She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out and fighting back, the new book co-edited by Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene, is now available everywhere!

She’s Shameless is an anthology of fearless and funny non-fiction about strong, smart and shameless young women. With wit and honesty, the writers share stories of their teen experiences (both positive and negative) on everything from pop culture to high school principals. The book is founded on Shameless magazine’s tradition of smart, sassy, honest and inclusive writing, and reaches out to young female readers who are often ignored by mainstream: freethinkers, queer youth, young women of colour, punk rockers, feminists, intellectuals, artists, and activists.

What the press is saying:

“Over the years, I’ve seen many creative, intelligent, rebellious teenage girls discouraged for being themselves and breaking the mould, and watched the subsequent damage to their self-esteems—not to mention the havoc wreaked on their academic performance, work, and relationships. I, too, was once trapped on that boat. It’s hard to be different, and we all would have benefited from a strong dose of shamelessness. Better yet, we could have used She’s Shameless.”

--  This Magazine

“Cautionary tales abound — a pregnant 16-year-old contemplates, then rejects, abortion; a fourth-grader’s French teacher peers down her shirt; a virginity is lost to a slimy married father twice her age — but that’s not the point….Young women are rarely ever heard from in society. It’s adults, often men, that are invited on TV to wring their hands about teen-girl crises (pregnancy, anorexia, depression, promiscuity) and asked how to ‘fix’ these problems…Grow up, be smart, take responsibility, teens are told — but in practice they’re not often given that agency, which is what makes She’s Shameless remarkable. The essays neither condone nor condemn; some are full of regret, but the contributors’ bios tell of eventual successes — writers are ‘proud feminist mamas,’ university graduates, artists.”

--  Metro

Read the excerpts

Read the introduction

This is not an after-school special. The pages of this book do not contain cautionary tales about the dangers of peer pressure, how doing drugs will ruin your life, how you should save yourself until marriage, and how you should stay in school... continue reading

E.J. MacBain: I’m Still Here

1982: Roller skates with rainbow knee-highs, braided friendship bracelets wet to the skin, blueberry Slurpees all summer from 7-Eleven, John Cougar cassette tapes of “Jack and Diane,” the secret purple-clad, girls-only club, and threats from the older junior high school girls in the public library, who pretend that Crayola markers are boys’ mini-dicks and suck them to show us: This is what you have to do when you get to seventh grade... continue reading

Amy Saxon Bosworth: I Don’t Wear Cloaks

When I was small, an older cousin coaxed me into sprinkling salt onto a slug in our grandfather’s English ivy garden. I watched with shame as the creature suffered and died. I remembered this as I sat against the gray cinder block wall on the cold gym floor of my high school one day after winter break. I could think of only the slug curled in my belly. I was sixteen years old... continue reading

Catherine Graham: Red Bars

I was sitting in the backseat, fingering the silver seatbelt, half-listening to Mom and her friend Eleanor. We were taking the back route, the safe route, to the mall, instead of the highway, so Mom wouldn’t make those sharp intakes of breath (no transport trucks to pass us). Still, she seemed high-strung, her mouth tight as she nodded in response to Eleanor’s yammering... continue reading

Now in stores!