{"product_id":"9781452941332","title":"Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Kelly Cogswell plunged into New York’s East Village in 1992, she had just come out. An ex–Southern Baptist born in Kentucky, she was camping in an Avenue B loft, scribbling poems, and playing in an underground band, trying to figure out her next move. A couple of months later she was consumed by the Lesbian Avengers, instigating direct action campaigns, battling cops on Fifth Avenue, mobilizing 20,000 dykes for a march on Washington, D.C., and eating fire—literally—in front of the White House.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt once streetwise and wistful, \u003ci\u003eEating Fire\u003c\/i\u003e is a witty and urgent coming-of-age memoir spanning two decades, from the Culture War of the early 1990s to the War on Terror. Cogswell’s story is an engaging blend of picaresque adventure, how-to activist handbook, and rigorous inquiry into questions of identity, resistance, and citizenship. It is also a compelling, personal recollection of friendships and fallings-out and of finding true love—several times over. After the Lesbian Avengers imploded, Cogswell describes how she became a pioneering citizen journalist, cofounding the \u003ci\u003eGully\u003c\/i\u003e online magazine with the groundbreaking goal of offering “queer views on everything.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first in-depth account of the influential Lesbian Avengers, \u003ci\u003eEating Fire\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the group’s relationship to the queer art and activist scene in early ’90s New York and establishes the media-savvy Avengers as an important precursor to groups such as Occupy Wall Street and La Barbe, in France. A rare insider’s look at the process and perils of street activism, Kelly Cogswell’s memoir is an uncompromising and ultimately empowering story of creative resistance against hatred and injustice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128675352816,"sku":"9781452941332","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781452941332_p0.jpg?v=1763850111","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781452941332","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}