Burlison - All of me: stories of love, anger, and the female body

All of Me celebrates rage as a way to reject a culture that isolates women from one another. Such a necessary read!

Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Womens Anger

All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body is not your typical feminist anthology, mostly because it busts open binaries, gender and otherwise, in brave and fierce ways. I have been thinking about the importance of feminism with regards to intimacyin relation to ourselves, to our stories, to our work, to each other, and to the planet. This wide-ranging collection of stories and interviews is deeply intimate in all of these ways. All of Me brings you on a journey through peoples lives, connecting you to each story. Whether the writers and storytellers are sharing personal narratives or ideas, they are told in intimate, courageous, and beautiful ways. Bravo to Dani Burlison for creating the space for all these diverse and inclusive stories to be shared. By the way, reading this book will crack you open toward feeling more compassion and love. Read it. Read it out loud. Buy it for everyone you know. And then read it again.

carla bergman, coauthor, Joyful Militancy: Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times

Visceral, raw, and personal, All of Me is the barbaric yawp of womanhood unrestrained. Ranging from the confessional to the call to action, this collection of deeply personal writings tears back the veil of womanhood to show the glorious and gritty guts of it all. Unfiltered, unadulterated, open; witness the wounds and the wisdom of what it means to be a woman today.

Lasara Firefox Allen, author of Jailbreaking the Goddess: A Radical Revisioning of Feminist Spirituality

These stories of resilience center the voices and experiences often overlooked and unheard. All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body is just what is needed in this time to balance the torrents of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and violence filling our everyday newsfeeds.

Victoria Law, author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

An incredible array of voices gather together in this tightly packed, raucous anthology. If ever you felt the need to focus feelings of deep anger, All of Me serves as an almost step-by-step manual of rage.

Inga Muscio, author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence and Rose: Love in Violent Times.

All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body

Edited by Dani Burlison

2019 the respective authors

This edition 2019 PM Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 9781629637051

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933011

Cover by Mikayla Butchart

Interior design by briandesign

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PM Press

PO Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623

www.pmpress.org

This edition first published in Canada in 2019 by Between the Lines

401 Richmond Street West, Studio 281, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8, Canada

18007187201

www.btlbooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher or (for photocopying in Canada only) Access Copyright www.accesscopyright.ca.

Canadian cataloguing information is available from Library and Archives Canada.

ISBN 9781771134668 All of Me paperback

ISBN 9781771134675 All of Me epub

ISBN 9781771134682 All of Me pdf

Printed in the USA.

Introduction
Dani Burlison

Chama
Christine No

Explicit Violence
Lidia Yuknavitch

Grab My Pussy, I Dare You
Michelle Cruz Gonzales

On Anger and the Black Female Body
an interview with Artist Kandis Williams

Tales of a Culture-Straddling Resident Alien
Vatan Doost

Fear, Safety, and the Realities of an Undocumented Student in a Border State
an interview with Deya

Im a Hysterical Woman
Phoenix LeFae

How the European Witch Hunts Continue to Influence Violence against Women around the World
an interview with Silvia Federici

Dear Man with the Indigo Cardigan
Anna Silastre

Fire and Ice
Dani Burlison

Fear, Anger, and Hexing the Patriarchy
an interview with Ariel Gore

Ink
Michel Wing

Merging Sacred and Mundane
Bethany Ridenour

Notes on Racism, Trauma, and Self-Care from a Woman of Color
an interview with acupuncturist Lorelle Saxena

Locking Doors
Airial Clark

Violence, Generational Trauma, and Womens Empowerment in Indigenous Communities
an interview with Patty Stonefish of Arming Sisters

Thoughts on Mothers Day
Nayomi Munaweera

On Sharing Our Stories
an interview with Melissa Madera of The Abortion Diary Podcast

In the Belly of Fuckability
Margaret Elysia Garcia

Last Drink
Leilani Clark

How to Be A Genderqueer Feminist
Laurie Penny

Coming Out as Trans in a Small Hometown
an interview with artist Ariel Erskine

Origin
Wendy-O Matik

Fucking Patriarchy through Radical Relationships
Wendy-O Matik

Whats Money Got to Do, Got to Do with It?
Kara Vernor

Demystifying Sex Work
an interview with P.A.

Auntie Starhawks Sex Advice for Troubled Times
Starhawk

Love as Political Resistance: Lessons from Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler
adrienne maree brown

Burnout, Sacred Leadership, and Finding Balance
an interview with Gerri Ravyn Stanfield

What Is a Home?
Sanam Mahloudji

Discovering the Radical Possibility of Love
Melissa Chadburn

Desert Rain
Avery Erickson

Transmigration
Milla Prince

Dear Reader,

Thank you for opening this book. In it, I hope you will find stories that resonate with you and inform your work in the world. Inspired by my two-volume zine Lady Parts, my intention with this collection of essays and interviews is to provide a space for the gritty and honest reality of living as a woman in these times; a time when binary gender lines are gorgeously blurred and embraced, where the voices of queer women, poor women, and women of color are being amplified and where womenthe whole warrior lot of uscan share our pain and joy and revel in the strength that comes with being survivors.

When the Lady Parts zine was first created in 2015, I was preparing for and recovering from a hysterectomy. Having my uterus removed led me to reflect on all of the things womens bodies go through, like complicated relationships with menstruation, reproductive issues like abortion and infertility, body dysmorphia, childbirth, gender confirmation surgeries, and more. I also thought about the various traumas women experience from the outside world, the physical and emotional violence and violation we carry in our bodies, and how voicing our feelings of anger about these traumas is often unwelcome in the world and frequently met with dismissal; we are seen as nothing more than Angry Feminists. We need to calm down. We need to tone police ourselves and each other. We need to remember our place.