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Natalie Porter, "Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: A History of Badass Women Skateboarders" (ECW Press, 2025)
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- [00:00]
Marshall Po
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- [02:00]
Marshall Po
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:05]
Craig Gill
Hello and welcome back to New Books and Sports, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Craig Gill, one of the hosts of the New Books and Sports podcast. Today we'll be talking to Natalie Porter about her new book, Girl Gangs, Zines and a history of badass women skateboarders. Natalie, welcome to the show.
- [02:23]
Natalie Porter
Thanks so much, Craig. Happy to be here.
- [02:25]
Craig Gill
So I wonder if you could begin by just telling me a little bit about yourself.
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Natalie Porter
Yeah. So technically, I'm a skateboarding librarian. I've been a librarian since, I guess, 2009, working with Vancouver Public library system, the bulk of my career. Skateboarding since 1995. And, yes, I've written this book, but I also have an archive going on called the Women's Skate History Archive. And I'm a columnist for a magazine called Closer Skateboarding Magazine. So I'm contributing every couple months to that magazine. Just keeping busy, keeping entertained.
- [03:01]
Craig Gill
Awesome. And so how did this book project come about?
- [03:05]
Natalie Porter
Oh, gosh. So this is, like, a work in progress for 20 years. Yeah. So I began skating in 95, but I was fortunate to meet this crew of skaters women in Vancouver the following year. And yet it wasn't until, like, maybe 2002, I was doing a master's degree, and I decided to call my thesis paper Female Skateboarders and then Negotiation of Space and Identity. It was kind of like the first sort of academic paper that sort of looked at this topic. And I was critiquing subculture theory. And it was traditionally, like, a male academic looking at, like, punk guys in. In a subculture. And the girls were always like, sidekicks, girlfriends, really, dismissed. They weren't, like, active cultural producers. And that was weird to me because I was part of this crew in Montreal called the Skirt Boarders, and we were making zines and videos and a website, and we were like, a really dynamic crew. So the thesis, I decided to interview all of my friends and begin this historical research. Yeah. And I'm kind of glad that it's taken me this long, because with social media today, it's so much easier to piece together, like, a global history and to make contact with women all over the world especially. Yeah. Conduct interviews on Zoom. So but that whole time, all those years, I was accumulating, like, a list of names, magazines, zines, photos, interviews, like, just building my archive, like, anytime a female skater was mentioned. And that's why I have all this content for the archive. And that was launched in 2022. And it's also kind of the foundation of this book. So, yeah, it's been. It's been a real passion project. Super rewarding, and lots of interesting opportunities. Like, I'm a subject expert for the Smithsonian Museum and going to conferences. There's, like, skateboarding conferences and going up podcasts. So it's really snowballed since I first kind of dug into it.
- [05:11]
Craig Gill
Yeah, it seems like years of hard work and gathering bits and pieces has really all come together in the end. So, thinking broadly about the book, what are you hoping that your audience take away from reading it?
- [05:25]
Natalie Porter
I hope readers, like, especially people who've maybe only seen skateboarding, like on a big stage, like the Olympics that was in Tokyo and Paris, you know, I hope I come to appreciate that these young, talented female athletes, like, they haven't appeared out of nowhere. There's this long legacy of female skaters, you know, community organizers, whistleblowers, like throughout the decades who really had to fight, fight for these opportunities for recognition, you know, competitions to be sponsored or appear in magazines, equal contest pay, even to feel safe at a skate park. So, you know, their existence really needs to be acknowledged. And I'm also kind of hoping that there's like, more interest in the stories of older women because, you know, sometimes these skateboarders, they're not like champion skaters like Tony hawk doing a 900 ramp. But, like, I think they still have value. They've initiated change, they led interesting lives. And every time I interview someone, like, I always discover something new, some fun anecdote. So, like, it's been a privilege to do this work and I hope, like, my enthusiasm kind of comes across on the page because I. I'm pretty excited about this topic.
