The Rad American Women Behind Rad American Women: An Interview With Kate Schatz & Miriam Klein Stahl

Rad American Women A–Z, which was just released from City Lights/Sister Spit, doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive list of important American women. But to imagine the 25 women selected by author Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Klein Stahl as a representative sample is to imagine a world in which radicalism is somehow the norm, a world in which living as a woman in America might itself be a radical act. From Angela Davis to Zora Neale Hurston, from Dolores Huerta to Kate Bornstein to Maya Lin to Patti Smith to to Temple Grandin to Wilma Mankiller, the book profiles women who came from very different backgrounds and worked in very different fields, but who were all undeniably radical: in their politics, their aesthetics, their style, in the ways in which their work continues to shape and challenge our own lives. Very few, if any, of them are familiar from the Famous American Women books of my childhood. In one of the most moving sections of the book, Schatz and Klein Stahl devote the letter X to The Women Whose Names We Don’t Know, gesturing not only toward public figures who could eventually show up in middle-school social-studies curricula–“the women we haven’t learned about yet”–but toward the ordinary women “whose stories we will never read.”

I got to talk to Schatz and Klein Stahl over email about their collaboration, their own daughters, and about the politics of basically every concept in the title: radicalism, America, nationalism, women, feminism, and the alphabet!

 

Caolan Madden: In an earlier interview, Kate she started writing the book for her daughter, “so that she’d have a fun, empowering, and informative book to read.” I’m so interested in hearing more about how both your daughters’ experiences, and your experiences as parents, led to all of us other parents getting our hands on this amazing book! How old were your daughters when you started the project?

Kate Schatz: My daughter was two when I got the idea, and by the time Miriam and I started working together on the book she was almost five.

Miriam Klein Stahl: My daughter was seven years old.

CM: What kinds of books were they reading?

KS: My mom saved all of my childhood books, and since she worked in a magical children’s bookstore (Hicklebee’s in San Jose, CA) when I was a kid, they were great ones, classics. Bread and Jam for Frances, Frog + Toad, A House is a House, Miss Rumphius, Whistle for Willie, I Am A Bunny, Hats for Sale, etc. So we read a lot of those, plus new ones and whatever she picked out at the library.

MKS: My daughter loves Harry Potter and is currently reading The Golden Compass.

CM: What did you or your daughters notice was missing from those books? Were they already looking for books like Rad American Women, or was it more that you wanted to find an age-appropriate way to introduce your kids to these rad women?

KS: It’s not something my daughter was aware of—she was psyched about talking badgers or bunnies or whatever—but as a writer I was very conscious of the new books coming out, what the trends seemed to be in kid lit, and it just didn’t seem to be producing what I wanted. Several years later, with the advent of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign and the raised voices of so many wonderful writers and people in the kid lit world, I do think that’s changing, but at the time I just wasn’t finding much feminist/progressive kid lit outside of the anti-princess genre. It’s important to note that now, after I’ve been immersed in this world for a few years, I’m aware of so many incredible children’s book writers and illustrators who have been doing smart, progressive, political work for years. I’m so glad to have learned about their work in the process of creating my own.

MKS: Everyone can use some rad women inspiration as seen by the reception of our book. It has gone way further into the mainstream than we had expected.

CM: Did you—or do you—ever disagree with your daughters about the books they want to read, especially about the ways in which those books represent women?

KS: Oh sure, but I pick my battles. You have to. She loves the Fancy Nancy books, and while I don’t think they’re particularly fierce or appealing to look at, and they present this overly-feminized mode of girlness, my daughter adores them and she learns from Nancy’s vocabulary. And Nancy is into science and poetry and she’s smart and she asks questions. So she’s not all bad. There have been some books that I’ve outright vetoed, but not many—interestingly it’s more about the representation of boys instead of girls. Early Beverly Cleary books (like Otis Spofford) are actually super problematic and offensive. Once she brought home some middle grade series about these boys that basically hate school and are super mean to the girls in their classes. That was like the entire premise, these snotty boys who think school and girls are dumb. Those got recycled. We currently disagree about Amelia Bedelia because I think she’s totally asinine and Ivy thinks she’s hilarious, which I guess I agreed with when I was six. But god those books suck.

MKS: We definitely have talked about the lack of women characters in the Harry Potter series, or more specifically, how none of the women in the books have other allies that are women. Hermione Granger is definitely a rad strong women character—it is just a shame that she doesn’t have meaningful conversations or experiences with other women.

