Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution is a groundbreaking collection edited and introduced by Alix Olson with a foreword by Eve Ensler. The anthology includes original essays and poems by Alix, Michelle Tea, Sarah Jones, Stacey Ann Chin, Andrea Gibson, Suheir Hammad and other spoken word luminaries.
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Coming to voice is coming to power ~ daring to make life in words ~ daring to be heard. That is the story this anthology tells. Hear it, listen in, let it resurrect you, let it take you from the deep silence into the comfort of soulful sound.
–bell hooks, author of All About Love: New Visions and poetry collection When Angels Speak of Love
“Word Warriors is a treasure and a long time coming. A lot of my heroes are in this book. Their words have kept me company for a host of nights, in dark bunks and on lonely roads, helping me to carry on.”
-musician Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls
“It’s difficult to find role models who’ve stood up to the system and lived to tell the tale. Each and every one of the writers in this collection is a role model for anyone who wants to change the world. And if I’m feeling scared, powerless, sad, or less than, this is the book I intend to read to get my courage up.”
—Kate Bornstein, author of Hello, Cruel World and Gender Outlaw
“Word Warriors has changed me. Like an incantation, lines from the thirty-five stories from warriors who are fighting the same fight dressed up in thirty-five different ways have mutated into mantras in my mind. Word Warriors is not a book, it is a spell that will change things for everyone who reads it.”
—Inga Muscio, author of Cunt and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil
“If you, like me, are often scared of poetry, this book is for you. The personal essays are like alluring hosts, leading you graciously but forcefully to writings that will make you cry, turned on, amazed, and awake.”
–Jennifer Baumgardner, author of Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics and coauthor of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future