Samantha Tucker & Amy Spears

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courtesy Swallow Press

A collage of pictures of Amy Spears, Emily Mills and Samantha Tucker (clockwise from top left).

Amy Spears, Emily Mills and Samantha Tucker (clockwise from top left).

The new book Collective Chaos: A Roller Derby Team Memoir, tells the story of Ohio Roller Derby, a member of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (the same affiliation as Madison Roller Derby). Co-authors Amy Spears (a team member) and Samantha Tucker (a derby fan) will discuss the book and roller derby’s importance as a home for often marginalized communities with Madison writer and musician Emily Mills (aka Madison Roller Derby’s own Hammer Abby). Also: MRD's traveling teams host Ohio Roller Derby for a doubleheader bout at the Alliant Center Arena at 6 p.m. on June 10; tickets here.

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Samantha Tucker, Amy Spears and Emily Mills for a conversation on all things roller derby in Samantha and Amy's newest book Collective Chaos: A Roller Derby Team Memoir. 

This is an in person event at A Room of One's Own.

A view into the continuing evolution of the niche-yet-global sport through the historical lens of Ohio Roller Derby, one of the founding leagues of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association

Part sports autobiography, part cultural critique, this book offers the collective experience of a tenacious group of nontraditional athletes who play, officiate, plan, schedule, market, and manage the business of a (mostly) women’s amateur sports team.

This modern sport, with its alternative, punk rock culture, is often a place for those who’ve struggled within the mainstream. But even as the sport is often home for historically marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community, roller derby organizations and participants often mirror and experience the same inequities as those in the world surrounding them. In a full-contact, theatrical sport that some consider revolutionary, the authors show that gaining truly radical self-knowledge is an ongoing, difficult process that requires love, teamwork, discipline, critical consideration of one’s local and global societies, and—above all else—one’s place and action within them.

Samantha Tucker (she/her) is an antiracist teacher, writer, and editor in Columbus, Ohio. Sam writes personal essays, memoir, and cultural critique, having earned her MFA and MA in creative nonfiction. Her essay “Fountain Girls,” originally published in Ecotone, is a listed notable in Best American Essays 2017 and is anthologized in Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: An Anthology. Other essays have been published with Literary Hub, Columbus Alive, BUST, Brevity, and Guernica. In her spare time, Sam loves protest, mutual aid, roller derby, and karaoke. 

Amy Spears (she/her) graduated from Denison University with a degree in cinema and creative writing. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she is in her second decade as a skater with Ohio Roller Derby. She spent several years active in the leadership of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association and has given presentations, workshops and talks about the sport at Pecha Kecha Columbus, the Roller Derby World Summit, and Rollercon. Her digital essay (with Julie Driscoll) “Worlds Collide! facebook, family & George Costanza” was published in Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion, and her prose and poetry have appeared in Columbus Alive, Lynx Eye, and Wine X. A self-described “collector of hobbies,” she’ll try just about anything once. 

Emily Mills is a writer, editor, social media manager, musician, photographer, actor, and event organizer living in Madison, Wisconsin. She is currently the Media & PR Manager for the Wisconsin chapter of the Nature Conservancy and the emeritus Editor of Our Lives, Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ magazine. She formerly wrote a weekly opinion column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2013-18) and fielded extremely colorful email responses as a result. Emily is also the drummer/singer of Damsel Trash and Little Red Wolf. She can also be seen competing with Madison Roller Derby and announcing on the worldwide roller derby tournament circuit under the name Hammer Abby.