{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Rae Alexandra and \u201cUnsung Heroines,\u201d Part 2 (S8E14)","description":"In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. We\u2019re talking about Mission bars, and I share a story about the backroom at Delirium. Rae brings up similar stories of her own at places like Thee Parkside, and we agree that Parkside owner Malia Spanyol is the best. Rae shares a story that confirms it. She looks back on the years before she got her SSN grateful that Kerrang! allowed her to work. She says and I agree\u2014those jobs don\u2019t really exist anymore. The industry itself was misogynistic, but there was also a freedom to the job. They flew her to shows all over the place. And they paid her enough to live in San Francisco. After Rae recounts a couple of specific incidents of mistreatment she got, we go on a sidebar about the music industry specifically and entertainment industry more generally and how riddled with misogyny they are. Rae managed to get out of music journalism, but it took some time and effort. She says that when folks ask her to write about music nowadays, she recoils. Then we talk about Rae\u2019s new book. I share how it all came to me, and that originally it was supposed to be a bonus episode where we talked \u201conly\u201d about Unsung Heroines. After reading the book, I decided it needed to be a feature about this incredible woman who herself should possibly be in her own book. Rae says that if she\u2019d stayed in the UK, the history she\u2019d know and would hear about constantly would revolve around royals and their lives and their wars. So she dropped history. But upon moving to San Francisco, she became curious about everything she saw and heard and read. It felt natural that at some point, she\u2019d spend her curiosity and mental energies writing some sort of history or another. We go on a sidebar here about Emperor Norton and what a troublesome character he was. She was working at KQED writing about pop culture. After about a year, she found herself, as she puts it, \u201cbeing insufferable in bars to strangers about the fact that women had been written out of history.\u201d Writing about history would be a new hat for Rae at KQED, but in 2018, she persuaded her editors to let her write five essays for Women\u2019s History Month. The series was a hit. In 2019, her department, Pop Culture, folded and she moved into KQED Arts. She\u2019d written a couple more essays in the interim, but once in the Arts department, she really picked up the pace. In January 2020, Rae decided to turn the essays into a monthly series, upping the pace. The series had come to be known as \u201cRebel Girls,\u201d a Bikini Kill reference. But that March, all the libraries closed when COVID shutdown hit. She pivoted to library websites, but then I prompt Rae to shout out all the libraries she frequented to research her book. The SFPL History Center and the California Historical Society stand out. When I ask about women she researched who didn\u2019t make it into the book, she points out that the series, which again predates the book, includes essays about 55 women. City Lights Publishing, who put Unsung Heroines out, settled on 35 for their edition. They wanted a digestible book, and for teen readers, they felt they needed to remove women with \u2026 let\u2019s just say more risqu\u00e9 stories. I ask Rae to pick three of her favorite essay subjects, and while she\u2019s thinking it over, I offer some of my own. I start with Judy Heumann, the disability rights advocate who did so, so much to guarantee the rights of other disabled folks in our country. Rae mentions Judy, whom she\u2019d been researching well before her unfortunate passing in 2023; Ruth Beckford, who figured big in Black Panther history; and Abby Fisher, a formerly enslaved woman who couldn\u2019t read or write but, with the help of others, published a cookbook. We take a slight detour as Rae begins to describe how they went about illustrating Abby Fisher and others, for whom there was no photographic or other visual reference. The Unsung Heroines publisher, City Lights, asked her about imagery, and when Rae told them that it\u2019s been difficult for her, she suggested illustrations. But City Lights doesn\u2019t do illustrated books and told Rae as much. Then City Lights\u2019 publisher struck up a conversation with another swimmer at the pool one day. That other swimmer was Adrienne Simms. Following that talk, the publisher found Adrienne\u2019s art, brought it to Rae, and the rest of history. Adrienne illustrated Unsung Heroines. I ask Rae not who her favorite heroines are, but of the 35, which one or ones she\u2019d want to join us at Vesuvio that day we recorded. Without hesitation (in fact, I believe she says the name before I finish asking), Rae offers Pat Maginnis, an incredible champion and fighter for women\u2019s reproductive rights. Unsung Heroines is available wherever you get books (but please, don\u2019t use that one horrible fucking website). City Lights is one obvious choice, but most Bay Area independent bookstores should carry it. If not, ask them to order it for you. More people need to know about and read this book. Follow Rae on Instagram @rae_alexandra_writing. She\u2019s on Threads @rae_alexandra3. We end with final thoughts from Rae, specifically her feelings about all those ubiquitous dumb fucking AI billboards. ","author_name":"Storied: San Francisco","author_url":"http:\/\/www.storiedsf.com\/","html":"