DYKE A Quarterly

Review of DYKE, A Quarterly in Autostraddle. September 2012

Autostraddle, the website of "news, entertainment, opinion and girl-on-girl culture" posted an article on historic Lesbian Magazines as part of their ongoing series, The Way We Were. The article is titled Our Legacy: Six Lesbian Magazines from The Then Before Now. DYKE A Quarterly was among the six, and we are honored to be in the company of Vice Versa (June 1947-February 1948),  The Ladder, (1956-1972),  The Furies (1972-1973), Azelia: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians (1977-1983), and Hot Wire

 

See the Autostraddle article HERE

Here's what they said about DYKE:

 

"In 1975, Liza Cowan and Penny House -- best friends since the age of four -- launched DYKE magazine. They were in their mid-twenties, living in New York, and wanted to be part of the burgeoning cultural conversation around lesbianism, and lesbian separatism in particular. Most lesbian separatists believed that the best way to live was completely without men altogether, and that women should band together and form their own self-nurturing communities free of ties to the patriarchal world. If you hate men, like me and Julie Goldman, then you probably think this is a pretty bang-up idea. Of course, it was more functional in theory than in practice and certain elements of the philosophy would be considered highly problematic — and often transphobic, racist or elitist — today.

The magazine made it through six issues before having to close, and now Liza and Penny have posted a great deal of DYKE's archives online. Material included articles on "theoretical politics, live events, place, current and past history, media, fashions, music, home economics, literature, animal lore, health, applied sciences and gossip."  Basically, it's like an amazing lesbian tumblr + livejournal, but in print and for the 70's — which is why it's so fascinating. The writing in DYKE is relatively personal and the writers are relatively inexperienced (their only "big name" is Alix Dobkin). You won't find polemics from Audre Lourde or Adrienne Rich in DYKE, but you'll find the closest thing you can to reading the diary of, basically, middle-class white lesbian separatists in the mid-70's — complete with the angry lesbian commenters!"

FROM THE VAULT: LETTER BETWEEN BARBARA GRIER AND LIZA COWAN

 

Letter. Barbara Grier and Liza Cowan. 1975/6

December 24, 1975

Dear Barbara,

Thanks for sending Tangents. I've xeroxed 2 copies for my White Mare files. We here at 3 Maple Farm liked the book "Beebo Brinker" the best of al the Beebo books. And we named our 4 wheel drive Ford Beebo Bronco.

Alix and I would love to share a flier for your mailing - her for her new album "Living With Lesbians" and for "Lavender Jane Loves Women" and me for DYKE. Is this OK & how light is light enough. What pound paper?

Happy New Year,

Liza Cowan

1/2/76

Dear Liza....Honey, will you forgive me if I cannot tell form this note from you what I even said to you and I cannot find a copy of the letter...I am back up to 300 or more letters each week and with 80 miles a day trip and the ful time job...I am kinda out of it...also, have been working out the 300 contracts (memorandum of agreement) that must be completed by the writers whose work is being reprinted in the three LADDER anthologies that DIANA PRESS will be publishing soon..and theworld is a JUMBLE. ..Please either QUOTE back to me my statements OR return my letter WITH THIS NOTE TOO PLEASE...and I'll quickly shoot a reply to you...I don't know a damned thing about weitht of paper but I will send you a sample...as soon as your letter gets back to me I'll have my samples for you...they are on the way from Reno...I ran out here of the one that is perfect for a sample (right weight and size)...But yes, OF COURSE you can share a flier...with Alix....whose music I have of course...anyone else whose wok is pertinent...(that is the only requirement)

 

It was as the publisher of Naiad Press, that she had asked me to contribue an adversising mailer for a packet she would be sending out. I don't remember the context of the mailing. But we did meet up later that year in Los Angeles at The Lesbian History Exploration.

Read more about Barbara Grier :

obitituary by Tracy Baim from Windy City Times

Victoria Brownsworth: In Remeberance Of Barbara Grier in Lambda Literary Review.

