Trailblazing feminist icon, musician, outspoken women’s rights activist, and original rebel girl Kathleen Hanna has released her critically acclaimed memoir ‘Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk’ with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. In celebration, her U.S. book tour kicks off this evening in NYC with Molly Ringwald.
Throughout the run, Hanna will be joined by an eclectic lineup of brilliant minds “in conversation,” including Amy Poehler, Hanif Abdurraqib, Lindy West, Brontez Purnell, Puja Patel and more. Fans unable to attend the tour in-person can join the live stream on May 22nd! A portion of all ticket sales will be donated to Peace Sisters, a non-profit organization for which Hanna is an Ambassador.
Hanna’s band Bikini Kill embodied the punk scene of the 90s, and today her personal yet feminist lyrics on anthems like ‘Rebel Girl’ and ‘Double Dare Ya’ are more powerful than ever. But where did this transformative voice come from?
In ‘Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk’, Hanna’s raw and insightful new memoir, she takes us from her tumultuous childhood to her formative college years and her first shows. As she makes clear, being in a punk “girl band” in those years was not a simple or safe prospect. Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination.
But the relationships she developed during those years buoyed her, including with her bandmates Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, JD Samson, and Johanna Fateman. And her friendships with musicians like Kurt Cobain, Ian MacKaye, Kim Gordon, and Joan Jett reminded her that despite the odds, the punk world could still nurture and care for its own. Hanna opens up about falling in love with Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys and her debilitating battle with Lyme disease, and she brings us behind the scenes of her musical growth in her bands Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin.
In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the hardest times along with the most joyful—and how they continue to fuel her revolutionary art and music.
US book tour dates:
May 14th – Greenlight Bookstore, Kings Theatre – Brooklyn, NY
May 15th – Loyalty Bookstore, Lincoln Theatre – Washington, DC
May 16th – Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Mason High School – Cincinnati, OH
May 18th – Women & Children First, Hermann Hall – Chicago, IL
May 20th – Book Soup, The Wilshire Ebell Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
May 21st – City Arts & Lectures, The Sydney Goldstein Theater – San Francisco, CA
May 22nd – Seattle Arts & Lectures, Town Hall Seattle – Seattle, WA + live stream
May 23rd – Powell’s Books, Revolution Hall – Portland, OR
May 28th – Brookline Booksmith, The Wilbur Theatre – Boston, MA
May 29th – Uncle Bobbie’s, WHYY Studio – Philadelphia, PA