Xtra Tuf

Description

The Strike Issue

By Moe Bowstern
Microcosm Publishing

Meet Moe Bowstern: writer, fisherwoman, and tough cookie. Moe is a woman working in the male-dominated commercial fishing industry of Alaska’s Kodiak Island and the fifth issue of the Xtra Tuf zine is her story, as Moe puts it, “The stories presented in these pages are just a few views of a complicated history. I hope reading them provides some insights into the tremendous challenges facing those who reap the seas.”

Winner of the 2007 Lilla Jewel Award, and sporting special letter press covers featuring more than 30 different color schemes, it tells a tale of dissent and frustration. Not only the story of a people’s struggle, it’s a social history and love-letter to the ancient rites and rituals of sustenance fishing. In Moe’s writing you smell the salt air and land breezes. You see sunsets from the deck of the boat and feel the pitching waters. And, above all, you meet–and then know–all the earnest, hilarious, conflicted, hardworking folks who populate her narrative.