Obituary, NY Times

 wikipedia

 Tangents Covers

Leaflet for DYKE A Quarterly 1976

 

Tangents Magazine 1966. Cover by Rolf Berlinsen

Barbara had two articles in this issue, as Gene Damon. Reader At Large and Together-Toward a Common Goal

Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon. Original cover. 1962. 

Beebo Brinker, Naiad edition. 1983

 

Elana Dykewomon, Riverfinger women, Naiad Press

Naiad Press Event, 2012.  source

REVIEW OF DYKE, A Quarterly: from Our Right To Love 1978, DYKE is "greatest sinner of all."

 

And women said we were harsh?? 

 From Our Right To Love, Ginny Vida, ed. 1978

"Among struggling journalists, wasting copy space is probably one of the most serious offenses there is, and Dyke magazine (Preston Hollow, NY) thus may be the greatest sinner of all. This visually enticing quarterly magazine abuses valuable news space by filling it with trite meanderings on such superficial subjects as dyke fashions and interior decorating. Lacking political analysis (even of dyke separatism) or the talents to express the written word, Dyke, fortunately still a baby in the lesbian publishing world, unfortunately displays the temperment of a spoiled brat."

review by Jackie St. Joan, Esq.

 

The article about "interior decoration" must have been Nesting in No. 3. The article about fashions was What The Well Dressed Dyke Will Wear in No 1.

I feel vindicated somehow that in the 21st there are entire academic worlds of cultural studies including fashion and geography(which include theories of home,or,as the review calls it,"interior decoration.")

New York University, May 2012: Fashion Studies Today: History, Theory and Practice an international and interdisciplinary conference. 

We were ahead of our time. And rather thick skinned, since reviews like the one in Our Right To Love made us laugh more than cry. 

Our Right To Love, Editor, Ginny Vida, Media Director, National Gay Task force. 1978

PS: Check out Jackie's gracious response in the comments section below. And here's her website. 

DYKE A Quarterly Issue No 3, pp 46,47, Reviews

Review of Sex Varient Women in Literature by Jeanette Foster. Review by Penny House.

Excerpt:

" The book is divided up by century and by country. In a succinct and interesting way, Jeanette Foster summarizes the plots of each piece, analyzing the way in which the Lesbian characters are presented. She sketches out each period's political and scientific climate and this plus her analysis of the character presentation ennable her to give a vivid portraid of the particular social atmosphere surrounding Lesbians of each period."

 

Linda Shear/Lesbian Portrait. Review by Elana Dykewomon

excerpt:

"Linda Shear in concert has literally changed Lesbians' lives, my own included. She was one of the guiding energies behind Family Of Woman band (and sings "Family of Woman" near the end of the tape-not our present reality but a direction for our future) the first out front Lesbian band in the world. But then, as now, it was difficult to find women who support and sponsor all-women's concerts. "

 

 

 Glory be to youtube, you can now hear Linda online.

SIDE TRIP: Women In Print: Voices From The Radical Feminist Press

 

Here's more good news about preserving our herstory. From the website of Women In Print

Women in Print: Voices from the Radical Feminist Press (1960-1985)is an oral history project attempting to restore to the record those feminist presses founded between the year 1960 to 1985. Though these presses are not lost in the memory of those who ran them and those generations that read many of the presses’ books and journals, I find little to no mention of many of these presses on the internet; many of the books, themselves, are out of print. Additionally, I hope to create a space where the stories in long form can unfold, where individuals can speak of their experiences, as individuals and collectives: what happened and what it means.

This is a project that attempts to highlight the literary, social, political dimensions of the presses. Most of the presses on our list-in-progress were founded in the ’70s, so we welcome suggestions re: earlier presses. I am interested in the particular nature of production (printing) as well as changing politics during this time period. The audio interviews with transcripts will be archived at the Schlesinger Library. I hope to photograph covers of the books or journals mentioned in the interviews, as well.

