Pills, Thrills, Chills, and Heartache: Adventures in the First Person

Michelle Tea, Clint Catalyst

Alyson Books, 2004 - Biography & Autobiography - 366 pages

Thirty-seven writers. One rule. Each story must be told in the first person. Clint Catalyst ("Cottonmouth Kisses") and Michelle Tea ("The Chelsea Whistle") bring together what can only be described as a dream cast of literature's new avant-garde, sandwiched with a few writers appearing in print for the first time. Catalyst calls the end product "a wonderful sampling of oddities, like a dangerous box of chocolates or an unmarked prescription bottle." Oddities? Oh, yeah. These stories offer scary, funny, chaotic, moving, poignant, intimate glimpses into lives on the fringe, and they will get you up close and personal with speed freaks, scat freaks, gender benders, shoplifters, sober virgins, cybersexualists, Tourette's syndrome fetishists, and even a naked Butoh dancer. What can we say? We're not sure if we're proud or if we should apologize!

Contributors include:

JT LeRoy ("The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Sarah")
Dennis Cooper ("My Loose Thread, Period, Guide, Try, Frisk, Closer ")
Eileen Myles ("Cool For You, Chelsea Girls, The New Fuck You")
Kevin Killian ("I Cry Like a Baby, Little Men, Shy" )
Pleasant Gehman ("Escape From Houdini Mountain, Princess of Hollywood, The Underground Guide to Los Angeles, Senorita Sin" )
Alvin Orloff ("I Married an Earthling ")
Shawna Kenney ("I Was a Teenage Dominatrix" )
Thea Hillman ("Depending on the Light" )
Jayson Elliott ("Clamor magazine")
Charles Anders ("The Lazy Crossdresser" )
Inga Muscio ("Cunt: A Declaration of Independence ")

Clint Catalyst is the Southern-fried, sissified, Goth--damaged, punk-spirited, hyper-hyphenated, degenerate author of Cottonmouth Kisses.

Michelle Tea is the author of the memoir The Chelsea Whistle, the Lambda Award-Winning dyke drama Valencia, and The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America.

Contents

• Laurie Stone STRUCK: 1
• Ali Liebegott EXCERPT FROM THE IHOP Papers: 7
• Gara Bruce LOVE BOAT AND LINGERIE: 23

Bibliographic information

• Title: Pills, Thrills, Chills, and Heartache: Adventures in the First Person
• Editors: Michelle Tea, Clint Catalyst
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Alyson Books, 2004
• ISBN: 1555837530, 9781555837532
• Length: 366 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Education / Multicultural Education; Fiction / Anthologies (multiple authors); Fiction / Erotica / General; Fiction / General; Literary Collections / LGBTQ