My then boyfriend brought this book home for us from the library and I read it one sitting. I hadn’t seen a mixed genre book like this before, with such beautiful illustrations (the colors are red, black, and white mostly, sort of inky, sort of watercoloresque) of the protagonist having sex with her girlfriend and different men. The lettering was really special too — a unique font, not anything like I’d seen in published books.
It was the graphic novel Rent Girl by Michelle Tea with illustrations by Laurren McCubbin. Rent Girl is the working class story of a baby dyke and her girlfriend who turn to sex work when they are broke. Tea writes with real nuance about both the drudgery and outlaw status of sex work.
The book spoke to my zine loving, DIY self, and my deep appreciation for all things girl-centered, queer, and/or taboo. Mostly, it was amazing to read Michelle tell a story in a voice that felt authentic, real, and honest. At the time, I didn’t know where my own writing fit in the worlds I occupied. I was ignored by some poets for being too narrative (and likely confessional) and I hadn’t yet started to write fiction or essays. I definitely felt like I was writing subject matter that no one seemed to care about.
The book was a lamp post for me, a firefly in the dark world of publishing. It told me there were people, many of them women…
