Recipe For Wordstock Delight: A Dash of Sister Spit to Spice Things Up

The “Recipe For Wordstock Delight” posts will be a series of brief profiles of the events surrounding this years Wordstock Festival.  Inspired by the “Be a Literary Omnivore” catchphrase adopted by Wordstock and suggested by contributor Spencer Cushing, the “Recipe” posts will appear throughout the next week.  This profile is authored by contributor Nicole Krueger, read more of Nicole’s literary musings here.

Sometimes you’ve got a story that just has to be told, even if it means spending the night in a bathtub.

Sometimes you’ve just got to let the words explode from you, even if it means dipping your mouth to the mic and asking a roomful of strangers if one of them can put you up for the night.

Sometimes you’ve just got to spread the word, even if it means roving the country in a van full of raucous, dynamic grrrls living on a shoestring budget.

Sister Spit, an all-queer band of “zinesters, fashion plates, novelists, performance artists, slam poets and fancy scribblers” based in San Francisco, has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 1994. The literary troupe was initially created as a vehicle for young, queer writers to share their art.

“I think we are still in the process of creating a body of queer narratives big and vast enough to contain the wild variations of queer experience,” said founder Michelle Tea, an award-winning author and editor and of books and anthologies. “Our stories haven’t been told yet, so it makes sense that queers needing to see themselves represented in the world are doing it for themselves. It’s not something that can be done for you.”

The original band quit touring in 2000, but the story didn’t end there. After editing an anthology of young, queer female writers a couple of years ago, Tea decided to hit the road once more, this time with the anthology’s contributors. Now resurrected as Sister Spit: The Next Generation—a mix of seasoned sisters and new blood—the spoken-word group will perform at Mississippi Studios Sunday as part of Wordstock.

What is the goal of Sister Spit?

MT: Sister spit has a lot of agendas, but mostly it’s to take writers and artists whose talent trumps their resources and get them out across America so that people learn about them and love them and their career gets a boost. Most of the writers we work with publish on smaller presses that aren’t able to send their writers on tour, and the writers generally can’t afford to do it on their own.

We also like cross-pollinating queer and literary scenes, bringing our show to audiences who like this sort of thing—especially in smaller towns with less art happening, where maybe it’s hard to be a weirdo. And we want inspiring adventures for the performers!

What can people expect from one of your performances?

MT: People can expect a lively, engaged, personal, hilarious, fearless, no-bullshit, multimedia performance. Cabaret!

How is writing for spoken word different than writing for print?

MT: When writing for performance, in general you want to be mindful of bringing some theatrics, however subtle. On the page you can be dense or wordy or complicated because the reader can focus and determine the time they’ll spend with you; it’s like intimate one-on-one time as opposed to live performance, which involves more overt entertainment. It’s tricky though, ’cause we’re all writers on Sister Spit and the pressure to be more of a comedian can get oppressive. But generally live readings benefit from evoking big emotions—laughter, horror, wonder, etc.

People often comment that they remember Sister Spit from its original tour in 1997. What makes the group so memorable?

MT: We’re memorable because no one is doing what we’re doing. The sister spit aesthetic is varied, but there is an underlying commonality of stance or style or perspective that makes the show really powerful. The artists we bring just really are some of the most exceptional people working today, and they are totally unique and innovative. We always hear from people that they don’t like spoken word but they love us!

Details-

What: Sister Spit: The Next Generation

When: October 11th, 38 p.m.

Where: Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave

Price: $10, buy tickets