Girl Renegades: Shoshana von Blanckensee and Chloe Sherman at WHB

Please join us for an evening of conversation with GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS author Shoshana von Blanckensee and RENEGADES photographer Chloe Sherman, followed by Q&A from the audience and book signing!

Renegades by Chloe Sherman

In the 1990s, queer youth, outcasts and artists flocked to San Francisco to experiment with art, self-expression, style and gender and to find community. Rent was affordable, paving the way for queer bars, clubs, tattoo shops, galleries, cafés, bookstores and women-owned businesses to emerge. A new wave of feminism embraced gender fluidity, and butch/femme culture flourished. The Mission district was the center of this queer cultural renaissance, and the feeling of community there was palpable.

Chloe Sherman was both a member of this community and an ardent visual chronicler. Her documentary photographic work on 35mm film stems from a commitment to capturing the vibrancy, tenderness, individuality, resilience and joy within this subculture that was derided by mainstream society. Distilling the spirit of the time, her debut monograph is a candid portrait of a vibrant era that connects current and future generations to the pulse of San Francisco at a pivotal chapter in queer history.

Chloe Sherman arrived in San Francisco in 1991 and earned her BFA in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Interview.

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS by Shoshana von Blanckensee

It’s the summer of ’96 and secret girlfriends Hannah and Sam are driving across the country from Long Beach, New York, to the fabled queer paradise of San Francisco, finally free from the stifling demands of Hannah’s devout Orthodox Jewish mother. In San Francisco, they can be a real couple, out in the open, around other queer people.
But when the financial strains of West Coast living push the girls to start stripping at the Chez Paree, Hannah feels trapped. Until she meets Chris, an older butch lesbian, who is immediately taken with her. Desperate to stay in San Francisco and away from the leering men at the club, Hannah proposes an escort arrangement.
As Hannah falls deeper into Chris’s world, and Sam starts to meet new queer friends, a rift forms between them. Without Sam, who is Hannah? And what does San Francisco mean to Hannah alone? An achingly tender and resonant story of survival, first love, and growing up queer in the ’90s, Girls Girls Girls is a piercing exploration of the choices we make in the thrilling and often confounding search for ourselves and home.

Shoshana von Blanckensee lives in Berkeley, California, with her partner and kids. She is an Oncology Nurse by day, and a writer by any available moment. Girls Girls Girls is her debut novel.

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