Switchback Books to Publish James Franco’s CUNTSTUFF: A Feminist Lexicon

Switchback Books is pleased to announce that the feminist poetry press will publish actor/director/musician/handyman/model/writer James Franco’s second full-length poetry book, CUNTSTUFF: A Feminist Lexicon, in September of 2014.

Switchback Books believes that publishing exclusively women constitutes a feminist act, but the press has now decided that publishing James Franco is also a feminist act.

Franco is the first cisgender man the press has ever endeavored to publish.

“It’s a bold move for us, and one we think will pay off,” says Switchback Books Co-Founder and Editor Hanna Andrews. “While those who have long supported our mission to challenge gender inequity in literary publishing may have difficulty understanding our decision, we think that sidestepping our own objectives in the interest of including this groundbreaking work will prove a monumental moment in our press’s history.”

Poems in CUNTSTUFF include surreal, prose entries for Franco’s useful lexicon for the sex-positive, 21st Century feminist, including newly coined words like cuntstuff, vagkick, and clitdick. Other poems in the book adopt the personas of famous feminists like Judith Butler, Ani DiFranco, bell hooks, Annie Sprinkle, and Kathy Acker, who’ve never before allowed a man to speak for them.

“The way the book switches between cinematic depictions of Donna Haraway fighting a cyborg, lyrics in the voices of famous feminists, and prose poem definitions of Franco’s neologisms mimics the roles the poet plays in his own life—as director, as actor, and as author,” says S. Whitney Holmes, Executive Director and Editor at Switchback Books.

According to Franco’s publicist, the manuscript for CUNTSTUFF snuck up on him in a wave of inspiration following a recent interview with Akashic Books, in which Franco initially coined the title neologism. Franco quickly penned the book on an international flight, and by the time he landed, the first draft was complete. And he knew exactly which publisher to approach.