Michelle Tea

Sister Spit: Then and Now

Love / Shove post by Kjerstin Johnson on October 5, 2009 - 1:19pm; tagged archives, Ariel Schrag, Ben McCoy, Beth Lisick, bitch magazine, Kirya Traber, Michelle Tea, poetry, RADAR, Rhiannon Argo, Sara Seinberg, Sister Spit, Sister Spit: the Next Generation.

Sister Spit: the Next Generation just started their Fall '09 tour! This year's tour features Ben McCoy, Kirya Traber, Sara Seinberg, Ariel Schrag, Beth Lisick, Rhiannon Argo, and of course, Sister Spit and RADAR founder Michelle Tea.

This month's article from the Bitch archives is a flashback to Issue #11 (before there were even themes!), where a young Kira Garcia tags along for 1990's Sister Spit tour. Check out her tour diary, "Why Don't We do it on the road" online! Read on for tour dates or visit their official site (they're also heading out again next April).

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Tea Time

An interview with Michelle Tea by Andi Zeisler, published in 2000; filed under Books; tagged authors, dykes, Michelle Tea, queer, San Francisco, sex industry, Sister Spit, spoken word.

Valencia's Michelle Tea Likes it Caffeinated

Michelle Tea loves words, and it shows. As one of the founders of San Francisco's brilliantly loopy poetry slam-cum-cabaret Sister Spit, the 28-year-old Tea's flair for whipping tales of life and love into hilarious dramalogues have made her a local favorite on the spoken-word scene, and her gleeful energy and tongue-twisty stylings come through just as loud on paper.

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Why Don't We Do it in the Road?

Article by Kira Garcia, appeared in issue Issue #11; published in 2000; filed under Art; tagged bugs, impromptu strip show, lesbian icons, Michelle Tea, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, on the road, on tour, performance, poetry, the south.

Seven weeks on the Sister Spit tour

Issue #11

the traveling spoken-word gang Sister Spit started five years ago as a weekly open mike where grrrly-type poets and performers could ply their trade at San Francisco bars and coffeehouses. In 1997, co-ringleader Michelle Tea, author of the charming and intimate memoir The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, and her partner-in-crime Sini Anderson, who has rocked poetry scenes from subway stations to Lollapalooza and everywhere in between, kicked off the annual Sister Spit Road Show.

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Why Don't We Do It on the Road?

Article by Kira Garcia, appeared in issue Issue #11; published in 1990; filed under Activism; tagged Michelle Tea, on tour, poetry, Sister Spit.

The traveling spoken-word gang Sister Spit started ﬁve years ago as a weekly open mike where grrrly-type poets and performers could ply their trade at San Francisco bars and coffeehouses. In 1997, co-ringleader Michelle Tea, author of the charming and intimate memoir The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, and her partner-in-crime Sini Anderson, who has rocked poetry scenes from subway stations to Lollapalooza and everywhere in between, kicked off the annual Sister Spit Road Show. Every spring they determine the tour lineup by drawing from a hat ﬁlled with the names of women whose writing they like. The randomly chosen few pile into vans and take off across the country, unleashing new-school, girls-only poems and stories armed with heartbreak and humor (and the occasional striptease) on rabid fans and hapless victims everywhere.

Of course, tours need roadies. You know, drive the van, sling t-shirts and books, and try not to get drunk before you count the money. The day I met Michelle, she "just had this feeling" that I was destined to be the roadie for Sister Spit’s 1999 Road Show. Um, give up my professional summer internship behind a desk editing copy in exchange for a few thousand miles in a caravan of rowdy, punk-dyke poets? Hell, yes.

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