Overview

The year is 2006, and roller derby is on the brink of a massive explosion. This was right after the TV show Rollergirls, before the movie Whip It, and before Erica Vanstone ever dreamed of becoming the Executive Director of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA). Soon, the newly married NYU film school grad will nearly flip her life upside down to get the sport of roller derby on broadcast TV. And it all starts the night Erica walks into a Camden roller rink. Erica doesn't realize her soul needs saving until she reads the words on the back of someone's T-shirt: Roller derby saved my soul. With AC/DC blasting overhead, Erica watches two teams of fishnet-clad and tattooed women muscling their way around a rink in a counterclockwise direction. As the unapologetically badass skaters fly by, both intimidating and inspiring, Erica doesn't yet understand the sport, but something in her bones tells her she wants in on it. Before she even knows the rules, Erica finds herself announcing at roller derby bouts all over the city and soon, the country. While navigating career shifts, motherhood and eye-roll-inducing misogyny, Erica finds a way to help grow the sport into what it is today, while never giving up on its roots or herself. In this memoirella, Erica Vanstone weaves humorous, humbling personal narrative with cultural journalism to make the case for women's sports as a community lifeline. Don't Let Them Eat the Baby is told in raw, unrelenting prose by one of roller derby's architects. Now more than ever, the world needs safer sport spaces like roller derby: a sport steeped in authenticity and belonging. In her debut memoirella, Vanstone shares why roller derby is the greatest sport never sold and learns what parts of her own soul really needed saving.

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Reviews

""Vanstone takes us on a romp through the chaotic origin of modern roller derby; the highs and lows, the incredible people who play this sport balancing their real and often respectable lives with the possibility of a broken nose or tailbone at each game or practice. This book is at once hilarious, meticulously reported and well-written. It'll make you want to put on a pair of skates and throw an elbow."" - Jane McManus, former journalist with ESPN, author of The Fast Track ""Don't Let Them Eat the Baby is a lot of things: An engaging chronicle of self-discovery, and a tour through a vibrant, messy subculture. It's about ownership and agency, about messing up and trying again, falling down and getting back up. Roller derby, with its inventiveness and inclusiveness, its sense of humor and community, might be needed more now than ever. And so are stories like this about women fighting for their space in sports - and everywhere else."" - Emma Span, Enterprise Editor, The Athletic ""An inspirational tale of motherhood, sisterhood and what to do with a film degree when you're an adult. Vanstone's punchy memoir is about how sometimes you need to get knocked on your ass a few times to find yourself, on and off the track."" - Sean Burns, WBUR, Boston ""I think the coolest thing about this reflection and revelation is that roller derby has never been about making grassroots organizing a corporate gig...Derby and its members are the key holders to the proverbial kingdom."" - Jumpy McGee aka April Fournier

Author Information

Erica Vanstone is the former Executive Director for the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA)-the international governing body for the sport of roller derby. Her writing has appeared in Write or Die Magazine, Intangible Magazine, Black Bough Poetry and others. A former filmmaker and NYU film school grad, Erica worked in the film industry for years before ditching it to film and eventually run the sport of roller derby. Erica has an MS in Sports Business from Temple University and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she builds community sport and safety programs for a youth organization. DON'T LET THEM EAT THE BABY is her debut book. Michelle Kicherer is the author of the novella Sexy Life, Hello. Michelle is a book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and Willamette Week. Her fiction has been published in The Masters Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review and many others. Michelle is the Founding Editor of Banana Pitch Press, and is a writing instructor and coach. She often encourages writers to ""get a little weirder."" Designed by Gwendolyn Schulte of GRS Editorial.

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