- [06:46]
Craig Gill
Yeah, I think one of the things I appreciated reading it was the variance in the kind of the subjects. The people who you featured, they weren't just like the best skaters in the world. They weren't just like. They were. Yeah. I wonder if you could talk about that, about the different types of people who are featured in this book and the spectrum that they come from.
- [07:09]
Natalie Porter
Yeah, so it's kind of like depending on the decade, you know, and the level of opportunities available to women at the time, there is kind of a wide range of experience within skateboarding. So like, you know, in the 60s, it was kind of a. A fun social outlet. Like it's a toy. It's like the hula hoop almost and versus the 1970s. It's like sometimes women were know, choosing skateboarding as an act of feminist defiance. Like Leslie Joe Ritzma, you know, she demanded the right to bomb down Signal Hill and become the world's fastest woman. Or there's a woman like Kathy Sierra. She was, you know, had a background in gymnastics and ballet and so freestyle, which is kind of like choreographed form of skateboard and became her pursuit. And it was kind of dismissed as really feminine. But Other skaters, like, found, you know, this opportunity to skate a bowl or a pool, which is kind of like aggressive. And it's usually stereotyped as masculine, but, you know, it's really fun. So that was an exciting outlet for them. And yeah, there's just a range of different approaches with skateboarding. And throughout the era, and I think of, like the 1990s, there were some really exceptional skaters like Alyssa Steamer and Jamie Rays. And, you know, the industry kind of thought of them as like, token rare talents instead of like a demonstration of what was possible for girls. So, you know, it was only when women kind of came together. In 97, the all girls skate jam happened, which was Patty Segovia. She kind of. She was sick of being excluded, so she brought like hundreds of girls together. And we had, you know, our own contest, our own prizes and sponsorships. And, you know, you couldn't ignore us anymore because it was like such a mop. So, yeah, you see this sort of. Sometimes as an individual, you know, you're just one of the guys or, you know, skaters coming together and making really effective change, which. Which I liked. So there's a whole range. A whole range, for sure.
- [09:15]
Craig Gill
Yeah. I want to pull a little bit on one of the threads you talked about there, about the way that some different forms of skating were seen as, like, more masculine, um, as skateboarding as a relatively kind of modern invention in. Or a relatively modern thing in North America. How did those kind of gendered ideas come about, do you think?
- [09:40]
Natalie Porter
It's unusual because, yeah, it does start out. The origin story is pretty equitable. Like the boys and girls at a competition. 1965, the first international contest. Like equal prizes. And like, they were featured on ABC Wide World Sports. Like, kind of quite equitable. And same with the 70s. You know, most teams had, yeah, a mix of guys and girls and there was contest divisions and there was this aspiration to be in the Olympics. So that was kind of the standard. But I feel like as money and industry kind of got involved, the values shifted. So suddenly girls aren't getting the same contest prizes. And then in the 80s, we noticed that. So the industry tanked. Like, there was all these insurance claims, skate park shut down. And so by the 80s, it's become this sort of rebellious, on the street, illegal kind of thing. And the industry really latched onto this Persona and it suddenly became, we can make money by branding it as, you know, for boys only, like, being hardcore and. And really just like the girls were not seen as a market worth catering to. So dismissed in the media. There's also this weird backlash in history. If you notice, like, in the 60s and 70s, there's like, women's liberation, black pride. Like, there's all this progress happening, and boom, the 80s, you got a backlash. It's like family values, Ronald Reagan and power. And there's the AIDS and HIV epidemic, which kind of creates a lot of homophobia and skateboarding. Like, it really does mirror the mainstream. And some of those really unfortunate values like homophobia and misogyny, and it's reflected. And so you see that panning out in the 80s and 90s and. But, yeah, girls are still there. We're still there. We can get into that, too.
- [11:40]
Craig Gill
Yeah. Are there any other misconceptions that. That first one that you've talked about being like, this, the proud tradition or history of women's skateboarding. But is there any other misconceptions about the history of women in skateboarding that you hope the book can correct or comment on?
