Seal Press
When I was a freshman in high school, I read Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism and it changed my life. It’s what sent me to Feministing, which introduced me to the feminist blogosphere, which in turn inspired me to start a blog for teenage feminists. Because just like Feministing, Full Frontal Feminism can be applicable to the lives of teenagers in many ways, and has been passed around plenty amongst teen feminists, but ultimately Full Frontal is geared towards women in their 20’s and 30’s.
And as absolutely fabulous as Full Frontal is, I think we can all agree that it’s about time that teenage feminists have a book that is really ours – about and relevant to our lives and written from a teenage perspective. We’ve proven we exist through the FBomb; thousands of teenage girls visit this blog every month, writing incredibly brilliant posts and comments every week. We need a book to represent that.
It just so happens that I’m writing that book. In fact, Seal Press- the lovely publisher of Full Frontal Feminism– is publishing it. Which is incredibly mind-blowing and awesome. And I’m having the best time in the world writing this, especially since I get to incorporate all of my experiences with the FBomb and everything this community has taught me into every page.
I’m still in the process of writing this book, but here’s the basic idea: this book will be a handbook for teenage feminism, accessible to teenagers of all levels of feminist identification. It’s as much for teens who are constantly using the phrase, “I’m not a feminist, but… [insert feminist belief here]” as it is for the FBomb warriors who are well versed in their feminist texts and are on this website posting and commenting up a storm. It’s a critical look at feminism and it’s a manifesto for our generation – what we believe and how we’re going to change this movement (and the world). It covers serious topics, but in the vein of the FBomb, I promise it’s going to be fun. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (you probably won’t cry), you’ll learn. It’ll be great.
But I’m not here to gush about it. I’m not a gusher. No, this is serious business. I might be the only one writing this book (a fact that, when it truly hits me, kind of makes my heart stop) but the FBomb obviously has to be included somehow. I mean, duh, you’re all a huge reason why this book will exist at all.
Here’s the deal. This book doesn’t have a title yet. And I’ve been keeping this fact in the back of my mind for months, trying to think of something, but I keep coming up with “The FBomb” which is a name I happen to have used already, so that’s a no-go. Then I realized that FBomb contributors and commenters are writing brilliant, hilarious, awesome things every day. You’re a freakin amazing group of brilliant young women and you deserve to be a part of this, somehow. So I think you guys should title this book.
But, I mean, thinking of a title just for the hell of it isn’t really fun. So we’re going to make this a contest.
You have two weeks from today (May 23rd – June 6th) to submit an idea (or multiple ideas) for consideration to fbombsubmissions@gmail.com. A technicality: please title the email submission “FBomb Title Contest” and include your name. The prize is a book package from Seal Press, which will include a book bag with 5 free books (to get an idea, here’s a list of the books Seal Press has put out into the world). Some of my Seal Press faves? Full Frontal Feminism (obviously), Click! When We Knew We Were Feminists and Reality Bites Back just to name a few. Pretty cool, right?
Let the games begin!