Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme
by Ivan E. Coyote, Zena Sharman, Joan Nestle, Amber Dawn, S. Bear Bergman, Sinclair Sexsmith, Anna Camilleri, Debra Anderson, Anne Fleming, Michael V. Smith, Zoe Whittall, Ben McCoy, Thea Hillman, Chandra Mayor, Kimberly Dark, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Rae Spoon, Belinda Carroll, Amy Fox, Nairne Holtz, romham padraig gallacher, Victoria A. Brownworth, Bevin Branlandingham, Jeanne Cordova, Melissa Sky, Donnelly Black, Elaine Miller, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Karleen Pendleton Jiménez, Brenda Barnes, Elizabeth Marston, Laiwan, B. Cole, Sailor Holladay, Sasha T. Goldberg, Jewelle Gomez
Sooooo damnnnnnn gooooood! Very grateful to have picked this up at the library tent at Pride, otherwise it would have languished on my to-read list for a lot longer.
As with any book of essays, some are better than others. A few random favorites (and these are mindblowingly good!): Amy Fox, Amber Dawn, Chandra Mayor. Jeanne Cordova's was probably the most disappointing and frustrating: for some reason, she thought it would be a good idea to make a linear scale on which to organize all the gender terms she knew.
That's basically the end of the review. I have really intense, personal feelings about a lot of these essays, which is not really review-fodder. But damn I appreciated finding this book. You might, too.