Introducing "Fierce", thirteen powerful, entwined biographies and memoirs that describe a staunchly Feminist approach: “To thine own self be true.” Historical documentation of human affairs informs the past, but what of the understated and overlooked herstories of half of the world’s population? Fierce explores the lives of “masterless women” in education, entrepreneurship, religion, the armed forces, the arts, adventuring, and activism, celebrating their strengths and achievements while questioning the systems that erased the significance of their influence and importance. The writers range in age from their 20s to their 60s, and they hail from diverse heritages and orientations. By sharing the rich context of their unique life experiences, the authors emphasize their connection to each of their herstorical subjects, whose various provenances span continents and centuries. These essays shine a light on the shadowy, lesser-known impact that women have had on global history through the importance of each of these herstories: • A writer questioning the pervasive sway of caste systems in her own life considers a humble 19th-century Indian woman who made a terrible sacrifice to change an unfair law.• One writer’s antiwar sensibility is challenged and transforms into that of sympathetic recognition as she regards the roles of murderous aviatrixes in World War II. • The blacklisted Armenian intellectual who disappeared without a trace mirrors the loss of information about the essayist’s own family in the diaspora and similarly reflects the ongoing decline of her elderly mother’s cognitive abilities.• A legendary spirit entity in Native American tradition is inspiring a new generation of young women to create thoughtful and dynamic change inside and outside of their community. Along with striking frontispiece illustrations, additional bonus material encompasses an extensive Reader’s Guide including book group materials and substantial writing and conversation prompts, creating a noteworthy compendium to aid contemplation and better understanding of these herstories that analyzes their links to contemporary and future female narratives. Armed with this knowledge and these truths, each reader can become, “A queen because she ruled over herself, and because she ruled over herself, a queen.”— From "Radiant Identity: Chicaba Herstories"

Fierce: Essays by and about Dauntless Women

Biographies & Memoirs

Corthron, Kara Lee

Nair, Meera

McDonnell, Caitlin Grace

Agabian, Nancy

Andrews, Betsy

Walker, Taté

Brehmer, Debra

HoneyChild, Chicava

Nicolás-Huntsman, Edissa

Community & Culture

Nauset Press

Introducing Fierce, thirteen powerful, entwined biographies and memoirs that describe a staunchly Feminist approach: "To thine own self be true." Historical documentation of human affairs informs the past, but what of the understated and overlooked herstories of half of the world's population? 
Fierce explores the lives of "masterless women" in education, entrepreneurship, religion, the armed forces, the arts, adventuring, and activism, celebrating their strengths and achievements while questioning the systems that erased the significance of their influence and importance. The writers range in age from their 20s to their 60s, and they hail from diverse heritages and orientations. By sharing the context of their unique life experiences, the authors emphasize their connection to each of their herstorical subjects, whose various provenances span continents and centuries. These essays shine a light on the shadowy, lesser-known impact that women have had on global history through the importance of each of these herstories: 
- A writer questioning the pervasive sway of caste systems in her own life considers a humble 19th-century Indian woman who made a terrible sacrifice and changed an unfair law.
- The blacklisted Armenian intellectual who disappeared without a trace mirrors the loss of information about the essayist's own family in the diaspora and similarly reflects the ongoing decline of her elderly mother's cognitive abilities.
- A woman evoked from Native American oral history is inspiring a new generation of young women to create thoughtful and dynamic change inside and outside of their community.
- One writer's antiwar sensibility is challenged and transforms into that of sympathetic recognition as she regards the roles of murderous aviatrixes in World War II. 
Along with striking frontispiece illustrations, additional bonus material encompasses an extensive Reader's Guide including book group materials and substantial writing and conversation prompts, creating a noteworthy compendium to aid contemplation and a better understanding of these herstories that analyzes their links to contemporary and future female narratives. Armed with this knowledge and these truths, each reader can become, 
"A queen because she ruled over herself, and because she ruled over herself, a queen." -- From Radiant Identity: Chicaba Herstories

Literary Nonfiction. Biography. Middle Eastern Studies. In this memoir, Nancy Agabian tells stories of growing pains, family tensions, and buried pasts. In a narrative that braids together different times and places and shifts between comic and dramatic registers, Agabian tells us how, as a child, she learns to juggle roles in response to competing pressures to fit in as an American while maintaining her Armenian heritage. At home, she struggles with her grandmother's old ideologies, arguments between her parents, and heated discussions about race and sexuality. In her twenties, Agabian moves to Hollywood and becomes a performance artist and begins to discover herself sexually, dating both men and women. After hiding her autobiographical shows from her relatives, she finally decides to confront her family history and takes a trip to Armenia with her artist aunt, during which she finds she must reckon with painful family histories involving displacement and genocide.

Me as Her Again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter

Arts & Literature

Aunt Lute Books

Poetry. Fiction. Performance Texts. Gay and Lesbian Studies. PRINCESS FREAK is the first book by Nancy Agabian, a performance artist and writer who formed the performance art-punk-folk band Guitar Boy with Ann Perich in Los Angeles in 1998. PRINCESS FREAK documents the coming-of-age of a shy, funny, bisexual Armenian-American woman who flees the small town of Walpole, Massachusetts to tell the stories of her family. Agabian's paternal grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey in 1915, and much of the work in the book carries the impact of this devastating event. "She pays close attention to what most of us overlook--in her hands the ordinary explodes into beauty and complexity"--Holly Hughes.

Princess Freak

Literature & Fiction

United States

Beyond Baroque Books

The Fear of Large and Small Nations

Genre Fiction

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Books by Agabian, Nancy