Sharp Notions (Coming Fall 2023)

Published by Arsenal Pulp Press (currently available for pre-order and on sale October 2023), this anthology includes essays that explore the fibre arts. Jess’ essay, “This Strand Leads to my Pain” discusses how knitting provided her pain relief, a way to treat and explore her mental health, and a sneaky way to remain productive while recovering from a traumatic injury.

Publisher’s Description

Personal essays from diverse voices about their relationships to the fibre arts.

Sometimes, the reliability of a knit stitch, the steady rocking of a quilting needle, the solid structure of a loom, is all you have. During the pandemic, fibre arts newbies discovered and lapsed crafters rediscovered that picking up some sticks and string or a needle and thread was the perfect way to reduce stress, quell anxiety, and foster creativity, an antidote to endless hours of doom-scrolling.

Chances are you or someone close to you is currently in an ecstatic relationship with yarn, thread, or fabric. As we struggle with the pressures, anxieties, and impacts of daily life, fibre arts - knitting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving, beading, sewing, quilting, textiles - can be an antidote, a mirror and a metaphor for so many of life's challenges. Part time machine, part meditation app, the simple act of working with one's hands instantly reduces the overwhelming scope of living to a human scale and the present moment.

In this nonfiction anthology, writers and artists from different backgrounds explore their complex relationships to fibre arts and the intersection of creative practice and identity, technology, climate change, trauma, politics, chronic illness, and disability.

In answer to the mainstream craft space's tendency to centre the perspectives and careers of white women, Sharp Notions showcases Black, Indigenous, South-Asian, Chinese, and queer artists and makers and the cultural traditions of craft in diasporic communities.

Accompanied by full-colour photographs throughout, these powerful essays challenge the traditional view of crafting and examine the role, purpose, joy, and necessity of craft amid the alienation of contemporary life.

Blurbs

Whether the writers are hanging by a thread or piercing it all together, these essays reveal how fibre work can be an intimate marker of the human experience. The act of making presides in situations when conversation cannot - in solitude, in loneliness, in grief, in love, in distraction, and ultimately, in connection. This must-read collection proves that the textile arts can and do have a transformative impact on our lives. -Leanne Prain, co-author of Yarn Bombing and author of Strange Material and The Creative Instigator's Handbook

The essays in Sharp Notions cover the breadth of contemporary life and experience through stories of textile making. Rich fragments explore complexities and collective and individual transformations; pieced together, they make a powerful book. -Claire Wellesley-Smith, author of Slow Stitch and Resilient Stitch

Each of these stories took me deep into the mind of an artist as they navigated life's joys and inexplicable losses with needles, cloth, and yarn for comfort and protection. The pieces in this beautifully curated collection are a lesson in craft, in the gorgeous patterning of loops and words. A reminder of art's power to transform through its meditations. -Charlotte Gill, author of Almost Brown

A treasure trove of magical, brilliant writing on the fabric arts. Sharp Notions features essays from a remarkably diverse range of fiercely intelligent writers. We are invited into women's collective spaces and shown the ways in which the fabric arts are means of communicating history, sharing experience, and teaching lessons. It reclaims fabric arts as a medium for intellectual thought, creative joy, and dismantling the patriarchy. What a joy it was to read these subversive and glorious accounts. It is an invitation to a craft circle filled with laughter and outrageous anecdotes you will not soon forget. -Heather O'Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals and When We Lost Our Heads