NPR has a interview up with Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer, co-authors of the forthcoming How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time.

There’s also a big ol’ exerpt from the book, which includes a quote from former
Mercury arts editor Julianne Shepherd:

Julianne Shepherd thinks she got a former job as arts editor of the Portland Mercury, a weekly in Portland, Oregon, because “in the interview, I noted Sassy as a major influence on my inchoate writing voice, and the publisher, Tim Keck [who co-founded The Onion in 1988 when he was a junior at the University of Wisconsin], was essentially like, ‘Right on! You’re hired!’ “

I never read Sassy—I was about 12 when it was bought out—but I’ve always been aware of its importance, by way of other magazines like Bust and Bitch and the tons of ‘zines and websites that it influenced. And while I’m not nostalgic for Sassy per se, the magazine seems like a sort of feminist high water-mark—and I am nostalgic for the period of time when feminism was about action and optimism, instead of defensiveness and a hostile political climate and everyone inexplicably being just so “over it.” I’m looking forward to reading the book and maybe getting a little inspired.

Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer will be at Powell’s on Hawthorne May 21, 7:30 pm.