:: Diane Torr's Upcoming Book Launch ::

by Diane Torr and Stephen J. Bottoms

Available for Presale on Amazon

For nearly twenty years, performance artist Diane Torr has been teaching women how to dress and pass as men on city streets around the world. This cultural subterfuge has appealed to many, for different reasons: personal confidence building, sexual frisson, gender subversion, trans-curiosity, or just the appeal of disguise and role play. This book documents and contextualizes the development of Torr's internationally celebrated workshops, as well as her own ongoing experiments in performing gender-play in theaters, galleries, and clubs. She has been one of the key pioneers of "drag king" performance.

The book blends first-person memoir and commentary from Torr with critical reflections and contextualization from leading performance critic Stephen Bottoms, including a consideration of the long cultural history of female-to-male cross-dressing. The book concludes with Torr's "Do It Yourself " guide to becoming a "Man for a Day."

Diane Torr, born in Canada and now living in Glasgow, has performed across the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe and has earned an international reputation for her gender transformation workshops (featured on "This American Life" on NPR). Her work has also been profiled in an HBO special.

Stephen Bottoms is Wole Soyinka Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds. His books include the prize-winning Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement.

For more info, please email me at diane.torr@googlemail.com