The Femme Monologues: An interview with Marusya Bociurkiw and Terri Roberton

The Femme Monologues is a graphic memoir series, written by Marusya Bociurkiw with graphics by Terri Roberton, that appears monthly in Xtra! Toronto and in Capital Xtra! (Ottawa). The series presents short vignettes from a queer/femme/feminist archive, covering such topics as feminist publishing, women's dances, the new queer cinema and the re-emergence of butch/femme culture in the 1990s. It features a wide-eyed femme discovering lesbianism, vegetarian food, women's music and butches for the first time. The first story, "On Becoming A Dissident Writer" (Part 1 appeared June 1, Part 2 is in the Pride Day issue), takes us back to the 1970s, and the funky era of feminist culture, when women's newspapers, record companies, publishers, and hey, even garages sprung up for the first time in Canada. It's about the very first time our femme heroine got published, in a feminist newspaper and the ripple effect that had on her family... and on her own identity.