Just as 70-year-old writing professor Hannah Greene walks into her retirement party, she’s called to the ER because Grace, her wife of 25 years, has been in what turns out to be a fatal car accident. This was definitely not part of the plan the two had for their lives, especially since Grace was ten years younger than Hannah. The plan had been for Hannah to join her art history professor wife on a sabbatical trip to Europe. Grace would do research, and Hannah would figure out what she wanted to do in her retirement.

How does an independent, feisty lesbian adjust to both her suddenly widowed and newly retired life? How can she survive the loss of the spouse who statistically should have survived her?

Grace Period tackles these questions head-on in an intimate, witty portrayal of a woman grappling with the new and unexpected turn her life has taken. It is a tale of love, loss, and survival.

Girl Leslie and I would spend the day lying by the pool.

She and I had very different MOs. I’d wear a baseball cap and read a book or the trades. Girl Leslie would lie perfectly still, eyes closed, adjusting the angle of her chaise to follow the sun. At the end of the first day we’d done this, I compared my arm to hers. “You’ve got this golden glow, and I look like I’ve spent all my time inside,” I complained.

“You were reading,” Leslie said.
“What?”
“You need to focus.”
“The sun didn’t know I was reading.”
She tilted her head toward her tanned arm and my pale one. “I’m just saying.” “Well, that’s ridiculous.”

Over time, I accepted the inferior results of my bronzing technique. I enjoyed the weekends we spent in the desert. When it was just the three of us, my two Leslies and me, we’d all have dinner together, then Boy Leslie would go back to his writing, and Girl Leslie and I would go out dancing. Remember, this was back when there actually were lesbian bars. The ‘80s were lively, with lots of partying. Often chemically enhanced. Personally, I liked cocaine or quaaludes. Coke let you feel in charge and in control. My first agent described its industry-wide popularity this way: “L.A. is a town that makes you feel bad about yourself. Cocaine is a drug that makes you feel good about yourself.” Quaaludes were entirely different. The right amount loosened you up, let you slip inside the music, move along with it. I never understood the attraction to amyl nitrate. Poppers made my heart race, my pulse pound. I hated that feeling. And they left me with a splitting headache. Plus, they smelled like a locker room. A stuffy locker room. A stuffy boys’ locker room. But to each her own.

One crazy evening, eight of us down from L.A. had arranged to meet up at a bar. Our friend Emily was going through a breakup, and we were determined to cheer her up with an evening of dancing.

For the record, I never dated anyone I’d met in a bar. Probably because I’d never met anyone in a bar. Never picked anyone up, never even recognized if someone was hitting on me. So I don’t know why I went. Or why, when I did, I felt this anticipation that something might happen. Maybe it was just seeing all those women in one place. Back then, both here in the desert and up in L.A., lesbians were invisible most of the time, whether in or out of the closet. Going about our lives under cover during the day, definitely not a critical mass. But at night, in the bars, we saw each other. Each venue became ripe with possibility and promise.

But did I really think I’d meet someone there? Did I believe deep down? No. I just loved being around all those women. And I did love to dance.

That night in the desert, we did our best to bolster Emily’s spirits. We danced as one big group. After a while, I was sweaty and needed a break. I stood by the edge of the dance floor. A sweet-looking young woman a few feet from me motioned to a couple dancing right in front of her. She said something to me that was impossible to hear over the pounding music, so I simply answered with a nod-laugh, like I knew what she meant.

Then Emily came over. Rather, our friends AJ and Jen dragged Emily, an arm draped over each of their shoulders, to me. “I have to go home,” Emily told me. “I don’t want to go home. But I don’t have any bones.”

Ah, quaaludes. While the right amount loosened you up, too much turned you to rubber.

By this time, leaving seemed like a good idea to me, too. AJ said they could drop me off, so I looked for Girl Leslie and spotted her dancing with a tall, athletic woman she’d been eyeing since we arrived. I gave Girl Leslie the sign that I was ready to head out. She spoke into her dance partner’s ear and then came over to me.

“AJ’s giving me a ride home,” I said, handing Girl Leslie my car keys.

“Thanks. I’ll stay and get to know Tanya better,” Girl Leslie said, waving at the woman who hadn’t stopped dancing but waved back.

“I’ll bet you will,” I smiled, waving to Tanya.
Girl Leslie punched my arm.
Outside, I breathed in the quiet of the desert night after the pulsing of the loud music. My head felt encased in a pillow. As always, I experienced a twinge of regret at leaving before something good happened. Even though I knew it never would.

For more information, please visit elisabethnonas.com.

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Season of Eclipse

by Terry Wolverton

special to lesbian.com

In Terry Wolverton’s psychological thriller “Season of Eclipse,” Marielle Wing is a highly popular literary novelist whose triumphs on the page are matched only by her failures in finding and loving another woman. At JFK airport, she encounters a terrorist bombing; rather than running, she begins snapping photos and this brings her to the attention of Homeland Security, who insists she enter the Witness Security Program. Denied her vibrant Los Angeles life, banished to a dreary suburb of Detroit with only her cat, Dude, Marielle convinces herself that her identity shift will be temporary–and she imagines resurfacing with a blockbuster book. But once she reads her own obituary in The New York Times, she feels stripped of everything she values and utterly alone.

Please enjoy our recent conversation with Terry.

Will you begin by summarizing what Season of Eclipse is about and what made you want to tell this story? 

My previous novels have tended to take place in insular settings—a family in Bailey’s Beads, the feminist community in The Labrys Reunion, a spiritual community in Stealing Angel. I wanted to write a story that was situated in the larger world, in which events beyond the personal could have big impacts on an individual’s life.

My protagonist, Marielle Wing, has a pretty enviable existence—a successful career as a novelist, a comfortable home in the Hollywood Hills. She takes for granted it will always be this way. While waiting to check in for a flight from JFK back to Los Angeles, she witnesses a terrorist bombing; the next day Homeland Security appears on her doorstep and informs her that she must enter the Witness Security Program, surrendering her identity, her career, and her life. She is faced with the question of “who am I?” once everything that has defined her sense of self is stripped away.

You’ve explored the question of identity before, especially in Bailey’s Beads. Why do you think that’s so important to you?

A lot of late twentieth century philosophy and cultural criticism centered around whether each of us has an innate self-hood or whether the “self” we identify with is just an accumulation of projections by the people who know us and the overlays of culture. 

When I was a young and then a not-so-young adult, I clung fiercely to those behaviors, attitudes, expressions that seemed to make me “unique”—a vegetarian, an out lesbian, an artist, a feminist. That these things define “me” is a very Western, individualistic way to regard oneself; in indigenous cultures there is more identification with being part of the community. 

When my mother was dying, I saw how all the things that had been important to her, that she had taken such pride in, routines she had faithfully practiced—it all fell away, none of it was important to her. 

As a fiction writer, I’m always trying to render vivid characterization, overlaying qualities and habits that make one distinct, so it was interesting to write about Marielle, for whom all those skins are peeling away.

A colleague once asked you why you write “unlikeable” protagonists. Do you agree that you do and if so, why?

I think this is a question more likely to be asked about a female protagonist, and perhaps to be asked of a woman author who’s created that female protagonist. There is still a cultural expectation that women are supposed to be “nice,” agreeable, pliable, pleasing, to want to be liked. I’m more interested in writing women who are demanding, difficult, uncooperative, who are not merely victims of other people’s circumstances but whose actions or reactions actively contribute to the bind they’re in. These are the kinds of women I gravitate toward in my life. 

Marielle is not easy to love; she’s driven by ego and ambition and entitlement, and when she’s knocked down from her pedestal, she finds she doesn’t have the inner resources to cope. Even then she doesn’t do as she’s told, and that both gets her in big trouble and ultimately saves her.

What does the title, Season of Eclipse, mean to you?

Marielle has been used to shining her light in the world; she’s privileged, so she’s never questioned her ability or her right to do that. When she is forced to enter Witness Security, she’s told she will never again be able to be in the spotlight; if she wants to remain safe, she must live under the radar. This is the worst aspect of the situation for her; she feels her entire self has been eclipsed.

Why did you decide to set the bulk of the novel in and around Detroit?

I grew up in Detroit, so the geography and the cultural vibe are baked into me. Detroit fascinates me, its near collapse in the 1990s and 2000s, and the multiple visions for its resurrection. There’s a feistiness and inventiveness to the city I still admire. I see a parallel between Detroit and Marielle’s story—losing everything, having to figure out what’s worth preserving, and fighting to come back re-formed.

Several memorable secondary characters guide Marielle’s journey through the book. How did you imagine or find these characters?

My philosophy of characters is that they already exist, just waiting for someone to tell their story. As I was writing this book, I was open to being surprised (and therefore surprising the reader), so when characters made themselves known to me, I was eager to incorporate them. As Marielle changes, she starts to draw different people into her life than she might have when the book began, and they facilitate further change.

Several of your books, including this one, explore spiritual themes; how does this play out in your own life?

Since I was an adolescent, I’ve been interested in metaphysics, in the tools and practices that make us aware of unseen energies, the worlds beyond the material world we walk around in. This perspective helped me to make sense of growing up in a dysfunctional household and to override destructive patterns I absorbed growing up. Since 2001, I’ve taught Kundalini Yoga and consistently meditated, but I didn’t always. 

Marielle doesn’t start out with any spiritual inclinations, but as circumstances get harder for her, she begins to find the tools useful to help her navigate increasing chaos and threat. 

You’ve written other books besides novels. How does writing in other genres influence your fiction?

Poetry grounds me in image and in lyricism. I once revised a novel by hand writing it, breaking every line as if it were a line of poetry; I later reassembled it as prose, but it made me more aware of the music in the work. I also wrote a novel in poems—Embers—which taught me a lot about fractured narratives and bringing history to live.

At its best, creative nonfiction draws upon the techniques of fiction—plot, characterization, setting, theme. I believe fiction and nonfiction, invention and truth, exist on a spectrum, rather than as unbreachable opposites.

