{"title":"Kelly J Cogswell","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"lesbian-avenger-handbook-book-kelly-j-cogswell-9781736155806","title":"The Lesbian Avenger Handbook","description":"\u003cp\u003eLaunched in New York City, in 1992, the Lesbian Avengers rejected the picket line and ordinary demo for media-savvy, nonviolent direct action. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey were superheroes arriving to make the world safe for baby dykes everywhere; warriors with capes and shields doing a line dance; dykes Lusting for Power, pushing a giant bed float down Sixth Avenue in New York (with lesbians on it); nationally-ambitious Avengers eating fire in front of a hostile White House; lovers reuniting a statue of Alice B. Toklas with Gertrude Stein, then waltzing in the snow in Bryant Park. And homos who shamelessly chanted, Ten percent is not enough, recruit, recruit, recruit. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt only took a few years for the Lesbian Avengers to grow into a global movement with sixty autonomous chapters worldwide all working for the visibility and survival of lesbians, and all sharing an irreverent direct action aesthetic, eagerly dipping into agitprop and advertising and theater, in ways that still feel ground-breaking today. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKey to their success-the tools they developed to help lesbians understand and reproduce the Avenger action. One was the 1993 documentary video, \u003cem\u003eLesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too, \u003c\/em\u003e which offered the why, the who, and the what, featuring interviews with Avengers, and sharing actions from their first year. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother was this book, \u003cem\u003eThe Lesbian Avenger Handbook: A Handy Guide to Homemade Revolution\u003c\/em\u003e, which offers step-by-step instructions for everything from how to hold a meeting to how to envision an action and wrangle the press-expertise gleaned from Avengers working in journalism, advertising, art, and theater, as well as long-time activists who honed their skills protesting the Viet Nam war, the abuse of farmworkers, forced sterilization of women of color, and bans on abortion, and who'd already, in some cases, led civil disobedience in ACT-UP. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis new edition of \u003cem\u003eThe Lesbian Avenger Handbook\u003c\/em\u003e offers the bulk of this extraordinary resource unchanged, though it acknowledged advances in technology for activists still using it today. Important bonus material has also been included, including tips for demonstrating when civil rights are being trampled. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlso featured, An Incomplete History of LACROP (the Lesbian Avenger Civil Rights Organizing Project), and excerpts from their Out Against the Right: An Organizing Handbook, important historical documents offering hard-won insights about dyke organizing and the importance of building community for long-term social change. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith dozens of new pages of Avenger newsletters, \u003cem\u003eCommuniqu s from the Frontlines\u003c\/em\u003e, and the inclusion of the Dyke Manifesto, the Handbook also serves as a Lesbian Avenger history told in their own words. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 1993 edition of the Handbook was written by the novelist and essayist Sarah Schulman, and edited by Ana Simo, playwright and novelist, both among the co-founders of the group. The current edition is introduced and edited by journalist and founding member Kelly Cogswell.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49537873838353,"sku":"GOR012313935","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50827462934801,"sku":"CIN1736155806G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51050056581393,"sku":"NIN9781736155806","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53632612598033,"sku":"CIN1736155806VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1736155806.jpg?v=1750929398"},{"product_id":"eating-fire-book-kelly-j-cogswell-9780816691166","title":"Eating Fire","description":"When Kelly Cogswell plunged into New York’s East Village in 1992, she had just come out. An ex–Southern Baptist born in Kentucky, she was camping in an Avenue B loft, scribbling poems, and playing in an underground band, trying to figure out her next move. A couple of months later she was consumed by the Lesbian Avengers, instigating direct action campaigns, battling cops on Fifth Avenue, mobilizing 20,000 dykes for a march on Washington, D.C., and eating fire-literally-in front of the White House.   At once streetwise and wistful, Eating Fire is a witty and urgent coming-of-age memoir spanning two decades, from the Culture War of the early 1990s to the War on Terror. Cogswell’s story is an engaging blend of picaresque adventure, how-to activist handbook, and rigorous inquiry into questions of identity, resistance, and citizenship. It is also a compelling, personal recollection of friendships and fallings-out and of finding true love-several times over. After the Lesbian Avengers imploded, Cogswell describes how she became a pioneering citizen journalist, cofounding the Gully online magazine with the groundbreaking goal of offering “queer views on everything.”  The first in-depth account of the influential Lesbian Avengers, Eating Fire reveals the group’s relationship to the queer art and activist scene in early ’90s New York and establishes the media-savvy Avengers as an important precursor to groups such as Occupy Wall Street and La Barbe, in France. A rare insider’s look at the process and perils of street activism, Kelly Cogswell’s memoir is an uncompromising and ultimately empowering story of creative resistance against hatred and injustice.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50512865460497,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50512867885329,"sku":"CIN0816691169VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51461183865105,"sku":"CIN0816691169G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52952033231121,"sku":"GOR014665042","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0816691169.jpg?v=1764842531"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-kelly-j-cogswell.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}