Paley Library Lecture Hall Author Sara Marcus discusses researching and writing her extraordinary Girls to the Front, the first-ever published history of the seminal 1990s Riot Grrrl movement. She will address the culture, the music, and the art that have made an indelible impact on music and feminism today, the personalities that brought this movement to the forefront, and how the Riot Grrrl story lives on. The past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in Riot Grrrl, and a renewed appreciation for the music, art, and politics of this vital cultural movement.

Sara Marcus is a writer and musician living in Brooklyn, New York. Her prose and poetry have appeared in publications including Artforum, Bookforum, Slate, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, Death, and EOAGH. She is a founding editor of New Herring Press. Riot Grrrl roared into the spotlight in 1991: an uncompromising movement of girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet.

Young women everywhere were realizing that the equality they’d been promised was still elusive. In response, thousands of riot grrrls published zines, founded local groups, and organized national conventions, while fiercely prophetic punk bands such as Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, and Bikini Kill helped spread the word across the US and to Canada, Europe, and beyond. Register on Facebook! Like us, too!

REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS Girls to the Front is the first meticulously researched book about Riot Grrrl… I think this book is pretty on. Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and LeTigre A historical rockument of the revolutionary 90s counterculture Riot Grrrl movement. . . . A rousing inspiration for a new generation of empowered rebel girls to strap on guitars and stick it to The Man. Vanity Fair Feminism seems to change every five years. It’s hard to grasp the movement. But you don’t have to live a lifetime to get the idea and energy of it, and Sara Marcus’s book channels what it is to make it your own. Girls to the Front is not just a keeper of the flame but brings you to your own fire.

Sara Marcus