I even wrote the libretto of an opera, an adaptation of Embers, with the late jazz composer David Ornette Cherry. Writing for the stage taught me about what can be left unsaid.

I have a mercurial mind and I don’t like to keep doing the same things. I’m constantly seeking out something new to learn, new ways to test myself.

Which begs the question: what’s next?

I have a nonfiction project about women and power, a hybrid memoir/self-help text called Guru Grrrl, which I will release serially on medium.com and as a podcast later in 2024. This is an example of attempting things I haven’t done before and trying to figure out how to do them!

You’re a creative writing instructor and you’ve also edited several books. Do these activities feed your own writing or take energy and focus away from your own practice?

I’m love engaging with other people around our creative practice. Working with students and other authors is inspiring; in a metaphysical way we’re all just participating in this ongoing conversation about what it means to be human. Interacting about writing is such an intimate activity; people bring their deepest selves to the page, and I get to share that with them!

The post Season of Eclipse first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The Line Of Dissent:Gay Outsiders and the Shaping of History

Special to Lesbian.com

The post The Line Of Dissent: Gay Outsiders and the Shaping of History first appeared on Lesbian.com.

In this candid coming-of-age memoir — as compelling as a novel — Felice chronicles the happiness and heartbreak of an age-gap love affair while struggling to figure out the direction of her future. Ultimately, this is a story about navigating life’s unpredictable path while following one’s heart, and finding acceptance.

In the book you are in a dialogue with yourself. Did you worry about getting lost emotionally in terms of your own identity within this relationship?

Before the affair began, I was lost, consumed with trying to figure out my place in the real world. I was no longer a student and had no idea where I belonged. The affair with Sarah gave me something to focus on, to cling to. I was too young to understand that being in a secret relationship and lying all the time could wreak havoc on my self-esteem and make me feel ashamed. The years I spent writing the book helped me to process what I had been through, and reclaim my identity.

Uncle Mark. He was the first—and for a while—the only family member to know all the details of my affair with Sarah, and was a constant support during those difficult years. I was never afraid of him judging me. I was living with him when I won the first chapter writing contest which had been the start of this book. When I finally had a solid draft, Mark read it in one sitting and every time he laughed out loud, it made my heart sing.

Please enjoy the following excerpt from Half In.

Saturday night I picked Sarah up from Bradley Airport. Linda was staying on a few extra nights in Florida, as usual, with friends. I was excited to get to play house with Sarah for two nights. 

“Hello, boys, mama’s home.” Sarah greeted each cat with a kiss before carrying her luggage into the bedroom, me close behind. 

“Tell me about your trip.” I got into my side (fine, Linda’s side) of the bed. 

“It was okay.” Sarah unzipped her suitcase and removed her blue-and-white toiletry bag. “I spent the entire time counting down the minutes until I could see you.” 

While Sarah showered, I practiced my breathing, per Barbara’s instructions. After two minutes, to my surprise, a stillness settled through me. 

Sarah came into the bedroom, tossed her robe onto the bed, and pulled back the covers. Just as our bodies were fitting together, the phone rang. She grabbed her bathrobe and the phone, and walked out to talk to Linda. My calmness flew out the window. Why did I continue to torture myself? 

“Now, where were we?” Sarah got back into bed minutes later as though the call had never happened. Then she saw my face. “What’s wrong, Blu?” 

“I feel cheated. You have everything. A home, vacations, anniversaries, and what do I have? Letters hidden in my closet. The truth concealed in my heart. All I do is wait for any chance I can get to be with you. What kind of life is that?” I slapped my hands on the bed. Cody and Sammy, curled near my feet, lifted their heads. “I hate that the little time we have is rushed. That I’m constantly wondering when we’ll meet again and never appreciating the time we have. I’m also having second thoughts about working again as the night director this summer. It’s hard being around you. I want you before work and after work. Sneaking around makes me feel as though I don’t exist. If you loved me, then—” I stopped as I always did, but my anger gave me a surge of confidence. “You’d let me go.” As the words left my mouth, it became clear, like the clean daylight when clouds have passed, that my freedom was altogether my decision. I didn’t need to be “let go.” I only needed to let go. 

“Perhaps you’re right.” Sarah shrank back onto her stack of pillows as though the air inside her had escaped. “I only seem to make it harder for you. I’ve been such a fool. Go back to your life.” 

What life?

I reached for her, my heart filling with dread at the thought of a future in which we were no longer together. Our hands were soon touching, grabbing, tugging each other closer, our tears and fears fueling our passion, sadness our new foreplay. No gentle kisses or caresses, just harried movements fueled by anger and needs. We were trying to merge into one, as though that would prove we belonged together, as though that would make it right.

We split apart, our breathing rapid, energy depleted, like animals after a fight. Sex had become our go-to cure to assuage arguments. If we were any other couple, we would’ve met each other’s friends by now, maybe moved in together, started planning a future. But that wasn’t possible. Not for us.