CM: Can you tell me a little about your collaboration as writer and artist?

KS: It’s basically been magical. We’re an excellent team—I talk a lot and write a lot and Miriam makes art really well and really fast. We’re very aligned in our aesthetics and our ethics and we like to talk on the phone. We both teach high school and we have cute kids and cute partners and cute dogs. It’s a good scene.

CM: How did you and Miriam start working together?

KS: I approached Miriam at the beginning of 2014 to see if she’d like to collaborate. I’d had the idea for several years and had done a lot of research, but was finally really (after having another baby and getting promoted) to make it happen. We have some mutual friends and had met a few times; I knew her work well and felt it would be perfect for the book. Her work is bold and fierce and emotional and strong. It’s simple yet nuanced and it was exactly what I wanted. I asked, she said let’s make it happen! And we did.

MKS: I love collaboration and thought Kate had an excellent idea that I was happy to be part of bringing to life.

CM: How did your collaboration work? I loved Kate’s post for the KidLit Women’s History Month blog on the origins of the X page, where it sounds like Miriam’s idea for the image came before Kate’s text. As you worked on the book as a whole, did image or text tend to come first?

KS: When I approached her I had about 70% of the women decided. She started to make papercuts for those, and we worked together to figure out the rest. So we were kind of simultaneously writing and making the art; she would text me from her studio to show me new papercuts and I would send a lot of all caps excited replies, like OMMGGGGG NELLIE BLY I LOOOOOVE IT.

MKS: I work really fast, so  I think I made all the images besides X and W before Kate wrote them. Both the writing and images came from our collective research of the amazing lives of the women in the book.

CM: Let’s talk about the title. I love how unapologetically leftist the book is—you make it very clear in the introduction that “rad” is short for “radical,” and that one thing you’re celebrating in the book is specifically political radicalism.

MKS: WE have nothing to hide about our radical intentions!

CM: Did you feel any pressure (even internal pressure) to make the book “safer,” to appeal to a broader audience?

KS: Nope. And I think that’s part of the beauty of the book’s success, and part of the wonder of working with an independent small publisher like City Lights—we were never concerned with ‘a broader audience’. The only times that Miriam and I internally ‘censored’ ourselves, or talked about that, were when we were considering whether a woman and her story would be appropriate for kids. That’s the audience we considered. We made the decision that we wanted kids to be able to Google each women in the book and come up with appropriate information, at least in the top hits. We thought about our own kids and what we would and wouldn’t want them getting into online. So a few women whose lives were amazing and radical, but that involved heavy drug use and sex work weren’t included in the end. Not because of judgment about those aspects of their lives, or even out of concerns for people buying the book—but because we want kids to safely do research.

MKS: Both City Lights and Sister Spit were fully supportive of our vision of pushing the envelope of feminist kids lit.

 

CM: You point out that “radical… can be someone who did grassroots organizing [or]… a person who wants to make big changes in society… [or] something that is different from the usual… [or] ‘cool’ or ‘awesome'” like Flo-Jo or Patti Smith. But of course there’s something politically radical in Flo-Jo and Patti’s coolness and awesomeness, too. Can you talk about how the different forms of “rad” you describe in the introduction intersect?

KS: We define it in a few ways, and play with the flexibility of what it means to be ‘rad.’ It can be someone who’s super cool and awesome, or who makes big changes or does something that’s never been done. But like you point out, these things all ultimately intersect—Carol Burnett might not be considered a ‘radical’ by most, but what she achieved and how she’s lived have actual been pretty radical. In a patriarchal racist capitalist society the achievements of all these women are absolutely totally radical. That’s not in the intro, or at least not phrased like that, but it’s a motivating idea behind it all.

CM: What about the A-Z concept—how did you get there?

KS: When you have a 2-year-old, and lots of books, A-Z is everywhere. The plastic toys in the living room sing it; the posters on the wall spell it out. It’s on placemats and plates and socks and every other book and wall. So it wasn’t a stretch.

 

CM: I’m especially interested in the fact that “A-Z” so often connotes comprehensiveness, authority, an encyclopedic catalogue of something. How are you working with and against the implied exhaustiveness of the A-Z format in this book? Does the format allow you to make a stronger claim for inclusivity, for example? I guess I’m asking: what are the politics of an alphabet book?

