Ellie Gordon-Moershel interviews Marusya Bociurkiw and Terri Roberton about collaborating on their new graphic memoir series, The Femme Monologues. Written by Bociurkiw with graphics by Roberton, the series appears monthly in Xtra! Toronto and in Capital Xtra! (Ottawa).
The Femme Monologues presents short vignettes from a queer/femme/feminist archive, covering such topics as feminist publishing, women’s dances, the new queer cinema and the re-emergence of butch/femme culture in the 1990s. It features a wide-eyed femme discovering lesbianism, vegetarian food, women’s music and butches for the first time.
Bociurkiw writes: “The first story, “On Becoming A Dissident Writer” (Part 1 appeared June 1, Part 2 is in the Pride Day issue), takes us back to the 1970s, and the funky era of feminist culture, when women’s newspapers, record companies, publishers, and hey, even garages sprung up for the first time in Canada. It’s about the very first time our femme heroine got published, in a feminist newspaper and the ripple effect that had on her family… and on her own identity.”
To learn more about The Femme Monologues, visit the Facebook page.
Ellie Gordon-Moershel is a podcaster with The F-Word collective and an intern with rabble.ca.