herstory 2023

HerStory April 2023: Maureen Johnson

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Two of our staff members are huge fans of our April HerStory recipient, Maureen Johnson, and that is due, not only to her prowess with pen and ink, but to the kind of person she is, and how she shows up in the world. We thought we’d check in with them about what made them recommend Johnson for HerStory this year, here are their thoughts, paraphrased a bit, with other random bits and bobs we found thrown in…

Johnson’s books are delightful for their humor and how relatable the characters are. She writes mostly YA, but under that umbrella, her writings run the gamut from supernatural to romance to mysteries and thrillers. Her books combine elements of mystery and modern coming of age stories and are very very fantastical. 

She’s very active on Twitter, and has been for almost as long as Twitter’s been around. She engages with fans, makes them feel like friends, and she relentlessly speaks truth to power. She’s a trans ally, speaking up against famed TERF JKR and her attacks on trans folks. She’s pro union, supporting the worker strike at her publisher. She’s been very vocally against banning books, and works to support folks who have been displaced around the globe due to natural disasters. 

Johnson does a lot of work and advocacy surrounding supporting diversity in YA books and spaces, respectful treatments of identity and love, and broadening definitions and descriptions of writing that falls under “genre fiction” umbrellas. She edited an anthology called How I Resist: Activism and Hope for a New Generation in 2018, and was active in getting out the youth vote during Obama’s first presidential election. She co-created a podcast in response to the turmoil of the 2016 election, and still hosts the podcast, which, although focusing on the news of the week, is also super random and engaging.

Our April colorway, We Can Work With That, is one of Johnson’s catchphrases from her podcast, Says Who?, and we mixed the colors to reflect images of her lovely office we’ve seen online: a soft pink with plenty of houseplants sprinkled throughout. Our projects will surely come into being while listening to her podcast or the audio of one of her compelling books; how about you?

Books by Maureen Johnson:

  • Truly Devious
  • Nine Liars
  • 13 Little Blue Envelopes
  • The Name of the Star

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

  • Holly Jackson
  • Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
  • Tahereh Mafi
  • Rainbow Rowell
  • Jenny Han

HerStory March 2023: Tarana Burke

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Tarana Burke’s memoir, Unbound, begins with her reaction to the Me Too Movement going viral after a high-profile man in the entertainment industry was accused of serial sexual violence and harassment. At first, it was overwhelming to see something she had created and fostered being taken over by mostly white women, and she felt like she was in a daze for days. The movement was founded in 2006 to support young women of color who experienced sexual assault, and was and is centered around uplifting the survivors in their paths to healing and forming and providing community to those survivors. “Empowerment through empathy” is the driving force behind all of Burke’s activism, and leading the Me Too Movement as it grew (and grew), she knew that the narrative needed to encompass not only the high-profile cases, but those that take place in more ordinary spaces as well.

Burke, who was already deep in a lifestyle and career that was all about organizing and activism centering Black girls and women created “Me Too” to help victims of sexual violence realize they are not alone, and to help speak truth to power. Inspired by an interaction with a young woman at a youth organization she was involved with, Burke realized how many young Black and brown girls and women were quietly living with histories of sexual violence and assault. One of the most pervasive truths in regards to sexual violence, particularly for young Black girls and women, is the secrecy and shame that surrounds it. There’s not a lot of space and safety for victims to speak out, especially when perpetrators are powerful members of a community. Burke set out to change that, creating spaces of safety for those who felt they had none, and in the process, changed the world. Her work has always been about increasing access to resources and support for impacted communities, including but not limited to the Me Too Movement, and her other initiatives around racial discrimination, housing inequality, and economic justice center those same marginalized communities. 

Our Unbound colorway, based on the gorgeous art on the cover of her memoir, was created to pay homage to the work she has done and continues to do. Her work has inspired so many people to speak truth to power in large and small ways, and we are grateful to her for being such a force for good in the world. 

Books by Tarana Burke:

  • Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement
  • You Are Your Best Thing

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

  • Angela Davis
  • Audre Lorde
  • Ida B. Wells
  • Shirley Chisolm
  • Ntozake Shange
  • Patrisse Cullors

HerStory 2023 February: Octavia Butler

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a skein of red, pink, black yarn

When you think of science fiction writing, and particularly female science fiction authors, one of the first to pop into most people’s minds is Octavia Butler. So much of what she wrote is deep in the thread of modern fiction, and her influence is so broad, that we couldn’t possibly NOT feature her this year. And it must be said that, even though she is considered to be a science fiction writer by many, she herself didn’t necessarily agree; Butler resisted being pigeonholed as a genre writer, and claimed to have three loyal audiences: black readers, science-fiction fans, and feminists.