“Blu.” Sarah sighed into the darkness. “My life has changed because of you, and if it were doable, I’d change even more for you. The problem is I have thirty years too many wrinkles. Hearing you say you want out makes it sound like I put you in a place you don’t want to be. And since I’m in love with you, I should try to help by doing something. But what?”

By deciding: Linda or me.

But Sarah would never leave Linda. I recognized that now. I might’ve been her heart, but Linda was her family, and that pull was stronger. Sarah had committed herself to Linda years ago. They might’ve had a sexless union, but they had a life together, a home, cats, friends. I couldn’t compete with that. If I were to have any peace, I had to end it. It would be hard, but it would only get harder. I’d break up with Sarah in the morning. What other choice did I have besides more heartache? With my decision made, I fell into a deep sleep, certain this would be our last night together.

The shouting woke me. I bolted upright and reached for Sarah but found only cool, rumpled sheets. I squinted at the cable box. It glowed a blurry 2:48 a.m. I was about to call out for Sarah when the shouting stopped. Silence, except for the low purring of the cats on the bed. I relaxed, assuming it was the television. But soon the shouting picked up again, and I heard Sarah trying to quiet the source. Who was screaming? 

Then I knew. Linda, the legitimate partner, the one expected to be away two more days, had come home in the middle of the night. She’d seen us in their bed. We’d been caught. The truth exposed. The cat was out of the bag. 

I dressed in the dark, my trembling hands fumbling to button my jeans. A shadow appeared through the fabric covering on the French doors. I held my breath. My personal Hitchcock movie. Only after Sarah slipped inside did I exhale.

“Linda’s home,” Sarah said with perfect composure, sliding her hands into the pockets of her bathrobe, the same robe she’d removed hours earlier in her hurry to make love to me.

“I’m sorry.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry about. You did nothing wrong.” Sarah brushed her hand across my cheek. “I’ll call you.” 

As I was leaving, I was hesitant to look in the sunroom but saw Linda anyway, crestfallen on the chaise, head in her hands. That was our doing. I’d thought I was a kind person. Not even close. 

Outside I half expected my tires to be slashed. But Linda was too nice to do something that spiteful.

On the drive home, except for a few glassy-eyed raccoons and possums crossing the road, the streets were empty. Who else but rodents and cheaters would be out in the middle of the night? At the top of the Notch, I pulled over, opened my car door, and threw up on the side of the road. Nauseated as I was, I was also relieved. Now the lies could stop. At least that’s what I thought.

Felice Cohen is the author of Half In: A Coming-Of-Age Memoir Of  Forbidden Love. Felice’s previous book, 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (…or More), the recipient of numerous self-help book awards, was inspired by the YouTube video of her 90-square-foot New York City studio that went viral with over 25 million views. Felice has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC, CBS, NPR, Time, Globe & Mail, New York Daily News, the Daily Mail and more. What enabled Felice to “live large” in that tiny studio is that she has been a professional organizer for over 25 years. As the grandchild of two Holocaust survivors, Felice is also the author of What Papa Told Me, a memoir about her grandfather’s life before, during and after the war. The book has been endorsed by Elie Wiesel and Yad Vashem in Israel, is taught in schools across the country, has been translated into Polish, and has sold around the world. Felice splits her time between New York City and Cape Cod, MA. Learn more about Felice Cohen.

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“Making The Rounds: Defying The Norms in Love and Medicine”

Defying expectations of a woman growing up in Arizona in the 1960s, Patricia Grayhall fled Phoenix at nineteen for the vibrant streets of San Francisco, determined to finally come out as a lesbian after years of trying to be a “normal” girl. Her dream of becoming a physician drew her back to college in Arizona, and then on to medical school in conservative Salt Lake City.

A chronicle of coming of age during second-wave feminism and striving to have both love and career as a gay medical doctor, Making the Rounds is a well-paced and deeply humanizing memoir of what it means to seek belonging and love—and to find them, in the most surprising ways.

The excerpt below is when Patricia has just arrived home from the hospital after being up all night in the ICU. I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home. But my lover Dani had let herself in to my house revved up for another confrontation as our relationship continued to crumble. I was sure she was sleeping with Jennifer on her softball team. This excerpt begins mid-fight. (Laki is her nickname for me).

I was limp as a wet dishrag when I arrived home, looking forward to a glass of wine and a nature program on TV.

Dani was there, eating a TV dinner at the kitchen table. I frowned, annoyed to see her, and wished I’d gotten my key from her. She had her mouth full and greeted me with a curt nod.

Why is she here? I tensed with anxiety that she was gearing up for another pointless discussion. In the six weeks since I’d given her the ultimatum about wrapping up her affair with Jennifer, she’d given me no sign she had.

“Can we dispense with our usual hand-wringing diatribe this evening?” I asked before she even opened her mouth.

Dani put down her fork and looked up at me. “I don’t under- stand myself for getting involved with a woman who is so totally egocentric.” She took in a forkful of processed mashed potatoes.

