Xtra Tuf: The Strike Issue

Meet Moe Bowstern: writer, fisherwoman, tough cookie. Moe is a woman working in the male-dominated commercial fishing industry of Alaska’s Kodiak Island and this, the Xtra Tufzine, is her story. Winner of the 2007 Lilla Jewel Award, and sporting special letter press covers featuring more than 30 different color schemes, #5 tells a tale of dissent and frustration. Like The Grapes of Wrath or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Xtra Tuf #5 is the story of a people’s struggle. It’s a social history but it’s also a love-letter to the ancient rites and rituals of sustenance fishing. In Moe’s writing you smell the salt air and land breezes. You see sunsets from the deck of the boat and feel the pitching waters. And, above all, you meet–and then know–all the earnest, hilarious, conflicted, hardworking folks who populate her narrative.