I love pop culture. For years, I’ve listened to a daily podcast by the CBC called Commotion. Five days a week, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud has guests on to discuss the pop culture of the day. Niko Stratis quickly became one of my favorite voices on the pod. Stratis is an award-winning culture writer based in Toronto, where she writes about music, TV, video games and more.

In her new memoir, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, Stratis talks about growing up in the Yukon as a journeyman glazier, getting bullied and abused as a teen working in a grocery store and coming out as a trans woman in her thirties. The memoir is told through essays, each of which is tied to a song or album in what I’m calling the Dad Rock Canon. 

This is music writing at its best, and personal essay writing at its best. Stratis’ book is part of the University of Texas Press’ American Music Series, edited by Jessica Hopper, Charles Hughes, and Hanif Abdurraqib. The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman is in good company alongside Maybe We’ll Make It by Margo Price, Woman Walk the Line by Holly Gleason and Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib.

I spoke to Stratis by email about writing the book she wanted to write, how she defines “dad rock” and her hopes for the future of trans writers. The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman is on our shelves now. Pick up a copy for yourself and grab one for any aspiring music writer or personal essay writer in your life.

— Kim Baldwin, Parnassus bookseller

Kim Baldwin: You spoke to Emma Specter for Vogue last year and said that when people started approaching you about writing a book, a lot of those people wanted you to write your transition memoir. How did you find your way to writing the book you wanted to write?

Niko Stratis: A lot of it is because of the press I worked with University of Texas Press who allowed me to frame the book exactly how I wanted, and never pressured me to make it something I had no intention of writing. I wrote the outline very intentionally as a book about a lot of different things and they supported my vision from the outset. I was able to trust my vision for where I wanted this book to go because I had the support of a team who heard me, and helped me write from a place of honesty. 

KB: For folks who haven’t read your book yet, how do you define dad rock?

NS: Truth be told, even folks who have read the book might still be a little unsure. I intentionally left the definition vague, and instead spent the book hinting at the idea of it and asking the reader to engage with the idea that Dad Rock can kind of be anything. What it is, in a vague sense, is the sense of someone who has lived, failed, tried again. Kept going. Here to tell you about the road they walked, and here to give guidance where possible without ever trying to force you on a path. 

KB: In 2023, you and Tuck Woodstock collaborated on the zine 2 Trans 2 Furious, which won a Lambda Literary Award. Then you and Tuck turned your zine concept into a press called Girl Dad Press. How is that going? Are you still working on the Sex and the City anthology?

NS: We are actively working on the SATC collection! It’s close to being through our first round of edits, we’ll start doing layouts, etc soon as well. 

KB: What do you hope for the future of trans literature and trans publishing?

NS: I hope we are allowed to exist in publishing and literary circles as whole, complex, and wildly different people who have stories to tell beyond the tales of our transitions. I hope we get to be weird, funny, broken, villainous, heroic. Everything. It’s hard to be trans in any industry right now and not feel stigmatized or pushed out altogether, and oftentimes we are only read as a single dimension. I hope we get to thrive in the depth of what we have to offer. I hope more trans writers are given the opportunity to swing wide with bold ideas, and are given second, third, and fifth chances to make their mark. 

KB: You’re working on your debut novel, Girls of Summer, a punk rock novel about three friends spending a life-altering day at the Vans Warped Tour in 2001. How was the switch to fiction after writing this memoir?

NS: Hard! But also comforting. It’s nice to create a new world and people to populate it, albeit one grounded in landscapes that are familiar to me. It’s a challenge, and I love a challenge. 

KB: We share a friend in Alex Steed, your co-host on the podcast The OC, Again. I assume everyone knows this, but The OC was one of the defining TV shows of the early Aughts. How would you describe your relationship to ’90s and early Aughts pop culture?

NS: I’m constantly re-evaluating my relationship to those eras, as they were formative for me as a teen and in my 20s. There are parts of it I love despite their flaws and creaky bones, and there are artifacts I once held as cherished treasures I have learned to let go of. It’s a complicated era that I think is so often written as being virtuous in ways it was not. I love it, but I often have a hard time with it. But I love it. 

KB: Any advice for other trans writers hoping to publish a book?

NS: Push to tell the stories you want with the voice that you have. I wish I had better advice, but truth be told I often wonder if I’m successful at all, and who should even listen to me. 

KB: I’m not sure if you’ve been to Nashville, but if you were coming here, what would you like to see? Any food you’d want to try?

NS: I’ve never been, but always wanted to. I would love to do a food tour of the city! BBQ obviously, but also very curious what the local diner scene is like, and I always love to try local coffee roasters wherever I go. I’ve been sober for 6-ish years now, so it’s always an interesting challenge to reframe how I explore a new city as so often it was around party/nightlife things but I am always down to explore. I’m sure it’s touristy or whatever, but would love to see the Grand Ole Opry. 

The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman is on our shelves now!