by Zach Miller
Quick Summary
Margaret Aldrich and Michelle Filkins co-edited "Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces," which won a 2025 Minnesota Book Award. Filkins is a librarian at Metro State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The anthology was published by Spout Press, for which Filkins is a founding editor.
You might assume you know exactly what Michelle Filkins and her co-editor, Margaret Aldrich, were thinking of when they titled their anthology, "Locker Room Talk." You'd probably be wrong. The title's primary motivation was a conversation Filkins witnessed in a St. Paul YMCA locker room between two women. The conversation reached an emotional depth that surprised Filkins, especially because the women didn't seem to know each other well. One of the women shared a painful story and, when she began to cry, the second woman embraced her. That moment of care and connection, taking place in a private - yet public - space, inspired Filkins to seek out more such stories, and to share them. The resulting volume, published in 2023, includes stories from never-published writers as well as established authors, such as Allison McGee and Kao Kalia Yang.
Filkins is a professor of library and information services at Metro State University. She believes that libraries are vital public spaces where community members can find the care and connection featured in her anthology.
"Locker Room Talk," which won in the Anthology category, was one of just ten works honored at the 2025 Minnesota Book Awards. "Locker Room Talk" is currently held at three Minnesota libraries, and is available via MNLINK as well as the Spout Press website.
Spout Press Description
In "Locker Room Talk," we listen in on the epic and ordinary moments that happen when women are together. Subverting the traditional idea of “locker room talk,” this collection illuminates the conversations women share with family, friends, and strangers, whether at the sinks of a nightclub ladies’ room, on a bus heading to the Women’s March, or in the kitchen of an elder relative. Cumulatively, they reveal the myriad ways women care for themselves, each other, their communities, and our world.
