now to have this collection with so many fierce writers in one place, recreating the delightfully weird online village that continues to inspire so many.” —Susana M. Morris, coauthor of Feminist AF: A Guide to Crushing Girlhood