“I’m the one who’s egocentric?” Dani was the most solipsistic woman I’d ever met. Was this her way of justifying her affair? “You’re so caught up in your own world, you have no idea what I’m going through. You said you’d be here at eight o’clock last night. You didn’t show until ten when I needed to be in bed asleep.”

I paced the floor, preparing to go on a rant.

Dani cut me off. “You see only that I’ve wronged you by sleeping with Jennifer and that’s all you care about. You can be caring, loving, and generous—it’s true. But

I’ve seen it happen only when it holds an advantage for you.” She took a swig from the glass in front of her, half-full of something amber-colored.

“It’s hard to be caring and loving when you’re running off to the Vineyard with Jennifer, sailing with Helinka, out to the bar with your softball team. You hardly make any time for us when I’m not working. Have you fed the dog?”

“No, not yet.”

Buto looked up at me, her gaze expectant. I walked to the cupboard and got out her kibble, filling her bowl. She was out of water, too. Sensitive to our tone, she didn’t leap on her food.

Dani ignored our dog and carried on.

“Maybe you thought you could push me around. But I drew the line—my refusal to ditch friends so you could control me. Yes, I’ve slept with another woman because you weren’t fulfilling needs of mine. Sexual needs were at the bottom of the list, Laki. More important to me is acceptance with unselfish, unconditional love. I didn’t have to bargain for it like I have with you.”

I snorted. “So, you’ve found a woman who is giving you unselfish, unconditional love like an infant at mama’s breast? Even when you disappoint her, as you no doubt will?”

Dani gave me a dark look, got up, opened the cupboard where I kept the Cointreau to top up her drink. I wondered just how much she’d had before I’d come home. Was alcohol fueling this?

As she reached for the bottle, I walked over, caught her wrist, and squeezed it—perhaps a little too hard. “Don’t—no more.”

Dani looked surprised, then defiant as I stared her down. My heart pounded. She could overpower me in any physical confrontation. I held on to her wrist and felt her close her fist. Is she going to hit me?

Then she lowered her arm, and I let go.

She stayed put, still close. “Never have I experienced such overwhelming aggressiveness as I have with you.”

Who is she talking about? “This aggressive ogre is hungry.”

I moved away and rummaged for something to eat in the refrigerator. I found only wine, mayonnaise, and ketchup. The freezer yielded a spinach soufflé, but it would take an hour to bake. I settled for snacking on stale peanuts while I warmed up the oven for the soufflé.

Dani still hovered, but I was fed up.

“I’m so tired of this. Of you making me into a raging ogre who ignores your sensitive feelings and thwarts your creative energy. Go fuck whoever you want, yourself included.”

I flounced into the sunroom, turned on the reading lamp, took out a magazine, and flipped through the pages, too tired and upset to read.

Dani spoke softly to the dog in the kitchen, urging her to eat. Soon I heard Buto crunching her kibble and listened for the sound of Dani leaving.

She didn’t leave. She followed me into the sunroom and sat in a chair near me, her face partially hidden in shadow.

“Last week, I relived the most awful years of my life,” she said, her voice shaky. “Years of depression, attempted suicide, and the odd looks from people who knew.

“You didn’t have a ghost of understanding. You only expressed hurt and anger I spent the weekend with Jennifer.” Dani looked on the verge of tears.

I remembered there was a time when she’d turned to me for solace and comfort, and I’d been happy to give it. Over the past year, though, I’d been less available both physically and emotionally. So had she. Whose fault was that?

“Sorry, I’ve run dry of unselfish, unconditional love.” I re- turned to flipping the pages of my magazine, not looking at her.

Dani banged her fist on the table between us, rattling the lamp. “You insist on monogamy from me. But what about you cheating on Maryann? Most important to me is approval of who I am. I get approval from you if I bend myself to your will. But it’s all conditional, Laki.”

I looked up at her. “You’ll find it will be conditional with Jennifer too. Are you so naive that you think a woman will be there to love and comfort you, no matter whether you meet her needs as well?”

I winced inwardly, realizing that’s exactly what I had wanted of Cass. I buried my face in my magazine.

Dani jumped up and snatched the magazine away. “I could say many bitter things, Laki, but I would only dislike myself for it. I love you even now. We can be such great friends and we play together better than anyone I know. That’s hard to give up. But it’s gone too far. We’ve hurt each other too much.”

Her tone had softened, but I ignored it. She’d slept with Jennifer. She was still sleeping with Jennifer. That was all I could hear. I was finished with her. Blood pounded in my head. Also tempted to say further things I might regret, I realized there was no point. It was over.

“Just go,” I said.

Dani headed for the door, grabbing her coat and bag on the way, forgetting about Buto.

“Leave the key!” I shouted to her retreating back.

The door slammed, rocking the walls. I slumped in the chair. Only then did I cry.

