Valencia is the fast-paced account of one girl’s search for love and high times in the drama-filled dyke world of San Francisco’s Mission District. Through a string of narrative moments, Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there’s knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle’s tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris’s ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart. Valencia conveys a blend of youthful urgency and apocalyptic apathy.
Michelle gives an overview of the book:
Valencia is the fast-paced account of one girl’s search for love and high times in the drama-filled dyke world of San Francisco’s Mission District. Through a string of narrative moments, Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there’s knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle’s tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris’s ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart. Valencia conveys a blend of youthful urgency and apocalyptic apathy.
Read full overview »
About Michelle
Michelle Tea (born Michelle Tomasik) is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston), and currently lives in San Francisco. Tea was the co-founder of the Sister Spit spoken word tour. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their views into the riot grrrl and...
Published Reviews
Nov.19.2007
Michelle Tea’s books read like wee-hour confessions of debauchery, delivered in a street-smart literary voice that growls and purrs, gnashing about fakery, crooning about lust.
Nov.19.2007
Some memoirs seat scorched-earth memories of childhood within the insulating perspective of the older (and more forgiving) adult. Such is not the case with The Chelsea Whistle, by Michelle Tea....







Note from the author coming soon...