Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity is a manifesto for the unrepentant bitch, straddling the furious and fantastic. Undeniably celebratory and deeply troubling, this sharp-edged collection (of fiction, prose poetry, personal essay, photographs, and illustration) figures the un-hyphenated femme experience emerging in performance, betrayal, violence, humour, and survival.
Brazen Femme recognizes femme as an identity in flux and in motion, as constantly being reinvented. This mutability sets the stage for creative and thoughtful representation featuring critically acclaimed writers including Camilla Gibb, Sky Gilbert, Michelle Tea, Amber Hollibaugh, and Anurima Banerji. Brazen Femme unapologetically refuses explanations and definitions while bringing into view femme identity through description, reflection, and interpretation. As such, the collection includes the entertaining and challenging work of writers and artists whose stories are missing from existing explorations of femme that exclude experiences of men, transsexual women, and sex workers.
Whether by choice or necessity, these frenzied femmes each explore their desires to make (and remake) femininity fit their own queer frames. Darlings, drag queens, whores, and action heroes . . . a femme by any other name is spectacular.
With writings by Debra Anderson, Anurima Banerji, T.J. Bryan, Anna Camilleri, Daniel Collins, Lisa Duggan and Kathleen McHugh, Camilla Gibb, Sky Gilbert, Tara Hardy, Amber Hollibaugh, Suzann Kole, Elaine Miller, Kathryn Payne, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Elizabeth Ruth, Trish Salah, Abi Slone and Allyson Mitchell, Michelle Tea, Zoe Whittall, and Karin Wolf.
With photographs by Chlöe Brushwood Rose, Daniel Collins, and illustrations by Allyson Mitchell, Suzy Malik, and Sandi Rapini.