- [11:55]
Natalie Porter
Totally. Yeah. It's like this idea that women disappeared in the 80s or in the 90s. I've even been told myself to my face that there were no girls who skated, but that's just what people are seeing in the media. And. Yeah, and I have proof, like, I have all of these do it yourself zines. There's the history of the Women's Skateboard network from, like, 1986 to 1992. But, yeah, it's just. It's just this rebranding and historical backlash. And also this idea that you had to be authentic, this idea that you could be dismissed as a poser. And it was always the guys who were kind of creating the rules of what it meant, you know, to be punk. And in my opinion, these women were more punk and badass than the guys because they were. Had to persevere underground. So I really want to make sure that gets, you know, hammered through. We were always there.
- [12:56]
Craig Gill
Yeah. So I would love to dive in a little bit more into the. Into the kind of contents of the book. The. Unlike a lot of conventional history books, you don't take a chronological approach. Would you be able to explain the structure of the book and how you ended up settling on that?
- [13:14]
Natalie Porter
Yeah, I kind of decided that I would avoid doing sort of a traditional timeline because I thought I was going to get really bogged down in dates and contest results kind of stats. And I kind of wanted to go more into themes because the themes often repeat themselves in different periods in history. So, like, every new generation of girls taking up skateboarding thinks they're alone and they're kind of feeling isolated. That's the only one out there because there's, like, no ongoing legacy. So I decided to go with a theme. Each chapter has kind of a top of, like, you know, matriarchs. And there's like a key person that I really engaged with, I interviewed or had a connection with. And then actually while I was working on the book, so I'm a librarian, I'm in the library, and I came across this book, Hidden Genius, the secret ways of thinking that powerful. You know, the world's most successful people. Kind of. It was like this hidden genius book. It was by Polina Pollo Nova Paulina Pompliana. And it's not something I normally would read. This kind of like, it's kind of a businessy book, but I really like the structure. Yeah, it was like each. Each chapter was an individual, and then within that chapter, sort of three separate individuals that may be tied into the theme. And so I was like, this is. This is what I'm going to do. I need a structure. And I kind of wanted to break up the narrative, insert a few more people, have a bit of first person dialogue, just. Yeah. Make it a little different. But I should note there actually is kind of a chronology. There's a backstory of how the archive and how my Instagram account kind of evolved. So I kind of wanted to take people on a bit of a journey there. So it's, yeah, definitely not a traditional history book, but there's. There is an intention and structure to it for sure.
- [15:16]
Craig Gill
Right. Yeah. I think the. The chronology of your. The, like, the story of your research comes through really clearly. And I think the way that you tell the story of skating, because it works so well thematically, it doesn't feel like it needs the chronology. It was definitely a unique approach that I hadn't seen much. And I really enjoyed the kind of different way in which you approached it.
- [15:45]
Natalie Porter
Yeah, there was similar inspiration. I didn't model it completely after that book, but I was like, oh, that's different.
- [15:53]
Craig Gill
In your book, you show the kind of multifaceted ways that diverse women interacted with the sport over the years. And there was kind of so many different examples of people who were rebellious or people who were trying to gain acceptance in some ways or just like, different approaches. And I wonder if you could talk about some of those different approaches that women skateboarders took in their search of acknowledgement, acceptance, or being a part of skateboarding.
- [16:22]
Natalie Porter
Yeah, I kind of mentioned earlier, like, sometimes it was Just for the fun of it, for the love of it. It really is a fun pursuit. And other times it was really like finding a community and making change that way and kind of learning together. So yeah, it's. Every person has a slightly different perspective on it. But I really did ultimately want to show that change happens when you work together, when you create a zine, when you've got pen pals, people supporting you, when you're not in isolation. And it also like that visibility piece is there, like, hey, we're out here and you can't ignore us. Yeah. So there's such a neat range of people and I should, I don't want to like cherry pick. You have to read the book. But yeah, I hope that comes across and like, even for myself, you know, I've taken a bit of an academic route. I'm not necessarily the most talented skater, but I found my, my calling as someone who does research. Well and someone else could be, you know, a contest organizer or decide to launch their own company like Cherry Skateboards or Meow Skateboards by Lisa Whitaker. These are sort of female owned companies. And so yeah, everyone has their own, their own skill set which contributes to the whole history, I feel like.
