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.

 

ELANA DYKEWOMON: LETTER TO DYKE A Quarterly archive.

I asked Elana Dykewomon if she would write a few words about DYKE A Quarterly, and a bit about her life today. Elana was an occaisional contributor to DYKE A Quarterly and a huge presence in the cultural landscape of 1970's Lesbian Feminism in the USA.

Elana's novel Riverfinger Woman was required reading as soon as it was published in 1974. At the time she was using her given name, Nachman, which she later updated to Dykewomon.

Elana writes:

 

December 29, 2010

Historically, it was only five minutes ago, but a lot has happened in those five minutes. So much of our energy did, in fact, change the world -- yet there's so much left to do. That's not news. Every generation of idealists needs to make peace with their youthful zeal and continuing impulse to hope, and posting the actual artifacts of the time helps.

I'm still... working. Though many things have slowed me, the worst was recovering from the infighting of the late 70s (a period I refer to as the "great dyke wars"). But I am long since recovered -- after all, I edited Sinister Wisdom for seven years, worked on senior/disability access for the SF Dyke March until last year, am on several boards, give writing workshops for lesbians locally and keep participating ("participating," I've decided, is the key to staying/feeling alive).

Dyke magazine was an important part of the dialogue of the 70s -- and looking at it again I remember how engaged we were with each other in print, how our publications were, in fact, "underground" -- invisible and incoherent outside of lesbian communities. We felt each other deeply and took our positions seriously. In the first issue of Sinister Wisdom for which I was editor, we published a poem of Adrienne Rich's that had words to the effect of: no matter how I disagreed with you, I always read you.

What I often observe in women writing about the 70s now is a casual dismissal of what we did (we were all stoned, white, middle class...too wrapped up in ourselves to have an impact). That this parrots the "above ground" portrayals of lesbian radicalisms and feminisms seems to go unnoticed. We were serious, we produced theory, action and culture that changed a lot of lives, that changed the perceptions of possibility for women. And we never took each other out in the woods and shot each other (which male radical movements often do...). Even when we had guns -- and some of us did (now most of us espouse a radical pacifism).

I have an essay about lesbian utopian visions in the current issue of Trivia online: http://www.triviavoices.net/current/dykewomon.php  ("Walking on the Moon").
And I have a website that gets updated a couple times a year: www.dykewomon.org

I have a lot of hope that lesbian life, energy, vision goes on -- it's for every generation to write their own chapter. And I'll keep reading...

Thanks!

Wishing you peace and inspiration,

Elana

 

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 Some of Elana Dykewomon's books. Click smaller image to enlarge.

More books

 

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.