Please join KPFA for a very special matinee Zoom Event on Sunday, June 26th at 5:00pm when we welcome Delegate Danica Roem and her new book, Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change in conversation with Charlie Jane Anders.
An inspirational memoir-meets-manifesto by Danica Roem, the nation’s first openly trans person elected to US state legislature.
“…this colorful, no-holds-barred account of Roem’s life and political work still delights for its unabashed candor. An inspiring story of self-acceptance and determination.” Kirkus Reviews
“Whether readers agree with her oft-cavalier sociopolitical analysis (“It was the time when bathroom bills were all the rage”), Roem’s perspective is an intriguing one for those interested in the future of American politics.” Publishers Weekly
Danica Roem made national headlines when–as a transgender former frontwoman for a metal band and a political newcomer–she unseated Virginia’s most notoriously anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob Marshall as state delegate. But before Danica made history, she had to change her vision of what was possible in her own life. Doing so was a matter of storytelling: during her campaign, Danica hired an opposition researcher to dredge up every story from her past that her opponent might seize on to paint her negatively.
In wildly entertaining prose, Danica dismantles all the stories her opponents tried to hedge against her, showing how through brutal honesty and loving authenticity, it’s possible to embrace the low points, and even transform them into her greatest strengths. Burn the Page takes readers from Danica’s lonely, closeted, and at times operatically tragic childhood to her position as a rising star in a party she’s helped forever change.
Delegate Danica Roem, part of the historic group that flipped Republican seats in the 2017 election, is the first out-and-seated transgender state legislator in American history. Prior to her political career, Roem was a journalist and now serves as a frequent guest on national media. She and her work have been featured in USA Today, People, GQ, The New York Times, Elle, and many others, and was the subject of the GLAAD award-winning documentary This Is How We Win.
Charlie Jane Anders’s books include Victories Greater Than Death, Never Say You Can’t Survive, The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, McSweeney’s, Mother Jones, Wired Magazine, and other places. Her TED Talk, “Go Ahead, Dream About the Future” got 700,000 views in its first week. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Get your tickets via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/danica-roem-burn-the-page-tickets-343060211327