- [17:47]
Craig Gill
And how does that story play out kind of geographically? One of the things I found really interesting was finding out where these, these, these girl gangs, where these zines were, were, were happening. How could you try and paint that picture a little bit for us? Like the geographic nature of this woman's history of skateboarding?
- [18:04]
Natalie Porter
For sure. It's, you know, obviously like California definitely becomes sort of the mecca of skateboarding. And the origin story is often there, but like I discovered over in France because of surfing and in the 1960s there were French women competing in skateboarding in the 60s and 70s and, and then of course the zines. During the 80s there were people subscribing from all over the world and creating pen pals together. You know, all pre Internet finding their people. And as well, like down in Brazil people are making zines and Mexico and there's contests that are all trying to emulate what's happening in California. And sometimes they do a better job of things. Like it's quite cool. So it was a real, I love research. So this was just such a blast for me to kind of uncover these different stories. And sometimes I would have to look into the, like the letters to the editor of magazines. That's often where you find, you know, you know, hey, put more girls from, you know, so and so from Illinois or like New Mexico they're kind of scattered all over. So I keep an eye on that content as well, trying to glean this full picture. But it really went international in the 70s for sure.
- [19:26]
Craig Gill
And the title of your book touches on two themes that seem central to women's involvement in skateboarding. Girl gangs and zines. Starting with the former. What is a girl gang in skateboarding? And how important were they to the development of the sport?
- [19:42]
Natalie Porter
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I love girl games. So in my mind, like, a girl gang involves, you know, three or more individuals coming together, kind of creating a name, you know, establishing their own space. And it's wild. Like, 1963, the first girl gang called La Femme was created. Colleen Boyd, Donna Cash, and Susie Roland, they noticed, like, all of their buddies were getting sponsored by these companies. They lived in the Pacific Palisades in California. And, yeah, so all their. Their buddies were getting recruited, and they say, hey, that's unfair. So they approached a woman's clothing store called La Femme and they formed their own team. They got their own custom jackets and their own back patches, and they made themselves visible. And as a result, those girls did get recruited by the local companies. But, yeah, they took that initiative. And, you know, I see this over and over. Like, in the 80s, there was a crew called the Hags in Los Angeles. There's actually a documentary coming out about them. There's also the Skate Bettys all the way up in Anchorage in Alaska. Yeah, they were just defiant. They were sick of being ignored. So they came together. And, you know, I've. I've been part of girl gangs. I mentioned the skirt borders in Montreal and just that feeling. When you're. You're cruising down the street with a group of girls, you feel like, so invincible and powerful. And often, like, in society, girls don't always get to feel like that. We're supposed to, you know, embrace this traditional femininity where we're, like, passive and flawless and, you know, anonymous in the sidelines. So when you're at girl gang, it's pretty awesome. Feel pretty cool. So, yeah, yeah, I'm all, obviously, yeah. In the title of my book.
- [21:39]
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- [22:08]
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Natalie Porter
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- [22:55]
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- [23:21]
Craig Gill
And yeah, so these girl gangs like what, what did that kind of sense of community do for, for women? Skateboarding?
- [23:31]
Natalie Porter
Yeah. I think it really validated our existence. Like you made, you made friends. You kind of felt like you weren't alone and that you could make change, that you could demand that a contest division be opened up. Like Slam City Jam in Vancouver in like 1998. Me and my friends approached the, the organizers and said hey, we're here. We want to compete. Yeah. So it's, yeah, you just feel more bold and I see that in sports in general. Like yeah, you just, you have to commit to things and, and it's got to be normalized that girls can be seen as powerful and yeah. So it's important to, to find your crew for sure.
- [24:11]
Craig Gill
So what about zines then? What were they? How did a zine get formed and why were they important to this story?
