In 2014, Marisa Crawford (Diary) founded an online space in which feminists of all stripes, put off by the whiteness and maleness of existing literary spaces, wrote about whatever interested them within the expansive realms of feminism, literature, and popular culture. Feminists contributed poetry and shared interviews and illustrations--whatever struck their fancy and challenged oppression and marginalization. The Weird Sister Collection assembles some of the most beloved and striking of that work, written by an array of impressive contributors over the past decade, across a variety of umbrella subject chapters, such as: "Talking Back to the Canon"; "Double, Double Pop Culture Trouble"; and "Calling on Our Feminist Elders."
The collection includes essays that investigate rape culture; interviews with such poets as Eileen Myles; and essays problematizing '90s pop songs and John Hughes's movies. Hilarity shares space with rage and optimism--and every nuance of thought and emotion in between. It's an explosion of literary freedom that isn't concerned about commercial viability or running afoul of the powers that be.
One such example among the sensational 47 essays that comprise the book is a passage from "Bad or Boring: Doing Without Ethics in Poetry" by Caolan Madden in March 2015, in which she writes: "Could it be that the exercise of privilege, of colonization, of exploitation, is always boring? Because it's so ubiquitous? Because we're so over it? Because oppression is built not only on dead bodies but dead metaphors?"
This and every other piece in The Weird Sister Collection is neither boring nor moribund. It's a joy for readers to either revisit or discover. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.