The female as represented in western popular culture has been a timeless yet culturally unstable image, construed and contested by men and women alike. Red Light is an anthology of essays, stories, and visual materials that identifies and deconstructs female icons, past and present, and re-imagines them for the twenty-first century.

For Anna, the red light is a beacon, a warning signal that declares the incendiary power of women; the icons found in this book are red lights as well: Wonder Woman, Amelia Earhart, the Virgin Mary, Jayne Mansfield, Florence Nightingale, Aileen Wuornos, Belle Starr, Foxy Brown, the Avon Lady, and many more. Further, the categories these icons fall into--superheroes, saints, and sluts--are reconfigured and redeemed by their portrayers.

Alternately fiery, sexy, angry, and eloquent, the works in this book cast these powerful, conflicted women in the (red) light of a new day.

Writers and artists include: Sandra Alland, Karen Augustine, Rima Banerji, Darryl Berger, Michelle Boudreau, Sharon Bridgforth, Alec Butler, Dani Couture, Rose Cullis, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Lisa Foad, Daphne Gottlieb, Lori Hahnel, Linda Dawn Hammond, McKinley M. Hellenes, JP Hornick, Susan Justin, Collin Kelley, Jennifer Linton, Suzy Malik, Michelle Mach, Jessica Melusine, Lenelle Moise, Allison Moore, Barbara Jane Reyes, Tariq Sami, Sara Seinberg, Bren Simmers, Dalbir Singh, Beth Steidle, Eva Tihanyi, and Zoe Whittall.
Finalist, Lambda Literary Award

Artist Anna Camilleri has been hailed as a "tough, visceral and funny" (Atlanta Journal Constitution) "cultural agitator and fab femme" (Now Magazine) &8211 "this lady in red has an important message to share" (Quill and Quire). She has performed for the last decade in Canada and the US in theatres, festivals, universities, and in houses of ill-repute. Recent work includes one-woman show Sounds Siren Red (Red Dress Productions), performance installation Poetry Is Not a Luxury (Mayworks) and experimental documentary Red Dress (CBC Radio 1, Outfront). In Toronto, her hometown, she has also curated performance programs for Mayworks Festival of Working People in the Arts, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and Inside Out.

She is the author of I am a Red Dress: Incantations on a Grandmother, a Mother and a Daughter (Arsenal Pulp Press), editor of Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts(Arsenal), co-author of Boys Like Her: Transfictions,and co-editor of Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity (Arsenal). Her writing has been alternately described as "brave and necessary" (Books in Canada); "provocative and evocative" (Xtra); "genuine and unflinching," and as "speaking eloquently of the need for civil rights for all of us' (Lambda Book Report). Her online domain is annacamilleri.com

Anna Camilleri's profile page

• Short-listed, Lambda Literary Award
• Short-listed, Independent Publishers Awards - Women's Issues

... stunning visual volume.... Doesn't feel like your average feminist collection but more like being in a room full of vibrant souls.
-Vancouver Review

Vancouver Review

Red Light: Superheroes, Saints, and Sluts, like all of Camilleri's books, is a brave and bold and in-your-face, a brazen mix of passionate intelligence and striking sexuality with the power to stir one's inner rebel.
-Herizons

Herizons