It was the early 1990's and the Riot Grrrl movement was all the rage. As much as I wish I could say I was a part of the feminist music-making phenomenon, I wasn't. Not at the start, anyways. I was just a 19 year old girl fresh out of high school, with the unrealistic dream of being a singer/songwriter.
I was going to Brier University in Minnesota, "the University for Creatives," as I called it. It was a fairly big University at the edge of town, surrounded on one side by a forest and next to the biggest body of water we had in Minnesota. I loved it there, but I used to wish I could be more than just a University student, studying my life away.
When I wasn't studying, taking classes, working, or hanging out with friends, I liked spending my time blogging. I had a blog wholly dedicated to the songs I wrote, where I also put up videos of me singing. I always got a good amount of views; no where close to the amount some people got though. No where close to where I wanted to be, but it was the least I could do back then. I also used to spend a fair amount of my time singing the songs I wrote at small coffee shops around town, hoping, just maybe, that I would be noticed and whisked away on a tour bus to fulfill my singing dreams.
Emilie Hanley, Singer/Songwriter. I could see it, even back then, my name in flashing lights.
Clearly, I've always had high hopes.
And while I didn't know it then, those high hopes would soon turn into my reality.
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A Girl's Guide to Ending Rape Culture
Short StoryEmilie Hanley is a newcomer to the music scene and in the age of the newfound Riot Grrrl movement, she discovers she's more powerful than she thinks.