Beyond The Pale by Elana Dykewomon

Through the miracle that is social media, I heard about this project from Elana Dykewomon on facebook with a link to this article by Andrew Leland from the Oakland Standard, experiments in work and play by the oakland museum of california

 The social upheavals of the late 1960s and ‘70s brought about a profusion of alternative publishing and radical media across the U.S. In addition to political posters and underground newspapers, this period marked the flourishing of a radical feminist press in the United States. All-women collectives published broadsheets, magazines, novels, and posters, and in some cases worked to seize the means of production for the entire publishing process, from editing and writing to printing and distribution, in a separatist attempt to unlink themselves from a male-dominated society.

Suzanne Snider, a writer and oral historian based in New York, is collecting an oral history of this movement. Recording narratives for Women in Print: Voices from the Radical Feminist Press (1960-1985), Snider traveled across the country, beginning with Oregon and California. The Bay Area, which was a center for the radical feminist press, was an obvious stop on the trip. “I could do a whole project here in Oakland,” she said on a recent visit, “but I want the oral history to cover the movement in Texas, New Mexico, Oregon,” and elsewhere.

Among the women Snider came to Oakland to interview was Elana Dykewomon. Dykewomon’s first book, Riverfinger Women, “blew my mind,” Snider remembers. “She was twenty-four years old when she wrote it. It was published by Daughter’s Inc,” a pioneering lesbian press. Despite its nearly forty-year vintage, “it’s one of the more contemporary novels I’ve read,” Snider said. In addition to Riverfinger Women, published in 1974, Dykewomon (who changed her surname from Nachman in 1976) has published six other books, including the Oakland-centered novel Risk (Bywater Books 2009). Dykewomon also brought the lesbian feminist journal Sinister Wisdom to Oakland (where it was based from 1987–2009), and recently retired from many years of teaching writing at San Francisco State University.

Once completed, the Women in Print project, featuring interviews with more than 40 women, will be archived in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. (The first twenty interviews will be deposited this month.) In the next months, Snider will begin fundraising through Kickstarter in order to continue the project. More information on the project is online at womeninprint.wordpress.com.

Check out the article and  audio links HERE.

 

DYKE at The Museum Of Modern Art and The Schleisinger Library.

Good news on the archiving front. DYKE A Quarterly is now housed in two prestigeous institutions. Really...we couldn't ask for more.

An entire set of the magazines, including the poster, are now at The Museum Of Modern Art, in their Library. They are available to scholars and researchers and the general public by appointment. Here's the LINK to the library. 

An entire set of the magazines as well as all the collateral materials - that's the letters, layout boards, mock ups, fliers, and whatever fascinating bits of paper we saved over the years- is now housed at Radcliffe College at The Schlesinger Library. Here's a LINK.

DYKE A Quarterly, No. 3, pp.50 + inside back cover: ADS

 

DYKE A Quarterly, No. 2 p. 50 + inside back cover, ads

TEXT OF ADS in gray, indended. Commentary follows.

Living With Lesbians

Women’s Wax Works A002

An Uncommon Musical Adventure with Alix Dobkin & Friends

Living With Lesbians was the second album from Alix Dobkin. Like her first album, Lavender Jane Loves Women, this one had two versions of a cover. This was the first. Most women found it threatening although we were really just raking apples at the farm. Pictured are left to right, Mary, Smokey, Alix, Penny House and Liza Cowan. Photo by Ginger Legato. Design by Aenjai Graphics.

This album has been blogged about a lot, mostly showing how awful, funny, wierd, it is. Worst record album cover etc. We loved it, but the people spoke and we listened. We made a new cover for the next pressing.

 

This cover sold well. Photo of Alix Dobkin and the dog Three Maple Betsey Booper (aka Saint Betsey) , photo by LIza Cowan.