- [24:18]
Natalie Porter
Also I think zines as I mentioned. Yeah. Pre Internet, they're really important communication tool. They're, they're do it yourself often photocopied magazines and you can put like photos and stories and like I don't know, recipes and artwork and. Yeah. And share it with a network of your friends. But I think what's most important is that there's no gatekeepers. Like there's no magazine Editor or like, I don't know, a photographer saying that you don't deserve to be in the magazine. Yeah. So there's no gatekeepers. You can just do it. So like in 86, there's ladies skate World, that was sort of the first female focused skateboard zine. And there was like this call out, come on girls, like, let's rally together. Let's demand a contest division for ourselves. You know, 1981, amateur girls skateboarding division had been eliminated. So that was a real battle to say, like, yeah, let's do it. And so these zines were super important. Yeah, equal time. Z and I talk about that a lot. It was the masthead for the Women's Skateboard network. And by 1992, there's like 250 members. There's like a circulation of a thousand copies. And that resulted in the first all women's skateboard film. So, yeah, it's all about that, that communication and it's got international appeal. So like in Brazil in the 90s, there were some girls who were, they were getting beat up at skate parks and they were sick of it. So they created a zine called Check it out and sort of again, rallying together, like, yeah, let's go to the skate park and take over. And that zine eventually became this glorious glossy magazine. The, the women translated their, their zine to port from Portuguese to English. It became super popular. 18 issues. It was just beautiful. Yeah, so it's this tool for communication and it's like I've, I've contributed to lots of zines, Armpit and Idlewood, some fun skateboard Z's and something fun to do in the winter as well. Like if you're up in Canada, it's like you can't skate, but you want to do something creative. Yeah. And I also feel like nowadays there's a bit of a, a backlash towards social media. You know, it's sort of fleeting and you're always being pummeled by advertisements and it's very corporate. So I've noticed like, it's coming back, people. There's like zine making workshops at libraries. So yeah, they're tactile, they're dynamic, they're fun. Yeah. So that's, Yeah, I love them. They're. Yeah, these really raw stories too. Like you get some, some pretty cool, authentic stories.
- [27:10]
Craig Gill
Awesome. I'm excited later in our chat to talk about like how you came across these. But I think first I wanted to ask you, you write in your book that the heroes of this story, they have Lived an existence that challenges both mainstream society and their own subculture by participating in something labeled as a delinquent activity, more appropriate for young men, whether they were conscious of it or not. I really loved that line. And I wonder if you could talk about that kind of, like, intersectionality that women skateboarders faced as part of an apparent, like, delinquent activity and also as a group who faced exclusion from that subculture itself.
- [27:50]
Natalie Porter
So, oh, yeah, it's. It is wild. Like, there was an editor, Denise Williams, she actually lived in Halifax. She had a. A magazine called Push Skateboard magazine. And there's this great quote. She describes this as a subculture within a subculture because we're sort of like, buried within this broader subculture. And it's funny because, like, I think the media likes to portray skateboarding as very countercultural. It's like, you know, really something cool or rebellious for boys. But it's like, it's kind of a reflection of mainstream society. And, like, there's these guys who are really protective of this identity as being, like, hardcore, and, you know, we're the real deal. And this kind of this fear of losing their identity. And sometimes these women were perceived as a bit of a threat, especially if they were talented. So I think it takes a courageous person to really call out this myth. Skateboarding doesn't need to be gendered. It's literally like a piece of wood and four wheels. It really is. And a good example of that is, like, In Afghanistan in 2007, a nonprofit was set up called Skateistan. And it was a way for. For kids in a war torn country to have fun, to take up skateboarding. And it became embraced by girls. There was no idea that skateboarding was gendered. It was just something fun. And then they got these street kids back into school, obviously before, you know, the Taliban took power again. But, you know, yeah, that was just a perfect example for me that it really isn't. Shouldn't be exclusive to one gender. Yeah. And so I'm trying to think of, like, ways to understand where these attitudes come from. And it's often like, it is that big picture backlash in history where people are trying to claw back power. And like, you can go as far back as, like, I don't know, like In World War II, like, after all these women were working in factories, and suddenly they were told, like, you know, your duty is done. Back to the kitchen. And there's like this sort of media campaign, like, this happens over and over. And so, I don't know, I think it's ridiculous. This idea of a counterculture, it's all sort of just repackaged mainstream values. Yeah, but the people themselves, the women are pretty gritty and I think they're authentic. They're really hardcore.
