Our Work Is Everywhere: An Illustrated Oral History of Queer and Trans Resistance

by Syan Rose, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Foreword by)

Overview

Over the past ten years, we have witnessed the rise of queer and trans communities that have defied and challenged those who have historically opposed them. Through bold, symbolic imagery and surrealist, overlapping landscapes, queer illustrator and curator Syan Rose shines a light on the faces and voices of these diverse, amorphous, messy, real and imagined queer and trans communities.

In their own words, queer and trans organizers, artists, healers, comrades, and leaders speak honestly and authentically about their own experiences with power, love, pain, and magic to create a textured and nuanced portrait of queer and trans realities in America. The many themes include Black femme mental health, Pacific Islander authorship, fat queer performance art, disability and healthcare practice, sex worker activism, and much more. Accompanying the narratives are Rose’s startling and sinuous images that brings these leaders’ words to visual life.

Our Work Is Everywhere is a graphic nonfiction book that underscores the brilliance and passion of queer and trans resistance.

Includes a foreword by Lambda Literary Award-winning author and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551528151
Publisher:	Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Pages:	72
Sales rank:	491,760
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 12.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Syan Rose is an illustrator and comic artist whose work plays with both surrealist and representational imagery to approach topics of personal history, politics, accountability, and healing. She’s been published in Bitch, Slate, Gay Magazine, Truthout, and Autostraddle, and has self-produced many comics and zines.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer and performer of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Her most recent titles are the nonfiction book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice and the poetry book Tonguebreaker. She is also co-editor of Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. Her memoir Dirty River was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Publishing Triangle Award.

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2021

Rose makes her trade debut by bringing together a stirring variety of queer voices to challenge normative notions of “work.” In the foreword, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha describes the anthology as “a seed library passed around that kin near and far... can plant from,” which asks organizers to reimagine community work (including timely missives dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic). For the members of PLUMP! collective, it’s how creating Fat: The Play provoked radical vulnerability and a queer body-positive community; for trans activist Ceyenne Doroshow, it’s discovering empowerment in sex work and challenging the rigidity of traditional nonprofit structures; for incarcerated trans woman Amber Kim, it’s simply tapping the resilience to build trust and hope amid violence. For each piece, Rose reinterprets the speakers’ words into expressionistic layouts, with dreamlike illustrations and a juxtaposition of poetry and prose. Though her hand-lettering and tendency to twist sentences into more visually pleasing curved lines sometimes impedes the readability, Rose and her collaborators’ emotionality shines through. It’s an inspirational volume for current and aspiring queer community workers to “keep showing up” to build a better world together. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"A unique, empowering addition to LGBTQ+ literature." —Kirkus Reviews

"An inspirational volume for current and aspiring queer community workers to 'keep showing up' to build a better world together." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2021-02-23
Queer and trans activists describe their lives and work in this anthology of oral history and illustrated interviews.

Illustrator and comic artist Syan Rose calls her book "part graphic nonfiction, part thank-you note, part gay theory paper, [and] part activist gossip column." Each of the contributors grapples with universal questions of "power, desire, justice and accountability” as well as “structural & mental racism, transphobia, fatphobia, colonialism, ableism, xenophobia, antiblackness, [and] rape culture.” Selections include Caleb Luna and Nicole Arteaga’s "Reclaiming & Revolting Bodies: Fat: The Play,” Mirna Haidar’s "Queer Muslim Family,” and "Everything You Love About New Orleans Is Because of Black People,” a conversation with New Orleans visual artist Phlegm. We meet sex workers and their advocates, healing and health justice activists, trans women survivors, and queer martial artists. Herbal healer Geleni Fontaine describes "what it means to be in a transgressive body at a time when fat people are seen as diseased. There is a poignant section of reflections on the pandemic, including Ra Malika Imhotep's "A Praise Song for Sick Blk Wimmin," who "have been knowing something deep about this kind of embattled survival….When we talk about how Southern black folks face alarming ‘health disparities,’ we are saying that we are sick. And not because there is something inherently wrong with us, but because the world we’ve been given unto structurally & systematically disrupts our access to wellness.” The drawings throughout are exquisite, and while the swirling, hand-lettering is occasionally difficult to read, the book accomplishes its clear goal: visibility for the marginalized. As Stella, a member of the Trans Assistance Project, puts it, "It's not just for my own happiness, it's also because there are people who, just by seeing me, might be more kind to queer people in the future. Or if they are queer, they might feel less alone or come out sooner.”

A unique, empowering addition to LGBTQ+ literature.

Kirkus Reviews