San Francisco-based author Michelle Tea is one of those multitalented young lesbian writers who is a true national treasure. Tea is perhaps best known in literary circles for her best-selling novel Valencia, which tracks 20-something dyke life in San Francisco’s Mission District during the mid-1990s. A rousing literary romp through a gritty and alcohol-permeated pre-dot.com San Francisco, Valencia remains one of the truest depictions of young urban dyke life we’ve seen yet in print. Tea is also a well-known spoken-word performer and a founder of legendary performance troupe Sister Spit. Her other books include the recent autobiographical novel Chelsea Whistle and a new anthology, Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. She took time out during her move across town with her lover, Rocco, an F-M hip-hop poet and spoken word artist, to speak with Curve about life, love and writing.


Hey, Michelle: How did your wonderful new collection Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class come about?

Without A Net was brewing in me for a while. I had been collecting these wonderful stories I’d heard read by various working-class writers on my tours and travels. I was not surprised to find that such an anthology didn’t already exist, and Seal gobbled the idea right up! I have, as a person who has been poor or working-class most of my life, a lot of anger and bitterness and generally complicated, negative feelings. This seemed like a really positive and proactive way to do something with all those messy emotions.

Tell me which writing of yours you’re most proud of, and why.

Actually, the piece I’m most proud of at the moment is a very long journalistic-type piece I wrote last fall for The Believer. It’s called “Transmissions from Camp Trans,” and it’s an investigation of Camp Trans and the controversial Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival policy that forbids transsexual women entry to the festival. It’s my favorite piece for a lot of reasons: I feel very strongly that trans women ought to be allowed into the fest, and I hoped that I could use my writing to bring some attention to the struggle. It’s just been selected for inclusion in Best American Non-Required Reading 2004, which means information about Camp Trans will reach an even greater audience, and since the anthology is edited by high-school students, it was gratifying to learn that younger people have a grasp on trans issues.

Valencia remains one of my favorite dyke novels, because it captures a particularly vibrant era in San Francisco lesbian herstory. Tell us what you remember most about that time, and how the dyke scene is different now.

More then anything, I remember being drunk and coming back to my little room on 14th Street, alone, and passing out on my futon. I remember running through the streets a lot and being sweaty and feeling so confused all the time. Everything moved so fast then, and my actual physical body felt like some indestructible machine. I mean, I remember drinking a lot, and doing drugs, and I can’t remember eating a thing besides my morning salt bagel and an occasional falafel! How did I survive?

This is one thing I know: Everyone thinks that the time they came of age in, the time they first got to be wholly free and young and fucking nuts, is the best time. It would be arrogant and untrue to say that the San Francisco of my 20s is somehow better or more real than the San Francisco all the 20-something queers are experiencing now. Life is always full of strange and wonderful people to hang out and sleep with. The only solid change I can see — and this is primarily from afar, since I don’t go to bars much anymore — is that there are fewer butch dyke-identified folks and a whole lot more genderqueer and trans-identified people. And that changes the social fabric … but it’s all still a great and vibrant place to be.

With your partner, Rocco, publicly evolving from F to M, your role/image, both publicly and privately, seems to also be shifting. Can you talk about that?

Well, I have had to deal with my attraction to men and get honest about my bisexuality — or queerness, to include all the many genders. “Lesbian” doesn’t really fit when you’re with a guy, which I am now, and though “dyke” feels so much like a gender expression to me — I feel “dykey” compared to girls who aren’t, it’s sort of the way I’m female, I think — “dyke” also doesn’t work anymore, if we’re talking about orientation. So I’ve settled into a comfy and inclusive “queer.”

What are your most productive working hours?

They’re changing. I used to write all night in bars, but now I don’t drink, and I get tired early. I think I like mornings, after I get all nicely caffeinated.

Any advice to young writers?

Just write! Prioritize it above all else. Carve out time to do it, regardless of how stressful your work schedule might be. Put it before work, at least in your heart. Kill any shame you have, and in your writing, have allegiance to no one or nothing but the story. I encourge you to be ruthless. Age will no doubt mellow you out, so while you’re young, be wild and ferocious and hold your writing high above everything else in your life.

What’s your next project?

I have an illustrated novel, a collaboration with the artist Laurenn McCubbinn, coming out called Rent Girl. It’s about sex work, queerness and love! Watch for it soon!

For more about Michelle, visit http://www.purpleglitter.com/michelle_tea.

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