Announcing new book Women’s Work by Chris Crisman

We’ve written about Chris Crisman‘s Women’s Work project in the past, sharing the imagery he creates in demonstrating that traditional gender roles are anything but. In March, the Women’s Work project will officially become a book! We’re thrilled to share a bit of how this came to be and link how you can get your own copy.

You’ve been painstakingly documenting women who work in historically male-dominated professions since 2016, with the response being overwhelmingly positive. When did you realize the Women’s Work project had the makings of becoming a book? 

I started this journey in the winter of 2016. There was a snowball effect in creating the work. The publicity mounted upon release of the project as a body of work. We had some very supportive outlets in our industry and luckily some of their supporters followed suit. Before we knew it, the project became very popular, making for a hectic holiday season in 2016. We had so much traffic and unexpected attention during that period. The reach was incredible, and we had multiple literary agents reach out about the possibility of making the project a book. 

Can you give us some stats on the project? You’ve interviewed over 50 women since 2016 – A self-assigned task that has to have taken you across the US twenty times and then some. How many cities did you visit? Was there a set time you could spend with each subject? Give us a bit of the behind-the-scenes parameters you set for this ongoing project.

Undoubtedly there were some challenges in completing the book. We ended up representing 58 women in the book. Some come from the original project, some came from legacy connections and shoots from my history, and a little over half started once we had the book deal. Organizing the whole of the project was complicated. I have worked in every state in the country, and I feel that every state has its unique characteristics. There is so much Red/Blue talk these days and one clear goal of the book was to help bridge that gap. That said, we wanted to represent a diverse group of women – blue-collar and white-collar jobs, small towns, and big towns. A person’s gender, age, weight, height, ethnicity, political views, or birthplace should never define their career. It’s about having big dreams and not letting anything about your identity standing in the way of fulfilling what you put your heart into doing. 

What can you share about the publishing process for this book? Is Simon & Schuster the first publisher in which you discussed the project? How long has it been from start to finish?

It was a long process to get from signing with David Doerrer at Abrams Artists to closing on a deal for the book. I had some incredible help from author and incredibly organized writer, Caroline Tiger, in building my proposal for the book – It really would not have happened without her. Once we finished up our book pitch – imagine a photography treatment with 10x writing – it was an eye-opening process of getting to the finish line. We had five interviews with publishers who were interested in the book, and we landed on an incredible presentation from Simon & Schuster. They have a great team, and we felt fully supported in the process on every level. 

One item of note: There are only so many hours in a day and so many days in a year – I knew I’d be giving up a lot of precious time to make this book happen. I don’t regret anything about the process or taking almost a year to commit to it fully. There were sacrifices along the way, and I am happy to have made it to this point. 

Your author’s note shares the mission of this project. It details the influence your mother had in your childhood, entrepreneurial attributes you saw when meeting your wife, as well as the challenges you see for your daughter’s future. This book is the perfect love note to the women in your life. What do they have to say about this project and the book launch?

That was not an easy write for me. There were revisions, versions, and re-writes. In the end, that note is my favorite page I’ve ever written. I received the first two copies of the book on 12/20/2019. I turned 40 the next day. I was able to give one of those two copies to my mother for Christmas. There were a few tears and many laughs that night. My wife, Julianna, was very proud and supportive throughout the process. She deserves more credit than I could give within that book. Eliza, she’s five, and although she’s so incredibly aware of all things in her world, I think the best rewards are yet to come.

Tell us about the words that accompany your portraits. Of course, having taken their portraits and spent time with each person, you know each woman’s profession and perhaps how she came to it. Did you write everything down and then go back to it to ask additional questions once a book became an option? Please share a bit about the process. 

With every shoot, I have a process of getting to the heart of the matter. I talk about what’s at hand, and I talk about how we both get there. I think I do an excellent job of understanding where anyone is coming from and then responding to how the subjects are processing the moment of our experience. With some women, I dove deep about the direct purpose of the book. With others, I chose to stay a bit lighter. Noel Pattani predominantly conducted the straightforward, conversational manner of the interviews. I brought her on to produce the project and to do the formal interviews. I wanted consistency in the formula but felt that some individuals would open up better with the person who they had been speaking to more regularly through the production. I don’t regret this, and when you listen to the voices of all these incredible women, it will become clear. 

Women’s Work, the book, is available via pre-order right now.

To see more stories come to life, follow Chris on Instagram.

https://notesfromarepsjournal.com/2020/01/27/chris-crisman-womens-work-and-a-book-launch/