<DIV><p>In the twenty-first century, the definitions of "butch" and "femme" have evolved and expanded along with other LGBT identities. Some twenty years after the publication of Joan Nestle's groundbreaking <I>The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, Persistence</I> features leading queer authors and thinkers reflecting on what butch and femme mean to them today.</p><p>The book is the result of an ongoing conversation between butch writer and storyteller Ivan E. Coyote, and gender researcher and femme dynamo Zena Sharman; both had found solace in and been shaped by Nestle's book during their own coming out adventures. Contributors such as Jewelle Gomez (<I>The Gilda Stories</I>), Thea Hillman (<I>Intersex</I>), S. Bear Bergman (<I>Butch is a Noun</I>), Chandra Mayor (<I>All the Pretty Girls</I>), Amber Dawn (<I>Sub Rosa</I>), Anna Camilleri (<I>Brazen Femme</I>), Debra Anderson, Jeanne Cordova, Michael V. Smith, and Zoe Whittall explore the parameters of gender identity in the context of butch and femme: a raucous, insightful, sexy, and sometimes dangerous look at what the words butch and femme can mean in today's ever-shifting gender landscape, with one eye on the past and the other on what is to come.</p><p><B>Ivan E. Coyote</B> is the author of seven books (including the novel <I>Bow Grip</I>, an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book) and a long-time muser on the trappings of the two-party gender system.</p><p><B>Zena Sharman</B> is the assistant director of Canada's national Institute of Gender and Health.</p></DIV>