After a good cry, I poured a glass of chardonnay and thought of my doomed relationship with Dani. Could she ever really see me? My sensitivity and vulnerability, my real—not imagined— strengths, and my genuine love for her? But satisfying my need for love and security with Dani this past year was like trying to buy a cantaloupe at the hardware store

Patricia Grayhall is a medical doctor and author of Making the Rounds; Defying Norms in Love and Medicine as well as articles in Queer Forty and The Gay and Lesbian Review. After nearly forty years of medical practice, this is her debut, very personal, and frank memoir about coming out as a lesbian in the late 1960s and training to become a doctor when society disapproved of both for a woman. Patricia lives with the love of her life on an island in the Pacific Northwest. patriciagrayhall.com/

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“Gertrude In Clover Amiably”

The following excerpt traces a significant visit in June 1931 by the young photographer George Platt Lynes to the country home of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in the provincial French town of Bilignin par Belley. Lynes had first been introduced to their famous Paris salon in 1925 at the tender age of eighteen; Stein had christened him “Baby George.” Now, he was anticipating his first two New York photography exhibitions and wished to have a formal portrait of Stein to display. He had maintained a personal correspondence with her over the intervening years, sharing the travails of a young man trying to get his professional footing in the world. His portrait of Stein overlooking the Rhone valley near her home would be cropped and serve as a Time magazine cover in 1934 when Stein and Toklas returned to America to publicize The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Years later, in 1974, James R. Mellow published Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company, and used the Lynes portrait, similarly cropped, as its cover.

Fig. 1 Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and George Platt Lynes, at the Stein-Toklas summer house in Bilignin, 1931 (photographer unknown). Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, YCAL MSS 76. American Literature Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Please enjoy the following excerpt:

George’s most consequential portrait that summer emerged from his visit with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in the village of Bilignin at their leased seventeenth-century house “perched on a hill above a steep retaining wall . . . the perfect house, ample and old, with many windows, commanding a fine view across the valley.” It was east of Lyon not far from the Swiss border in verdant and hilly countryside. George had proposed a stay for the closing days of June. The women drove to pick him up at the station in Culoz, with their white poodle Basket in tow, and brought him back to their country abode. “[I] t was like a miniature château,” [Paul] Bowles wrote. “The walls were very thick, and inside the house it was beautifully quiet . .

If you went straight through the house, you came out into a garden ….”Bowles identified the two spots where George gives us visual testimony. One garden photograph was shot … near an ancient stone wall that bordered the property and prevented prying eyes from looking in (Fig. 1). The image shows the women and George at leisure; Basket presents his rear end with little puffed tail to the camera while nudging his face into Toklas. George, his hair brushed high off his forehead, wearing a pullover over an open-collar shirt … betrays a little smile; Alice, in a patterned dress, her eyes shaded by a sunhat, appears unyielding and dour. Gertrude, her corpulent figure sunken into a matching deck chair, smiles forthrightly back at the camera.

This image testifies to George’s status as one of the remaining few of that mostly homosexual coterie, expatriates from their native lands, who populated Stein’s salon in 1925, those whom she called la seconde famille. …

According to James Mellow, there was a “purge” that began “around 1930″. By 1932, however, she had divested herself of the circle of young men that had crowded her salon, courted her, sought her imprimatur, run errands for her. The means were various: Some were given such chilly receptions at the rue de Fleurus that it was clear their presence was no longer welcome; others were informed by curt notes of dismissal or by way of the telephone that had recently been installed.”

Fig. 2 Gertrude Stein, Bilignin, 1931. Gelatin silver print. Image: 11.4 × 15.7 cm 4612316×in.(). David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1941. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Image source: Art Resource, NY. Copyright Estate of George Platt Lynes.

And so, the Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew and his lover, the American pianist Allen Tanner, the Russian painter and scenic designer Eugène Berman, and the French artist and designer Christian “Bébé” Bérard had all been dropped; meanwhile, the American writer Bravig Imbs was “briefly excommunicated” under suspicion of “influencing Thomson to take [poet George] Hugnet’s side” in his dispute with Stein.

George [Platt Lynes] was luckier. He had remained a devoted letter writer, seasoning his language with judicious flattery without seeming obsequious. He had certainly tried to help enlarge her reputation on the American side of the Atlantic and remained smitten by her every word— in private letters and public books— she ever wrote.

George set about photographing Stein and the commanding view from her property. He sat her on the low parapet of the garden … from which a panorama of the Rhône valley foregrounded a scrim of distant hills as backdrop to the scene (Fig.2). Stein on the picture’s left side sits solid as a Buddha. Her short greying hair is clipped so that it sits like a helmet close to her skull, the head of a Roman Caesar. The even silhouette of her face suggests, in its calm steady gaze, a quality of reflection of the external world or an introspection impressed with self-regard— after all, Stein knew she was being immortalized for posterity. She had been there and done that (posed for artists) numerous times before. She performed her role as lord and mistress of all that was seen from her perch to that distant hilly horizon.

