NBN host Hollay Ghadery chats with author D. D. Miller about the fascinating sport of roller derby. As the Derby Nerd, Miller covered roller derby since 2009, travelling to games across Canada and the United States, including two world championships, reporting back to an ever-growing audience the details of the sport. In this entertaining and thorough book he explains roller derby to newcomers and charts the sport’s rise from small groups of women looking for people to skate with over the Internet to the world presence it has become.
Along the way he considers roller derby’s roots in Riot Grrrl and DIY culture, and the importance of the LGBTQ community both inside and outside of the sport. Eight-wheeled Freedom: The Derby Nerd's Short History of Flat Track Roller Derby (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016) is a warm, thoughtful look at a sport that Miller understands intimately, which takes us beyond the costumes and showmanship, into the heart of what he feels may be the first truly feminist sport.
About D.D. Miller
D. D. Miller is originally from Nova Scotia but has lived, worked and studied all across the country. His work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies including the Malahat Review, the Fiddlehead, Eleven Eleven: Journal of Literature and Art and Dinosaur Porn. As the Derby Nerd, Miller is known around North America for his writing and commentary on roller derby, one of the world’s fastest growing sports.
A graduate of Mount Allison University, the University of Victoria and the University of Guelph (where he completed his MFA), Miller currently lives in Toronto where he works as a college English instructor. He also announced at both the 2011 and 2014 Roller Derby World Cups and was part of the ESPN's broadcast crew for the 2015 WFTDA Championships.
About Hollay Ghadery:
Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is the host of the 105.5 FM Bookclub, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Regional Chair of the League of Canadian Poets and a co-chair of the League’s BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.
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