Of course, there were always Dykes who loved the first cover, as well as the second. See QueerMusicHeritage

 Also Lavender Jane Loves Women

Women’s Wax Works A001

 $6 Each (includes postage) Make check payable to

Project No. 1 Preston Hollow NY 123469

 

Lavender Jane Loves Women was Alix's groundbreaking first album. Never before in the history of the world had there been an album made entirely by women. The musicians, the engineer, even the vinyl pressers were women (although the vinyl pressing company was male owned - the only part of the whole process for which we couldn't find a woman - owned company. But the actual pressers were women. We met them. And, equally important, the album was conceived for an audience of women. Also groundbreaking.

 

For the first pressing, the abums were shipped to us in plain white sleeves. We had a work party where half a dozen women came over to our apartment and sat around the living room rubber cementing the 12x12 printed paper of the cover art, which was a drawing by Alix. I'm sure there was lots of food, probably a joint or two passed around and lots of good laughs and hard work. Now that's a collector's item.

The second cover came a few years later. Design by LIza Cowan, photo using Mita 900-D copier and cut-out heart. Liza's hand. I don't remember why we changed the art.

 

 

Alix released her memoir, My Red Blood, in the Spring of 2010. The last chapters chronicle the time leading up to the release of Lavender Jane Loves Women. Published by Alyson Books you can buy it from them if your local bookstore doesn't carry it. Alyson Books

 

 

 

  Limited supply available:

The Flying Lesbians

German record album

Send $6 to : Project #1

Preston Hollow, NY 12469

The Flying Lesbians was a Lesbian Rock Band from Germany.

You can read about them HERE

When band members Monika Jaekel and Monica Savier came to the States, they stayed with us. Later, Alix toured Europe with them.

 WOMANSPLACE

Feminist Books and Periodicals

Booklist Available

Mail Orders

9 East 5^th Street

Tempe AZ 85201

One of the many women's bookstores that peppered the landscape in the 1970's Womansplace no longer exists. Any information about it is welcome. Just drop a line in the comment box.

 

MEGAERA PRESS

A women’s press collective for 3 ½ years- formerly Mother Jones Press

‘wimmin printing for wimmin

lesbian publishing

 

design layout offset printing binding sipping

write or call for an estimate

mail to: c/o WIT Inc P.O.. Box 745, Northampton MA

 

Deliver to: 19 Hawley St. Northampton MA, Rear Building

See Elana Dykewoman, here and here

 

LONG TIME COMING

CANADIAN LESBIAN FEMINIST NEWSPAPER

BOX 128 STATION G, MONTREAL P.Q.

SUBS: $5 YR INDIVIDUALS

$10 YR INSTITUTIONS  5O c SAMPLE COPY

 

I asked asked the CLGA- Canadian Lesbian and Gay archives if they had some infromation on Long Time Coming. They had a response for me within hours. Archivist RULE! Thanks to Elizabeth Bailey at CLGA and Michelle Schwartz who supplied the following information:

From Never Going Back by Tom Warner, page 83

"A few months after its founding, some members of Montreal Gay Women began publishing Long Time Coming, the first regularly produced publication exclusively for lesbians in Canada. Long Time Coming found a receptive readership that stretched across North America. But, in testament to the times, none of the women involved allowed her real name to be published. In all, Long Time Coming produced approximately twenty issues from June 1973 until it folded in 1976."

The citation given for this is: Laura Yaros, "Long Time Coming: Long Time Gone," Amazones d'Hier: Lesbiennes d'Aujourd'hui, vol. 5, March 1988.

From Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Chronology, 1964-1975 by Don McLeod, page 130

"July, 1973. Montreal. The first issue of Long Time Coming was published by Montreal Gay Women. Edited by Jackie Manthorne, this was the first lesbian journal published in Canada. Long Time COming contained news, poetry, opinion pieces, book reviews, advertisements, and listings. It ceased publication in April-May 1976, after twenty issues."

The citation given for this:

Margaret Fulford, ed. The Canadian Women's Movement, 1960-1990: A Guide to Archival Resources/Le mouvement de femmes, 1960-199: guide de resources archivistiques (Toronto: Canadian Women's Movement Archives/ECW Press, 1992), Entry 618.

