6.4: Christina Ward: Punk Rock Publishing, Outsider Literature & the Secret Revolutionary History of Food

I love Christina Ward. And I love the work she does.

I am lucky enough to know some really brilliant and wonderful women. Christina? She is absolutely top shelf.

As an author, she does outrageously cool writing on food and food history. Canning and food preservation? She’s got you. The relationship between food, cults and class? Read her work. It will blow your mind.

Christina also has another gig: she is one of the primary folks at a publishing company known as Feral House. Around since 1989, FH has certainly courted controversy, being one of the very first publishers to release texts on such taboo subjects as black metal, punk, death culture, conspiracies and cults. But FH does not center itself on shock; it works on examining outsider perspectives and the work that Christina and the team there do is vital to our thorough understanding of the world.

I invite you to listen to my conversation with Christina Ward in which we discuss all these things and more. The books and writing that they platform place them solidly against misogyny, colonialism, capitalism and classism, making them an incredibly valuable publisher in this day and age.

As usual, bio is below the podcast link. Links to various subjects from our conversation are embedded in the bio so be sure to click on those and check’em out!!

Christina Ward is an author, editor, and seeker. She had the distinct pleasure of riding around town in the Wienermobile with Padma Lakshmi on the hottest day in July of 2019 for “Taste the Nation.” Her newest book, Holy Food: Recipes and Foodways from Cults, Communes, and New Religious Movements, will be published in early spring of 2023. Her previous book, American Advertising Cookbooks-How Corporations Taught Us To Love Spam, Bananas, and Jell-O, earned positive notice from Florence Fabricant in the New York Times, Christopher Kimball of Milk Street Radio, and numerous other journalists and readers.

Christina makes regular guest expert on Milwaukee television programs and public radio stations across the United States, delighting in ‘working blue’ before 8 am. She is also the Vice President of Feral House, a publisher noted for their books on outré topics. She contributed to and edited the 2021 book Bawdy Tales & Trifles of Devilries for Ladies and Gentlemen of Experience under her nom d’amour, Lady Fanny Woodcock. She has guided, edited, contributed to, and in a few (unnamed) instances, rewritten, over fifty books.

She has an interest in the lives of forgotten “difficult women” and bringing their stories to readers. Christina regularly contributes to academic and educational conferences on the topic of transgressive art. In her spare time, she is the certified Master Food Preserver for South East Wisconsin and always picks up the phone to answer pressing questions about jelly that won’t set and soft pickles.

Christina’s book on food preservation: Preservation The Art and Science of Canning, Fermentation and Dehydration

Book on Maila Nurmi aka Vampyra!

As mentioned, Four White Horses and a Brass Band – the story of Violet McNeal!!!

Definitely check out Dirty Helen Cromwell in Good Time Party Girl

Great book- You Can’t Win by Jack Black (no, not THAT Jack Black)

As mentioned, Roving Bill Aspinwall

Also- for those punks out there like me who are interested in punk crime lore and thorough about their history…I think this looks interesting and it’s got Raymond Pettibon art… Disco’s Out…Murder’s in!

S4.7: Ferrin Evans : Queer Loss, Marginalized Experiences and Demanding a Seat at the Table

Once again, I must apologize for the long period it has been between recording this and it going live.
I fear that the entirety of Season 4 is going to have some…bumps…in it because there were many moments in the last 6 months where I did not feel comfortable posting a new episode and having any attention taken away from a) what was going on in the news (the protests, etc) or b) lessen the wonderful words of my guests. So you’ll have to just sorta deal with the fact that some of the topics on here are a little dated but it’s interesting to consider them in light of what then occurred AFTER this conversation, for better or worse.
Whatever life is, it is far from boring….

I will also apologize for myself. I got far too excited during this podcast episode and I think I spoke over Ferrin too much and I regret that because while editing it, I realized that there was so much more I wanted to know about and wanted to ask him but I was having such a good time with the kind of energy that he exudes, even over a vocal virtual communication system that I almost forgot what we were there for.
I will have him on again and I promise to be a much better listener next time. Wow am I embarrassed! But it just goes to show Ferrin’s charisma and brilliance. What an incredible human being. I hope you all can get a feel for the groundbreaking work he is doing, the passion he has for life and living and the way he conquers his (and the) world. It’s stunning. Like him.

As usual, bio and links under the podcast!

Ferrin Evans is a Master of Information candidate at the University of Toronto.  He currently has two media archiving contracts at the university: at the Media Commons Archive and at the Sexual Representation Collection.  In the past, he has worked with the Gay Archives of Quebec, Inside Out Toronto, Toronto Queer Film Festival, Cinema Politica, and the MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, where he served on the Board of Directors.  He is currently completing an oral history-centered thesis about risk, desire, and loss on Fire Island during COVID-19.

LINKS:

Article related to my most current media archival work at University of Toronto:http://sds.utoronto.ca/news/new-acquisitions-at-the-sexual-representation-collection/
SAA Community Reflection on Black Lives and Archives (June 2020):https://www.pathlms.com/saa/events/1996/video_presentations/162192
“Treat Them with the Reverence of Archivists”: Records Work, Grief Work, and Relationship Work in the Archiveshttps://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13699

Episode 10: Anne Marie Kelly- the Power of Oral History, a Good Haircut and Preservation As a Political Practice

Not only will this be the 10th episode of Archivist’s Alley but it is also Pride Month. Therefore, this month I thought it would be wonderful to showcase some of the most exciting work and wonderful queer archivists in the preservation community. I hope that you all are as thrilled about it as I am. It’s going to be a Fabulous month, in every sense of the word!

Full disclosure: I was incredibly moved putting together episode 10. Anne Kelly’s work, passion and eloquence is inspirational. I first met her while she was writing an excellent column on Katherine Hepburn called A Year With Kate which we talk about a bit on the show. Thanks to TCM Film Fest, we got to hang out even more and shared such great times. You’ll learn how she moved from TCMFF and this incredible 52-week Kate Hepburn extravaganza to interning with the ultra brilliant Teague Schneiter at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to her current position as the Program Specialist for New Dimensions in Testimony at the USC Shoah Foundation.


But our conversation focuses on much more. We talk about the critical nature of oral history and the oral tradition. Genocide and the fact that it is still a problem. It is on-going and it has not stopped and that many simply associate the term genocide with the Holocaust and that continues to allow people, entire cultures, to disappear.

I talk to Anne about her identity as a queer woman in the archival landscape, community and the thing that has brought her and I together so strongly for so many years: our love for and belief in the revolutionary nature of memory work.

I am so excited to present this episode for you to kick off a month where we need to support and celebrate each other and erase erasure now more than ever.

Guest Bio:

Anne Marie Kelly is a Project Specialist at the USC Shoah Foundation. She is a recent graduate with her Masters in Cinema & Media Studies from USC with publications in The Cine-Files and Spectator. Anne previously worked in film sound restoration for Deluxe Entertainment and consulted at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oral History Projects on the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Oral History Interviews collection.

Link to the USC Shoah Foundation: https://sfi.usc.edu/