Founders

Lisa Jervis

Lisa Jervis's official bio makes her sound far more official than she actually is. In addition to her many writings for Bitch, her work has appeared in Ms., the San Francisco Chronicle, Utne, Mother Jones, the Women's Review of Books, Bust, the late and much-lamented Hues, Salon, the late but not-so-lamented Girlfriends, the late and also-lamented Punk Planet, the late and lamented-by-the-few-people-who've-heard-of-it LiP: Informed Revolt, Body Outlaws (Seal Press), The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Penguin), and Tipping the Sacred Cow (AK Press). She is the co-editor of Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership (Seal Press) and (of course) Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). She’s currently working on a a cookbook with the working title "Cook Food: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Healthy Eating" and procrastinating on her research for a book about the intellectual legacy of gender essentialism and its effect on contemporary feminism.

She was born in Boston and partially raised in Los Angeles; she moved to New York City at age 8 and so considers herself a New Yorker by both chronology and temperament, though the transplant to Oakland, California, has worked out remarkably well.

In her spare time, she squeezes fruit at farmer's markets, bikes around Oakland, and tries to keep her old crotchety cat from eating her breakfast (and lunch and dinner and snacks).

A few of her favorite things are Buffy, Shortbus, cheese onion curry bread, Weeds, Alison Bechdel, Jane Austen, roasted brussels sprouts, Ben Lee, Ben Kweller, liar's dice, knitting, tattoos, Dexter, salacious memoirs, contemporary mystery novels about female PIs and investigative reporters, hammocks, vodka smoothies, The Philadelphia Story, terry-cloth hoodies, Liz Phair (yes, even the later "bad" stuff), sweet potatoes, Michael Pollan, bell hooks, Susan Faludi, and zine libraries.

Now that she has written something that sounds awfully like a personal ad, she might as well go whole hog and note that she is indeed single. Write to her at lisa (at) b-word.org.

Andi Zeisler

A longtime freelance writer and illustrator, Andi's work has appeared in numerous periodicals and newspapers, including Ms., Mother Jones, Utne, BUST, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Women's Review of Books, and Hues. She is a former pop-music columnist for the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express, and also contributed to the anthologies Young Wives' Tales, Secrets and Confidences: The Complicated Truth About Women's Friendships (both from Seal Press), and Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit (Crown). She is the coeditor of BitchFest: 10 Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, and recently finished a book about feminism and popular culture for Seal Press. She speaks frequently on the subject of feminism and the media at various colleges and universities.

Andi graduated from The Colorado College in 1994 with a B.A. in Fine Art that has proved to be more or less useless, though she did use it to secure a job designing rugs for Pottery Barn back in the day. She passes her non-Bitch hours watching television and embroidering portraits of dogs, often simultaneously. Her other interests include painting, walking, candy, Scrabble, and the interrobang.

Fatal weakness: candy, naps

Crushes: Gram Parsons, Steve Buscemi, Hugh Laurie

Favorite TV shows: Freaks and Geeks, House, Dexter, dog shows

Turn-ons: clogs, flocked wallpaper, the Winter Olympics

Turnoffs: lip liner, improper punctuation

Secretly wishes she were a: zoo keeper