- [30:21]
Craig Gill
Awesome. Throughout the book you choose to do a number of kind of like mid chapter vignettes, biographies, short case studies about skaters, about films or different zines or different organizations. What made you want to present those in the way that you did?
- [30:39]
Natalie Porter
Well, yeah, I mentioned earlier, like I wanted some variety in the narrative and you know, there's so many people and so many projects that deserve to be acknowledged. Like it could be a little bit overwhelming. So I wanted a story, but then I also wanted some, some core facts. And I'm fortunate with like the archive online. I, I've got tons of room. I can expand and, you know, add video footage and photos and update things constantly. But in the book I had to be very intentional to shine a spotlight. And I also knew that some of these skaters, when they buy the book, they're going to open the contents page and look for themselves. I knew it would happen. So yeah, in the first couple pages of the book, like it's all just laid out, every single subsection. I had to create my own index because I knew people would sort of want to jump ahead and see if they're in there. So. Yeah, so I really. That created Spotlights story throughout. Yeah, that was my, my plan and my, my editor kept me accountable to that structure.
- [31:48]
Craig Gill
Yeah, it was, I think it was just interesting to see those. Every time you would introduce a character or a historical figure at the start of a chapter and then you would return to them at the end. But in the middle you would see these other people who perhaps also personified or touched on these kind of subjects in a similar way. And I thought it really helped to see that it wasn't just an individual story, that there was lots of, there was variety of people and there was like. And there was some real consistency as well.
- [32:25]
Natalie Porter
Yeah, just sort of weaving those stories. And I was learning along the way, like how they connected. Like, you know, there's a woman over in England who kind of is revered as, you know, the godmother of skateboarding in the uk. But like she, she knew all these girls in, in California and they'd come visit her and they would write letters. So I was discovering all this throughout and I just knew I had to kind of weave it together. It was fun.
- [32:49]
Craig Gill
Yeah. And one of the things that comes through in your writing is that you clearly are A skater. And you also tell a lot of the stories about your own time in skate parks and learning to skate. And you write very honestly and very eloquently about it. At times it's kind of uncommon and refreshing, I would say, to see such self reflective writing in a history book. How does your own story reflect the history of women's skateboarding?
- [33:18]
Natalie Porter
Oh, good question. Well, thank you. That was very complimentary. Yeah, I think like a lot of girls, even today when they start skateboarding, they do feel like they're the lone girl at their school or their small town and they're kind of unaware of this rich history. And like I remember in, yeah, 1998, a friend's dad brought out this box of like all these vintage 1970s skateboarder magazines. And I was so blown away, like I had no idea of this rich history. And in those magazines there's girls who are interviewed, there's photos, there's contest results. And like, I was just stunned. It was like a revelation. And so I wanted the reader to kind of trust me as a skateboarder and to empathize with kind of some of my experiences. And I didn't want to be like an anonymous sort of all knowing narrator because like I'm, I'm going on a journey too. And I start out being pretty, I think, I don't know if you can sense it, but in the early drafts of this book, I'm pretty angry. Like I'm pretty bad. I kind of tone it down a little bit. But throughout this process, like I'm meeting all these older women who become my mentors. They, they help me in like a healing process. We talk about like me too stories and we're vulnerable with each other. So I felt it would be like a betrayal if I wasn't present there because like that was, that was part of it. And I come to a place of real contentment and peace at the end. And you know, I still feel like the skateboard industry, like there's a lot of, you know, accountability needs to be there. And I do see it happen. Like, you know, Thrasher magazine compared to the 1990s, it's so much better. Like the, a lot of women on the covers of the magazine, you know, stories of their road trips and I was even interviewed in Thrasher as a middle aged Canadian librarian. So funny. Yeah, so it's exciting. So I, yeah, took the readers on a bit of a journey and yeah, hopefully there's. You could feel that trust and that enthusiasm for skateboarding which, yeah, it's A big part of my life.