Don McLeod's book is available for free as a pdf from the University of Toronto website.

A You're An Amazon button by White Mare Inc

For more on White Mare Buttons see HERE

ad for Riverfinger Women by Elana Dykewomon

For more on Elana Dykewomon see HERE and HERE

 

 

DYKE A Quarterly no. 3 p. 51: ADS

DYKE A  Quarterly No. 3, p. 51, ADS

Text of Ads- in gray, indented. Commentary follows.

White Mare Inc.
I Like Older Women,
3 color button, 1  ¼” diameter. Also available, Mother Nature Is a Lesbian and A You’re An Amazon. From White Mare, Box 90, Preston Hollow Y 12469. 55c each. New York residents add state and local sales tax.
 A You’re An Amazon
Mother Nature is a Lesbian.

 

White Mare was the button and graphics company owned and run by me, Liza Cowan. I've written about my button company at my art blog HERE

Notice the Medusa button on the upper left. Medusa was a big theme for Lesbians. She was a Gorgon, a fierce fighting woman, who turned men to stone if they dared take a peek at her. The Medusa button shown here was drawn by cartoonist Roberta Gregory.

White Mare Buttons, direct image on Mita 900-D photocopier by Liza Cowan

 

 

 

 

 

 

They Will Know Me By My Teeth  By Elana Dykewoman

Author of Riverfinger Women

Megara Press

To be Sold and Shared With Women Only

 

 

See Elana Dykewoman's website HERE

and Wikipedia entry HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come to Womencrafts

Unique and beautiful work

Handcrafted by New England Women

Provincetown

Womancrafts is still in Business in Provincetown.

Here's their website.

Go see them if you are in P'Town.

 

Sistersilver is Back
Fine handmade sterling silver jewelry: Lesbian symbos, rings, bacelets, etc. Free Brochure. Lesbians only. M’lou Brubaker, Chicago

 

M'Lou is also still in business. See her website HERE

 

Ladyslipper pendant and earrings by M'Lou Brubaker

 

 

 

Interesting. Everyone on this page is still in business doing the same thing, more or less, that they were doing 35 years ago. I'm still doing graphic design, creating product and selling retail. Elana is still writing and publishing, M'Lou is still making and selling jewelry and Womancrafts is still in business. What's up with that?? I'm impressed.

DYKE A Quarterly, No 3, 1976, Back Cover

DYKE A Quarterly, Issue #3, 1976,  Back Cover Drawing by Liza Cowan

Text from issue

DYKE, a quarterly magazine of Lesbian Culture and analysis, is searching for an original poster design by a Lesbian. We will select a poster design which we will print and distribute as our first anniversary issue. Winter 1976-1977

Influence of Aspen Magazine

It had always been our intention to vary the format of DYKE, A Quarterly. We were influenced by Aspen Magazine, founded in 1965 by Phyllis Johnson, a former editor of Women's Wear Daily and Advertising Age. In 1965 we were still Juniors in high school, but someone in one of our familes or a frend's family had a subsciription, which we'd gleefulley read.

"Each issue came in a customized box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters, postcards - one issue even included a spool of Super-8 movie film.

"While wintering in Aspen, Colorado, she got the idea for a multi media magazine, designed by artists, that would showcase 'culture along with play.' So in the winter of  1965 she published her first issue. 'We wanted to get away from the bound magazine format, which is really quite restrictive,' said Johnson

"Each issue had a new designer and editor. 'Aspen,' Johnson said, should be a time capsule of a certain period, point of view, or person.' " Aspen stopped publishing in 1971.  SOURCE

Aspen Vol 1 #3 1966, Andy Warhol and David Dalton

 

The DYKE Poster

We decided that our first foray into a different format would be a poster. We both loved the poster format. There were Lesbians working as poster designers at the time, notably The Chicago Women's Graphics Collective whose work we admired greatly.