Butler was raised by her mother and grandmother, having lost her father at a young age. She was a shy kid who found solace in the local library, and her mother encouraged her reading and writing. Butler read the heck out of the sci-fi available at the time, but continually found herself disappointed and frustrated by the lack of representation to be found in the works available to her. As her writing career began to take shape, she made conscious efforts to center protagonists that reflected her own life experiences, which was baffling to many editors at the time. A Black woman, centered in a science fiction work? Who would read that? (Sound familiar, friends? It seems like this is what all of our HerStory recipients hear at some time in their journey: since you aren’t centering those that have always been centered, your work has less intrinsic value and interest. GEESH!)

Particularly in these recent times, when the dangers of a lot of what was traditionally reserved for science fiction works look more and more likely to actually come to pass, reading Octavia Butler and her no-holds-barred view of the downfalls of society becomes both more important and more difficult. She doesn’t shy away from the ugliness that can be at the heart of modern society, and the dangers of continuing on a path informed by white supremacy and capitalism. Even through that, there is a thread of hope and redemption that runs through her works, and keeps her on to-read lists everywhere.

The Xenogensis trilogy, also known as Lilith’s Brood, is one of Octavia Butler’s most popular and enduring work, and we’ve used a particularly vibrant version of the cover of book three as our colorway inspiration this month. 

Books by Octavia Butler:

  • Kindred
  • Parable of the Sower / Parable of the Talents
  • The Patternist Series
  • The Xenogenesis Trilogy

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

  • Nnedi Okorafor
  • Marie Lu
  • Nalo Hopkinson
  • Rebecca Roanhorse
  • Fonda Lee
  • Janelle Monae

We hope you enjoy this HerStory Book Club as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. We envision an open-ended Book Club, with folks reading or listening to whichever book they’d like from each author’s If you’d like a spoiler of all of the authors we’ll be showcasing this year, check out our website: https://knittedwit.com/herstory-2022-authors/

HerStory January 2023: Mia Birdsong

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Mia Birdsong, b. 1973

​​For our second year of HerStory Book Club, we are starting in much the same way we finished 2022. Our final theme for 2022 was breaking the burnout cycle many of us find ourselves in, and our first theme for 2023 is building community to feed our souls. Starting and ending with hope and purpose seem like good ways to bookend our club, and we hope you find January’s book and author as inspiring as we have.

We are starting our New Year off with hope and love as we feature Mia Birdsong and her transformative book, How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community. This book discusses how building community and fostering deep personal relationships with others enhances our own lives, and how modern American society, so steeped in its particular brand of individualism and white supremacy, leans away from deep connection instead of toward it. The particular focus of this book is on communities that encompass marginalized folks, such as Black and brown people, the LGBTQIA+ community, poor, displaced, and houseless communities, and single mothers, to name a few. The way the people and communities that Birdsong interviewed for this book show up for each other is a lesson to be learned for all of us longing for belonging in our disconnected age.

This book is hopeful and beautiful and inspiring. It’s hard to listen to and hard to put down, all at once. It inspires us to hold a mirror to our own lives and think more deeply about how we are working on our own communities, and how much more we have to gain from deepening those communities than from building more walls around our own places in the world.

Mia Birdsong is a writer, advocate, speaker, community member, mother, partner, friend, and thinker. Her work centers the marginalized and explores what is possible if community was centered more in our lives. Her communities are many and wide-ranging, and through them, she has found deep meaning and love and support. We could all learn a thing or two from her work and her example. Our colorway, How We Show Up, was inspired by the lovely interconnectedness of the book cover, and we hope to knit our communities together using this yarn during this first month of 2023.

Books by Mia Birdsong:

  • How We Show Up 
  • Many TED talks and articles
  • More Than Enough podcast for The Nation

Want more like this? Here are some other authors we suggest you read/listen to:

  • Sonya Renee Taylor
  • Patrisse Khan-Cullors
  • Adrienne Maree Brown
  • Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha