Glitter & Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on Wheels Femme Galaxy

by Damien Luxe (Editor), Heather María Ács (Editor), Sabina Ibarrola (Editor)

Over 60 risk-taking queer femmes and LGBTQ artists contribute to this groundbreaking cross-disciplinary collection of solo-performance, creative nonfiction, poetry, photos, plays, tour stories + pro tips, and more. Glitter & Grit showcases writing by writers, artists, and organizers who have worked with or in Heels on Wheels, a working-class led and multiracial queer femme-inine spectrum DIY arts organization who produces cultural works, tours, salons, and community events in Brooklyn and beyond.

Genres: Queer, Poetry, LGBT, Gender

350 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2015

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this a little bit every morning and it's full of life and heart--and power. GLITTER & GRIT collects writing, scripts, photos, and dispatches from Heels on Wheels in its various iterations, and stands as a valuable record of important recent queer/femme art/lit history.

I missed Heels on Wheels when they came to the Midwest and by the time I moved to NYC it was over! So I'm very glad to be able to experience the work and the adventures in this way.

Some favorites: Heather Maria Acs' affecting performance script this is what we have; Drae Campbell's funny My First Performance, Kirya Traber's Overheard (excerpt from a longer performance set on the subway), Damien Luxe's (or should I say The Reverend Honorable Doctor Madam Miss Damien Luxe's) Hot Pink Mass: Divine Fuckery & Holy Perversity (YES); Alejandro Rodriguez's short essay/performance The Brown Queen; Sabina Ibarrola's stunning poems; and T.L. Cowan's I Disown You Right Back (part of a family values initiative called "Withdrawing Awesome Feminist Affection and Homosexual and Trans Assistance, Support, Love and Labor from Awful Religious Relatives (or WAFA AHATA SLAL FARR for short)"). So much here: 350 pages of femme writing!

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

wellllll i bought it posthaste because i heard there was a piece in it about femme daddies, but that turned out to literally be a half-page photo of an acrostic poem, which was cute but not quite what i was looking for.

also it followed the same fate as my copy of amber hollibough's my dangerous desires and got attacked by a leaky water bottle in my bag :(

STILL OBVIOUSLY this was an essential addition to my library. highlights:
kama la mackerel's "femme invocation" and "the revolution will not be cited" (mostly being able to read them somewhere solid instead of remembering them only partially from performances)
annie danger's "just say yes" & especially the parts about "queer" as a politicized identity & radical art
gigi frost's "more than yes," about fucking butches
avlis choi aka alvis parsley's "never left canada"
hannah morrow's "transcendence is infinite," which explained why so many gay man drag queens feel so misogynistic to me so often
amber dawn's "the revered femme bottom" glosa from leah lakshmi's "i love hard girls"
nomy lamm's excerpt from "what was coming"

and also this archival documentation of queer art production and its constant struggles around accessibility and money because oh my god, plus the documentation of the facebook letter from the 2012 femmecon organizers after the 2014 femmecon meltdown (and, it seems, permanent death of femmecon).