Swagger: A Celebration of the Butch Experience

by Nat Burns (editor), Rae Theodore (contributor)

172 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2024

About the author

Nat Burns is a professional writer and editor who retired from a publishing career in Virginia and relocated to the enchanted mountains of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is a novelist with Bella Books and her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. In addition, Nat is the music editor for Lesbian News Magazine and has a monthly column called 'Notes from Nat'. Complete information and samples of her work can be found at www.natburns.com.

Reviews

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really lovely collection of poetry, short stories, and essays on butch identity, primarily from butch writers, but also from a few femmes. I liked that there was such a wide age range from the contributors, with a variety of gender identities and expressions, although only from transmasc, cis, and gnc butches; and mostly butch4femme, but with some nods to butch4butch relationships. It was cool to see the throughlines in each piece: being butch in a society where that clashes with gender norms.

Stand-outs for me were: “Becoming Butch” by Georgie Orion, “To Have and to Be” by Susan Spilecki, “Rapture” by Rowan Harvey, and “Forgiving Seeds” by Calliope Rose.