KS: Ah, this question is so up my alley. Prior to working on this book, I was a co-founder and editor of The Encyclopedia Project, along with Tisa Bryant and Miranda Mellis. TEP was—is! it’s still happening!—an insanely fun and ambitious and adventurous literary exploration that borrowed and reimagined the encyclopedic form to present innovative new literary and artistic works. Its very premise was to subvert the implied collection of “all knowledge” that encyclopedias offered. In fact, it’s how I first encountered Miriam’s work—we published her woodcut of James Baldwin as en entry for “Baldwin, James” in Encyclopedia Vol 1 A-E. Point is, I love this kind of stuff. And as for this book: as an organizing principle it highlights to absurdity, in a way, of trying to present The Most Important Famous Women. We all know there are SO many more women who could/should be in here, and the book gently forces us to imagine them.

CM: Did you have particular women in mind when you started the project?

KS: Yes, I made my own huge list, and then I reached out to a ton of friends for their input. From there I did a ton of research—mostly in the form of books about women’s history and American history, and, of course, ye olde internet. Lots of Googling and then falling down research rabbitholes as one woman led me to another and then another and then another…

CM: Who were some of your most exciting finds, and how did you find them?

KS: I’m really careful to avoid words like “finds” and “discovery”—I didn’t find any of these women, I just was lucky enough to learn about them. I was thrilled to learn about Jovita Idár, who I’d never ever heard of. And Hazel Scott. And Virginia Apgar—whose name I knew, as I’ve had two children, but I didn’t know her story. I found them, indeed, on the Internet. Because they weren’t in the books I was reading, even the more progressive women’s history ones.

CM: How did you balance your obvious commitment to different kinds of diversity?

KS: I prioritized the representation of women of color, to various time periods, to women working in different fields. It was a balancing act, for sure, but I feel like we did a good job.

CM: Who were the women you found it most painful to leave out?

KS: Fannie Lou Hamer, Sister Corita Kent, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich (A was tough!), Gertrude Stein, Octavia Butler, (I had too many writers!), Mae Jemison, Jane Addams. To name a few.

MKS: Sister Corita!

CM: I’ve been thinking about the Famous Women book as a genre a lot lately, partly because I’m reading Alison Booth’s How to Make It as a Woman, which is about nineteenth-century American and British prosopographies, or collective biographies, of women. It’s a whole genre! and one that in the nineteenth century was very often associated with nationalism and nation-building; authors would even claim classical or mythic figures for their own national tradition. I’ve certainly encountered more recent examples of this genre, and it’s really striking that almost all of the standard Women’s History Month figures are absent from Rad American Women: I think most American readers will expect Amelia Earhart instead of Angela Davis, Eleanor Roosevelt instead of Ella Baker. Their absence feels deliberate: it’s very clear that one goal of this book is to go beyond the limited scope of mainstream curricula about Famous American White Women.

KS: YES EXACTLY and WHOA I have just learned something very cool. Thank you for teaching me about prosopographies.

CM: What have your experiences been with the Famous American Women genre?

KS: I grew up reading biographies of Famous Women, mostly really loving the Famous Pioneer Women of the West kinds of stories. I dressed up like Annie Oakley for Famous Americans Day in second grade or whatever. I remember reading about Helen Keller and Florence Nightingale, and I remember my mom gave me a copy of Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. I loved any book or movie about scrappy tough independent girls, both nonfiction and fiction. Caddie Woodlawn, The Journey of Nattie Gan, every Ramona book, Little House on the Prairie, Anastasia Krupnik, Harriet the Spy—I’m blending genres here, but those were my heroes. All white girls, with the exception of two of my YA faves: Island of the Blue Dolphin and In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. I remain obsessed with those two.

CM: Do you see your book as having a nationalist or nation-building function, or undoing that function, or what? Is nationalism or nation-building always bad?

KS: I think nationalism is inevitable, especially for young people, and I don’t think it HAS to a bad thing—what if young people were given diverse and honest examples of what their nation is, what is has been, what it can be? I focused on American women in this book because U.S. History is taught to every child, in every school in this country, and it’s taught in a very specific way. Hopefully this book can function as way for educators and parents to expand the vision of what America is, has been, can be. It’s not an argument for the primacy of America or American women, but rather an attempt to shake up the Famous American Women we know. There are so many American histories that are radical and inspiring and righteous—just because so much of it is predicated on violent white male supremacy doesn’t mean that we should also reject the powerful stories of those who existed, and resisted, and excelled, despite all that bullshit.

MKS: I certainly  do not have a nationalist agenda but am quite invested in changing our culture for the better.