Shortly later, he sent on a sampling of the Bilignin photographs:

Here is one set of the pictures. I am having three more sets made and will bring them to you when they are done …

The matter [of the photographs] stretched into autumn after George returned to the States. Writing “after so many months of silence,” he assured Stein he had “thought of you so often and of my lovely weekend with you . . . my days with you were the only really tranquil ones [that summer].” Recounting to Stein … his achievement of taking “between 1500 and 2000 photographs that summer,” he confessed that the unfinished business about the pictures taken at her country house had weighed on him since his return: Well, they are done at last and have been mailed . . . several required a grade of paper I can only get in this country, and that was my excuse to myself. Frankly I was very disappointed in them . . . But if you are glad to have even one or two, that is all I could ask.

[T]he subject herself … responded in early December, “We think the photos excellent and we are delighted to have them and showing them to everyone with pride and I have written to Carl [Van Vechten] to by all means see them and everybody likes enormously the profile of me against the view . . . and so you see it is a success, and I am pleased.” She sent fresh compliments soon after, when she wrote her “darling George”:

After all you are my friend George and in some way still the best beloved, and oh dear it would be nice if you were here. You would you know be my official photographer I do here by appoint you to this dignified post being a little fed up with Man Ray’s airs and graces but then of course I don’t pay but then on the other hand I do sell a little and you could sell me anyway in as much as I am I photographically speaking I am yours.

Being Stein’s “best beloved” could be an insecure position, but at least she was comparing him to other photographers and placing him high in her current pantheon. Still, he would have to wait to see the image of Stein’s profile “against the view” reach a large American public. The lasting outcome of the Stein portrait was yet in the future.

Excerpted from GEORGE PLATT LYNES: THE DARING EYE by Allen Ellenzweig

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Set in 1990s New York, Slow Reveal paints a portrait of artists who defy the arbiters of culture and challenge social norms. Art, addiction and family dynamics capsize the Kanes when they discover the parallel life of Katharine, film editor, mother, lover and wife.
“A poem is never finished, only abandoned,” wrote Paul Valéry, an outcome echoed in her decade-long affair with Naomi, a lesbian poet. Katharine’s marriage to Jonathan collapses in his struggle with sobriety when he’s ostracized for politicizing art and abandons his career for advertising. Faced with confrontations from her two grown daughters, an installation artist and an aspiring writer, Katharine hangs onto her former life. When unforeseen tragedy strikes, devotion and commitment are not the guardrails that keep their work or relationships on track but rather a form of entrapment.

A captivating story about relevance at the end of the 20th century, the novel questions the voracious demands of contemporary society through a riveting portrayal of turbulent family life, impacted by art shaped by the media and influenced by social and political injustice. Success is redefined by the courage to embark on the artistic process, as risky, messy and unpredictable as building intimacy and trust in love.

Please enjoy the following excerpt.

Naomi tried on every jacket and pair of pants hanging in her cramped closet. She couldn’t decide which one looked best, berating herself for wanting to look that good in the first place. Her indecision had nothing to do with vanity but more perversely, how she would replace Jonathan at his own memorial service. Attending wasn’t her idea. Katharine insisted on it. She needed her there but never explained why.

From the valet box on her dresser, she found the studs for the cuffs of her starched black shirt. The macabre image of funerals as weekly tributes came back full force. She’d been to too many over the years for friends and artists who died of cancer and AIDS. They were her peers, just like Jonathan, not her elders as was commonly the case except for the demise of her mother, given her rapid deterioration from Alzheimer’s. The only saving grace was her father, who buffered her mother’s degenerative decline by finding Devon Donovan, a doctor who treated the terminally ill without the notoriety of Kevorkian. Death, unlike life, had become a close friend. Intimate, dependable, remarkable in ways, someone she could trust, someone who reliably showed up only after a brief absence and never lacked enthusiasm for her own personal struggle.

“This,” she said, dangling the leather harness she used to seduce Katharine, “is completely inappropriate, therefore I will wear it fully accessorized.” Her somber mood was broken by this crazy gesture. The inanity of it all… She imagined cutting through the crowd of mourners yelling, “Thou art art!” pointing to the urn of Jonathan’s ashes. Cruel and unbecoming, yes, but honest. Why weren’t people honest anymore? Have lies been told so often they now appeared absolute and irrefutable?

She dropped the briefs she planned to wear, walked out into the living room sporting her harness and over to the window where she pulled up the shades and yelled, “Cocks and crows be damned. I stand before thee naked. A man, a woman, a monster.” And she cackled and crowed maddeningly before whisking a bottle off the cabinet, lifting the cork and guzzling it down then spraying her woolen rug with a shower of ruby wine, rubbing it in for good measure with the heel of her bare foot. Sick and tired of the tidy lies, she fixated on the stain. There will be no more deception between us.

In Katharine’s absence she could not dispute her claim.
The act revitalized her and her dynamism returned. She recalled the last time they spent together. Bathed in the pale moonlight, Katharine’s face showed subtle signs of confusion, that slight slant of the lips and the faint trace of the dimple on her left cheek. Their fingertips touched and the lightning struck with a force that traveled the length of their bodies. No longer imprisoned by thoughts, they ventured out feeling the curve of the earth, their orbit a slow spiral down where gravity was not essential.