- [35:32]
Craig Gill
Yeah. It was interesting to see you, like, you were using yourself as a source in some ways, like, even going back to some of your old, like, diary or journal entries. How was that experience?
- [35:45]
Natalie Porter
Pros and cons? Because sometimes when you read your journals from your teen years, you're just mortified. But there was some fun content. And I found some old letters that I'd written to magazines, like, kind of demanding that they include more girls. And. And it really made me realize, like, yeah, I've been at this for a while. Yeah, that was. That was pretty fun. And. But, yeah, again, that vulnerability piece, like, sometimes it was kind of hard sort of reading those sort of sometimes a bit sadder stories when you're a teen and you're, yeah, feeling a bit isolated. But, yeah, it does mean that I've come to a place of growth and strength and, yeah, pretty happy where I'm at now. And, yeah, this book has been on my bucket list for four years. And finally, like, it's out there. It's so crazy.
- [36:37]
Craig Gill
Yeah. Yeah. There's kind of like these, like, three. Or. I felt like there was these three parallel, like, narratives going on. There's the narrative about the history of women's skateboarding, there's your narrative as a skateboarder, and there is the narrative of the research process and how this book came to be. So I was fascinated that you actually took the readers on the journey of the research itself, which doesn't happen very often. Often the footnotes in history books, it's just like, if you're interested in finding out where the research was done, that's where it's done. But you explain kind of, here's how I found this source, here's how I found that. What was the research process like for this book, and why was it important for you to include that as well?
- [37:24]
Natalie Porter
I couldn't resist. I'm a librarian. I'm curious. I love making information accessible, telling people's stories. It's just a value that I have. And I also wanted to demonstrate this was challenging work. This was hard sometimes to unearth these stories and. And interview these people. Like, you know, sometimes their names were misspelled in contest results or, like, their names had changed because they got married or their pronouns changed. Like, yeah, this was not easy. And that's kind of also a reflection of society. Like, how. How deep I had to go as a librarian. I also, like, I thought some of the stories I hopefully were kind of fun. Like the time when I trek down to San Diego To a conference to kind of grill Tony Hawk. Like, I'm, I'm relentless. Librarians are relentless. And you know, I, hopefully it wasn't, that aspect wasn't, you know, too boring, but I, I thought it was fun and, you know, it was a big motivation for me is thinking of this work as activism. You know, it's like to remind people that, you know, when archival silence happens, when only one story, you know, the story of the victorious, the guy who like, you know, won all these contests and got sponsored, like when it's only that story that's being acknowledged, it really distorts history. It's like kind of boring and I don't know, that kind of one sided perspective. It's not the kind of world that I want to live in. So I just want to showcase, like, it's worth the effort to, to seek out these stories and, you know, and have fun. And my gosh, like so many times whenever I reached out to someone or maybe they found their bio online, they're just like, oh my God, like, I thought I was forgotten. I can't believe you found me. And yeah, what a wonderful feeling that is for someone doing research. Like, yeah, it's awesome. It was really fulfilling.
- [39:28]
Craig Gill
Yeah. I particularly appreciated the inclusion of your research process because it showed the way that the archive has been silent on women's skateboarders and how historical research, it can be difficult to uncover the true story of things. And I think those three kind of parallel stories worked well in kind of authenticating this, this, this book and narrative in some way.
- [40:01]
Natalie Porter
Well, glad you said that. But I should mention, like, this is still a community effort. Like, I always give a shout out to Kevin Marks. He runs the Lookback Library. He sort of collects all of these magazines throughout history. So he sometimes flags something for me or, you know, I've got a following on Instagram and people who collect zines and you know, even old timer dudes, crusty dudes will reach out to me in this queen. Quite surprising that I have their full support and like, yeah, so it's, it's not just me solo as this intrepid librarian. There is contributions from folks all over the world and academics and. Yeah, and I should just give a shout out to like, ECW Press who put out this book in Toronto and, and my editor, Jen Sukh Fong Lee. Like, they did take a bit of a risk on this book. Like it's pretty niche. So I'm so grateful that they did because, yeah, it was, it was a rewarding, rewarding program. Process for me to learn about, you know, what it takes to put together a book. Holy smokes.