Poster by The Chicago Women's Graphics Collective

Rather than commissioning a poster from the Graphics Collective, we decided to open it up to our readers as a competition. We advertised with a flier, sent around the country to individuals and Lesbian venues, as well as the back page of Issue No. 4.

 

The graphic on both is by Liza Cowan, using an resist technique of poster paint and India Ink. And yes, it was supposed to look somewhat like a WANTED poster.

 

Flier for DYKE A Quarterly Poster Issue. 1976, design and drawing by Liza Cowan.

 

 

DYKE A Quarterly, No 1, 1975, Introduction

DYKE A Quarterly, Issue 1, p. 4, introduction

 

DYKE A Quarterly, Issue 1, p. 5, Introduction

  

Text (edited) below in grey. For full text see above. You can click to enlarge it.
 
WHO WE ARE

We are Penny House and Liza Cowan. We are Dyke separatists, Born and bred. We are 26 years old and Jewish. We have known each other since we were four years old. We went to school and camp together, hung out together. Lived together, and fought intensely twice. Once over a boy when we were fourteen and didn’t know what was happening, and once just a few months before  Penny came out...(snip)

  During the past five years Liza produced feminist then Lesbian radio shows at WBAI-FM including a show called "Dyke Salad”  a live five hour weekly series. Later she co-edited COWRIE, a Lesbian-feminist magazine. Penny was at this time going to school, producing Lesbian concerts with a woman’s music group, and working with Alix Dobkin. A year ago, Liza and Alix, who are lovers, moved to a farm with Alix’s daughter, Adrian... (snip)

We both love to read and have always loved to read magazines. We talk about both the form and content extensively. Between us we read: Lesbian Connection, Lavender Woman, Off Our Backs, The Lesbian Tide, Big Mama Rag, Majority Report, Sister, Country Woman, The Circle (from New Zeland) Long Time Coming (Montreal) Moonstorm, The Monthly Extract, New York Radical Feminist Newsletter, Womanspirit, and Albatross.

 From the patriarchal press we read: Organic Gardening, Publisher’s Weekly, Vogue, People, New York, The New Yorker, Interview, Rona Barrett Hollywood, Rona Barrett Gossip, Newsweek, Mainstream, The New York Times, The New York Post, National Geographic, Horse and Horseman, Yankee Pedlar, The New York Horse, House & Garden and TV Guide. It seemed natural for us to create a Lesbian magazine.

WHAT IS DYKE 

 We want to publish a magazine that fulfills our need for analysis, communication and news of Lesbian culture. We believe that “Lesbian culture” presumes a separatist analysis. If Lesbian culture is intermixed with straight culture, it is no longer Lesbian; it is heterosexual or heterosocial because energy and time are going to men. Lesbian community – Lesbian culture- means Lesbian only DYKE is a magazine for Dykes only! We will speak freely among ourselves. We are not interested in telling the straight world what we are doing. In fact, he hope they never even see the magazine. It is none of their business. If they chance to see it, we hope they will think it is mindless gobbledegook. We are already thinking in ways that are incomprehensible to them.

 INSIDE DYKE

Dyke will carry feature articles on theoretical politics, live events, place, current and past history, media, fashions, music, home economics, literature, animal lore, health, applied sciences and gossip. DYKE will be covering Lesbian culture and straight culture. Straight culture is present in our lives and in our minds. It is violent and perverted. We recognize and analyze it and in this way prevent it from retarding our growth. We believe separatism demands constant vigilance and analysis. DYKE magazine will reflect this." (snip)

 

To see more about Lesbian and Feminist periodicals of the time check here and here. and here

 

For an insightful analysis of 1970's Lesbian Feminism, see Urvashi Vaid's most excellent essay, Ending Patriarchy: Political Legacies of the 1970's, published in Trivia, Issue 11, October 2010. Vaid presented this talk on October 9th, 2010 at the CUNY Conference in New York City, In Amerika They Call Us Dykes, Lesbian Lives In the 1970's