Burn the Page
A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change
1 of 1 copy available
Danica Roem made national headlines when—as a transgender former frontwoman for a metal band and a political newcomer—she unseated Virginia's most notoriously anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob Marshall as state delegate. But before Danica made history, she had to change her vision of what was possible in her own life. Doing so was a matter of storytelling: during her campaign, Danica hired an opposition researcher to dredge up every story from her past that her opponent might seize on to paint her negatively.
In wildly entertaining prose, Danica dismantles all the stories her opponents tried to hedge against her, showing how through brutal honesty and loving authenticity, it's possible to embrace the low points, and even transform them into her greatest strengths. Burn the Page takes readers from Danica's lonely, closeted, and at times operatically tragic childhood to her position as a rising star in a party she's helped forever change. Burn the Page is so much more than a stump speech: it's an extremely inspiring manifesto about how it's possible to set fire to the stories you don't want to be in anymore, whether written by you or about you by someone else—and rewrite your own future, whether that's running for politics, in your work, or your personal life. This book will not just encourage people who think they have to be spotless to run for office, but inspire all of us to own our personal narratives as Danica does.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 26, 2022 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593417966
- File size: 235876 KB
- Duration: 08:11:24
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 24, 2022
“The facts of your life are what they are. The question is: Are you going to tell your own story about them, or are you going to let other people do that for you?” implores Virginia state representative Roem in this witty and contemplative debut. Putting her “warts and flaws on full display,” Roem details her loss-plagued childhood in conservative Prince William County, Va., in the 1980s and ’90s; her experience as a “closet case” struggling to come out as transgender; and her decade-long career as a “metalhead trans lady reporter.” Eventually, she would run a winning campaign for state government in 2017, becoming the first trans woman to both campaign and serve in the legislature while out (known in headlines less by her name than as “Transgender Candidate,” as she wryly points out). Peppered throughout are globe-trotting tales of her alcohol-themed thrash metal band Cab Ride Home, as well as amusing details of the intricacies of small-town journalism (“Covering local governments... in small-town America is... half Forrest Gump—‘You never know what you’re gonna get’ ”) and legislative procedure. Whether readers agree with her oft-cavalier sociopolitical analysis (“It was the time when bathroom bills were all the rage”), Roem’s perspective is an intriguing one for those interested in the future of American politics. Agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer, Neon Literary.
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