- [41:03]
Craig Gill
Yeah, I'd love to also touch on the website and the online archive that you've put together. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that.
- [41:12]
Natalie Porter
It's definitely. It's more of like a Wikipedia kind of style. Like sometimes I pop in, but it's not quite like the book. But I'm up to something like 350 bios and counting. I organize it into decades, so 1960s, 70s and alphabetical order of the skateboarder's name. And then there's a section where I try to digitize these zines. So if you're reading the book and you want to actually see the zine, you can hop onto the archive. And a lot of them I've digitized by Google. Yeah, it's just a great sort of hub. It's just a tangible mother load of research and so no one can deny that we did not exist. Like, you know this, I joke, I call this the wrath of the Skater librarian because, like I have, yeah, loaded it up.
- [42:06]
Craig Gill
And then there's also quite interesting. You reflect quite a lot on how social media and your use of social media helped with this process. I wonder, as you mentioned with this kind of. There's a societal backlash against social media in some way at the moment. But I wonder if you could talk about the ways in which it was positively helping you in this process.
- [42:28]
Natalie Porter
Oh, definitely. Yeah. I feel so grateful for social media. I'm fairly isolated where I live and up north of Vancouver, so there's not a massive community here. But yeah, I found my people online and discovered like there's other skateboard nerds and academics and people are really interested in the topic and want to share their story or direct me towards a new zine. Like, it's, yeah, definitely a community effort. And yeah, it's been fun lately too with like, now that the book is out in the world, people are taking photos of themselves or even like their pets reading the book. And yeah, it just gives me a boost because I want to keep going with this archive. Like, I don't feel like it's done. There's. It's a living document. I keep stumbling upon more photos and, you know, more names of people I want to connect with. So, yeah, just want to maintain that momentum and keep it happening, keep it fresh.
- [43:28]
Craig Gill
Yeah, I thought it was. There was a touching moment in the book when you talked about the having the daughter of a skater commenting on one of your Posts about a skater saying this is my mum or something like that. I feel like academics or historians often don't have that kind of sense of connection to the people involved in the story. It's kind of like they write the book, it's out in the world and then that's where it is. It lives on the shelf or it lives in people's hands, but they don't know who those people are. I thought that was just kind of a. The way that you running that account and running the archive has allowed people to engage with it and for you to see the engagement was really interesting.
- [44:12]
Natalie Porter
Totally. Yeah. It keeps my hope alive, keeps me motivated and yeah, it's been a real privilege to do the work and at the start I was feeling very hesitant like who am I, who am I to be like upheaving history and sort of challenging people to think like about these myths and stereotypes And I was worried that people wouldn't like some of these people are my heroes, you know, these are to me, like care about Burnside. I'm still kind of nervous to reach out. Yeah. But I've grown in confidence there and this community has validated me so that, that feels pretty good.
- [44:51]
Craig Gill
Well, that's awesome. Natalie, we've taken up plenty of your time today. I wonder if you could tell us what's next for you now that this kind of passion project, this years of work has come out. What's next?
- [45:04]
Natalie Porter
Well, it's been interesting because yeah, I've mentioned the Smithsonian exhibit. Obviously with the government shutdown in the States, it's been. The momentum hasn't been quite there. But I hope that by the LA Olympics in 2028 that this traveling exhibit will happen. And I've also been. People are seeking me out as like an expert for other exhibits. There's one in San Diego and another one in France and in England where I guess they realize that they should probably make sure that their exhibit is, you know, balanced. So happy to be a consultant there but it is always a side gig. My, my main job. I work for the British Columbia Library association, so I still, I have a real job as well as doing this. So. But hopefully I'll get to travel a bit more and there's interesting conferences to attend and yeah, keep hustling this book and have some fun.
- [45:59]
Craig Gill
Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks so much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed chatting about Girl Gang zines and power slides. Appreciate your time.
- [46:07]
Natalie Porter
Thanks so much, Craig. Have a great day.
- [46:15]
Craig Gill
Foreign.
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