press releases

Submerged: Tales from the Basin
July 10, 2008

What does a hurricane have to do with hair?
After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, writer Lauren González asked herself this very question. What could be a thread to connect the experiences of women outside of New Orleans who wanted to share their encouragement and support with the residents of this amazing city? Working from her home base in Brooklyn, González paired up with artist Lorien Jordan to prepare an anthology of literature, memoir, and art, with images by Jordan and writings by more than thirty women, to benefit those who survived Hurricane Katrina.

The title refers to a childhood fear remembered by González, of having her head submerged under water while her mother washed her hair. González took this connection and expanded on it in her selections, each of them an exploration of the contributor’s relationship with her hair, in most cases emotional, often humorous, and consistently generated from youth. The result is a detailed mapping of the personal and political implications of women’s hair: An African American writer discusses having her hair ironed straight in the 1960s, with her mother trying hard to keep her from looking like a Black Panther. A Southern writer laments her childhood braid lying in a box in perpetual youth while she, herself, ages. A young woman watches her aging grandmother go bald. A lonely widow rediscovers intimacy from the remote touch of her wax technician. A New Orleans performance group talks about Hurricane Katrina, gender stereotypes, and hair as stagecraft. The answer to the question González posed became complex and varied. A desire to help survivors of Katrina became an exploration of the personal experiences of everyday life, and the rebuilding of that everyday life in New Orleans.

About the editor and artist:
Lauren González is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006, and was a Hispanic Scholarship Foundation/McNamara Family Creative Arts Project fellow that year. Her narrative profile of workers on New York’s Old Fulton Fish Market was published in The Reading Room in June 2006.

Lorien Jordan is a newly Chicago-based visual artist. Lorien grew up in South Carolina and pursued her BA in painting at Arizona State University. She completed her MA in studio art at New York University in 2005. Her many exhibitions include work at Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia and MPG Contemporary in Boston, Massachusetts. Find her work online at www.mypaperanchor.com.

Contributors: Gretl Claggett, Sumayya Coleman, Dianne D. Feula, Stella Fiore, Anne L. Francis, Kelly A. Gola, Lauren González, Leslie González, Mary Ann González, Lauren Guida, Ellen Hagan, Shayla Hason, Anne Hays, Rebecca O. Johnson, Lorien Jordan, Jean Kahler, Cynthia Blair Kane, Hope Kavoosi, Shannon Kelley, Dafna Kory, Emily Macel, Jessica Palmer, Lissette Peña, Sara V. Pic, Carla Porch, Bonnie Richardson, Alyssa Robbins, Skye Van Saun, Bren Simmers, Miriam Weisfeld, Anne K. Wenzel, Kara Westerman, Allison Yates

Media Contact: For more information and scheduling please contact Annie Heckman, StepSister Press, LLC, 4064 N. Lincoln Ave. #426, Chicago IL 60618, t.001.847.977.3834, f.001.847.232.3157, StepSisterPress@gmail.com, StepSisterPress.com. A full press kit with downloadable images is available online at http://StepSisterPress.com/Submerged.html.

Submerged: Tales from the Basin
edited by Lauren González, images by Lorien Jordan
available from StepSister Press September 1, 2008
ISBN 978-0-9802300-2-4/LCCN 2008932593
soft cover/US $19.95/StepSisterPress.com