Amanda Palmer in Conversation with Authors: Katherine Yeske Taylor

Presented by Graveside Variety and the Golden Notebook Bookstore, we are please to present Amanda in conversation with authors. The Amanda Palmer x Author Series consists of three afternoons with powerful, honest and critically astute women. This author series will be untamed, uncensored, radically open and each will include a Q&A with Amanda and each author. There will be book signing as well as a curated bookshop table with recommended titles from both Amanda Palmer and the guest author.

Katherine Yeske Taylor will be joining Amanda Palmer at 1pm on 5/18 . Her most recent book is She's A Badass: Women in Rock Shaping Feminism.

Katherine Yeske Taylor

Katherine Yeske Taylor began her career as a rock critic in Atlanta in the 1990s, interviewing Georgia musical royalty such as the Indigo Girls, R.E.M., and the Black Crowes while still a teenager. Since then, she has conducted several hundred interviews and contributes regularly to Billboard, Spin, and American Songwriter, among others. She is a longtime New York City resident and is extremely active in the downtown rock scene.

About "She's a Badass"

Feminism has always been a complex and controversial topic, as female rock musicians know especially well. When they’ve stayed true to their own vision, these artists have alternately been adored as role models or denounced as bad influences. Either way, they’re asked to cope with certain pressures that their male counterparts haven’t faced. With each successive feminism movement since the 1960s, women in rock have been prominent proponents of progress as they’ve increasingly taken control of their own music, message, and image. This, in its way, is just as revolutionary as any protest demonstration.

In She’s a Badass, music journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor interviews twenty significant women in rock, devoting an entire chapter to each one, taking an in-depth look at the incredible talent, determination—and, often, humor—they needed to succeed in their careers (and life). Interviewees range from legendary artists through notable up-and-comers, including Ann Wilson (Heart), Gina Schock (The Go-Go’s), Suzanne Vega, Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Orianthi, Amanda Palmer (!!!) , and more. Their experiences reveal the varied and unique challenges these women have faced, how they overcame them, and what they think still needs to be done to continue making progress on the equality front. Their stories prove that promoting feminism—either through activism or by living example—is undeniably badass.

The women interviewed for the 20 chapters are: Suzi Quatro, Ann Wilson (Heart), Exene Cervenka (X), Gina Schock (the Go-Go's), Lydia Lunch, Suzanne Vega, Cherie Currie (the Runaways), Joan Osborne, Donita Sparks (L7), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, the Breeders, Belly), Paula Cole, Tobi Vail (Bikini Kill), Laura Veirs, Catherine Popper, Amanda Palmer, Bonnie Bloomgarden (Death Valley Girls), Orianthi, Fefe Dobson, and Sade Sanchez (L.A. Witch).

Amanda Palmer is a best-selling author, feminist, songwriter, community leader, pianist and ukulele-enthusiast who simultaneously embraces and explodes traditional frameworks of music, theatre, and art. She first came to prominence as part of the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, earning global applause for their inventive songcraft and wide-ranging theatricality. Her solo career has proven equally brave and boundless, featuring such groundbreaking works as the crowd-funded Theatre Is Evil, which made a top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 in 2012 and remains the top-funded original music project on Kickstarter. In 2013 she presented “The Art of Asking” at the annual TED conference, which has been viewed over 20 million times worldwide. Palmer expanded her philosophy into the New York Times best-selling memoir, The Art of Asking: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Let People Help. Since 2015 Palmer has used the patronage platform Patreon to fund her artwork with an average of 15,000 patrons micro-supporting her creations each month. In 2019 Palmer released her solo album, There Will Be No Intermission, with producer/engineer John Congleton at the helm. She then embarked on a 14-month highly acclaimed international tour of the same name. Both the album and the tour had life, death, abortion, and miscarriage among its tentpole themes.