Edited by Sabrina Chap
A visceral look at the bizarre entanglement of destructive and creative forces, Live Through This (a finalist for the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards) is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork, and photography. It explores the use of art to survive abuse, incest, madness and depression, and the often deep-seated impulse toward self-destruction including cutting, eating disorders, and addiction. Here, some of our most compelling cartoonists, novelists, poets, dancers, playwrights, and burlesque performers traverse the pains and passions that can both motivate and destroy women artists, and mark a path for survival. Taken together, these artful reflections offer an honest and hopeful journey through a woman's silent rage, through the power inherent in struggles with destruction, and the ensuing possibilities of transforming that burning force into the external release of art.
With contributions by Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Patricia Smith, Cristy C. Road, Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, Elizabeth Stephens, Carolyn Gage, Eileen Myles, Fly, Diane DiMassa, Bonfire Madigan Shive, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, Toni Blackman, Nicole Blackman, Silas Howard, Daphne Gottleib, and Stephanie Howell.
Hailing from the suburbs of Chicago, SABRINA CHAP is a playwright, cabaret dancer, spoken word artist, and singer-songwriter. She is the founder of the all-woman songwriter series Chicks that Kick, and editor of the zine Cliterature: 18 Interviews with Women Writers, and editor of Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction. Her plays, including Perhaps Merely Quiet and We Are the Parade, have been produced throughout the United States and Europe.