CM: What challenges did you encounter as you tried to communicate really complex and often painful historical or political realities to younger readers?

KS: The same challenges you face as a parent or teacher when kids ask hard questions: Okay, how do I explain slavery? How do I explain police brutality? How do I explain where people go when they die—when I don’t even know myself? I tried my best to be honest, clear, and accessible. I didn’t want to couch ‘controversial ideas’ in disclaimers or sugarcoating. Whether it was explaining the KKK or what it means to be transgender or why Bessie Coleman couldn’t go to aviation school in the US, I wanted to state it and move on with the story—not to avoid it, but to normalize it, in a way. To state it, explain it, and allow the reader(s) to process and confront it and do whatever work they need to. It’s the reason that I didn’t include a ‘note to the parents’ in the front, or any kind of disclaimer about the content. Because life doesn’t work that way, and poor children and children of color and children with disabilities and queer kids and the families of all these kids don’t get the safety of having disclaimers and buffers from their realities. The women in this book didn’t have those luxuries. I’ve received a lot of feedback from friends about the conversations they’ve had with their kids while reading the book. Many have acknowledged that it’s been challenging, that they’re had to think about things in new ways, or explain concepts they ‘weren’t ready to explain’—I love hearing that, because that’s what needs to happen. Part of white privilege (and in particular, white privilege parenting) IS that ability to choose when we ‘explain’ things that are deeply real, on a daily basis, to so many people. Yes, there are reasonable boundaries to maintain, and not all the details are appropriate for certain ages, and I don’t want to be dismissive of the fact that these conversations are hard—but kids deserve truth. And they can handle a lot more than we think. I fear that many white parents think they’re doing the right thing by teaching their children myths about being “colorblind.” That’s a dangerous erasure. To teach your child about equality, you have to acknowledge inequality.

 

CM: Here’s a question specifically for Miriam: The images in this book are so powerful. They remind me a little of WPA posters from the Depression, or maybe of Soviet propaganda posters—so I guess I’m saying they appear to participate in a very left-wing visual tradition. Were there any particular artists or movements you had in mind when you created this visual style, Miriam?

MKS: You are correct in that I am inspired by the WPA-era and Soviet propaganda, as well as printmaker Elizabeth Catlett and Black Panther Emory Douglas. I also work in woodcut and lino cut but wanted a cleaner more bold and graphic line so I decided to use paper cut. I sketched the image on a black piece of paper and cut it out with an X-acto blade and then photographed them on a white background.

CM: One thing I find fascinating about these images is that they’re incredibly beautiful, but that they often resist conventional standards for female beauty. We see women laughing, grimacing, shouting, screaming; you often seem to have selected source photos that show women actively engaged in their work, rather than more famous photos in which they look younger or “prettier.” How did you choose your source images, and how faithful to them were you?

MKS: We were going for a diversity of expression, active/contemplative  and angry/joyful. I looked at hundreds of source images and videos to find the right aesthetic for each person. I think they are all beautiful!

CM: What about feminism? This strikes me as such a feminist book, and Kate’s bio on the Rad American Women website describes her as a “feminist mama,” but the f-word doesn’t seem to appear in the book or its promotional materials. Why is that?

KS: It does appear once, I believe—in the entry for the Grimkes it says that some early white feminists were not concerned with abolition. But you’re right that it’s not in the title, or elsewhere in the book. I don’t shy away from the word, ever, but I guess there’s a feminism that’s just implied throughout the book. Feminism is in every single page.

CM: Who is the ideal audience for this book?

KS: Everyone. That sounds like a lazy answer but I mean it.

CM: What are you doing—and what can we do, as writers, educators, parents, and feminists—to help it reach that audience?

KS: Buy it for the young people in your life! Request it at your local library and independent bookstore. Tell your kid’s teacher. Buy a hundred copies and leave them around in strategic places. If you know any super rich people, tell them to buy copies for every kid in your school district, like these two amazing dads in NYC who purchased a thousand copies to donate to NYC public schools.

CM: How have your own daughters responded to the book?

KS: They love it so much.

MKS: My daughter feels proud of the book and often reads “X” at Rad American Women A-Z events and readings at bookstores. She also brought advanced copies to her teachers at school.

CM: How do you see their relationship to women’s history as different from your own?

MKS: My daughter has more of a sense of the injustice that women have faced in our society than I did as an eight-year-old.

KS: They have so many more resources. They have awesome feminist parents. They have big exciting vast futures.