With the pulsating rhythm of her sex locked up in a harness, she felt the energy bound up and turned inward. She wasn’t fixed on a singular mind set about what makes a man, what makes a woman. To her, it was not the body or the genitals but the orientation of energy. An orientation that was not absolute. She always loved women but knew that to love them truly she had to love herself. It hadn’t been easy, not because of her identity but her disorientation around gender, like those little icons stuck on the walls of public toilets indicating which door to use. She rarely interpreted the symbols correctly. They made no sense to her, which accounted for the way she often walked blindly into the wrong bathroom. As if there were no subtleties in the evolution of the human race…

One glance at the clock over the kitchen stove and she dashed into the bedroom to dress. If she didn’t pull herself together, she’d be late for the memorial service. She knew her presence would make things worse and she hated herself, their relationship, for that.
Darting
in and out
of time
in lame attempts
of swift escapes
from savage ways
that ravage
every
last
bit
of
flesh and bone and wit.

Edward Albee Fellow and fiction grant recipient, Melanie Mitzner is the author of Slow Reveal, published by Inanna Publications in May, 2022 and selected for Best Women’s Fiction Writers 2022 Debuts. An excerpt was published in Bloom. She’s a finalist in four fiction and screenwriting competitions. Her work appears in Gay & Lesbian Review, Wine Spectator, Vol1Brooklyn, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, Hamptons, The Groovy Mind blog, Society for Curious Thought and Submerging Artists. As a former journalist for tech, she covered television production/visual effects. https://www.melaniemitzner.com

Melanie Mitzner Photo Credit: Robert Laliberté

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THE AUDACITY OF A KISS: Love, Art, and Liberation by Leslie Cohen (Rutgers University Press) tells the story of Leslie Cohen and her partner Beth Suskin who served as models for the iconic sculpture “Gay Liberation” in Greenwich Village. In this evocative memoir, Cohen tells the story of a love that has lasted for over fifty years and recounts her quest to build gay and feminist oases in New York, including the groundbreaking women’s nightclub Sahara. Please enjoy an excerpt from her memoir.

Prologue

In 1979, George Segal, the famous Pop artist, was commissioned to create a sculpture commemorating the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The uprising was the seminal, although not the only, event to kick-start the gay liberation movement. Segal’s bronze sculpture, covered with a white lacquer finish, was eventually unveiled in Christopher Park in Greenwich Village, formerly known as Sheridan Square Park, in 1992, after almost thirteen years of controversy. The sculpture is called Gay Liberation. It depicts a life-size male couple standing a few feet away from a life-size female couple sitting together on a park bench. One of the men holds the shoulder of his friend. One of the women touches the thigh of her partner as they gaze into each other’s eyes. Over the years, Gay Liberation, the sculpture, has become more and more recognizable around the world and an icon that is visited by thousands of people every year.

Beth Suskin, my partner (and now wife) of more than forty- five years, and I were the models for this sculpture. Since the sculpture’s unveiling in 1992, we have stood before it many times, staring at our doppelganger selves. We have witnessed drunken men slouched on the park bench with their heads resting on our laps, children climbing on us like monkey bars and sitting on our knees, and grown men and women crying openly before it, overcome with emotion, because they remember the many years of humiliation they experienced when they were taunted, arrested, and forced to hide because they were gay or lesbian. Gay men and lesbians from around the world have come to see the sculpture as a symbol of gay pride and as a confirmation of the great progress that has been made towards their visibility and acceptance.

It is astounding to us that our love for one another is publicly signified and immortalized in this way. However, our love story cannot be told in full without also including the tale of Sahara, the first New York City nightclub owned by women and designed for women. I opened it with three other women in Manhattan in 1976. The club was an elegant oasis in a desert of oppression against women, both gay and straight, where women discovered a safe space to express who they were. Luminaries of the time came to wit- ness and bask in the welcoming scene, which in turn nurtured a generation of women who would become luminaries of the future. Beth and I discovered our love for each other and nurtured it against the backdrop of Sahara, and in my mind, they are inextricably woven together. This is our story.

Secrets and Dreams

I was born in 1947, two years after the Hiroshima bomb and the end of World War II, the year that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was formed. Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play baseball for a major league team, and the gender- bending artist, David Bowie, was born. Whatever memories I have of my earliest years are few but sweet. I played, I laughed, I skinned my knees. When I was four or five years old, I stared up at the sky one afternoon trying to see God. What appeared overhead was the enormous image of the Knickerbocker man (an image from an old beer ad of the time) in his colonial dress and three-cornered hat looming over me amongst the clouds. This appearance of what I thought was God was so real that it frightened me, and I ran into the house to find my mother.


In 1955, for my eighth birthday, my mother, Marcia, gave me a pink bassinet stroller. Curious, I peeked under the hood of this alien girl’s toy to find a plastic doll wrapped in a blanket. I smiled and thanked my mother, not knowing what I would ever do with this oversized plaything in which I had absolutely no interest. I decided that the carriage could be useful to store my catcher’s mitt, base- ball, and bat when I wasn’t using them. They would be safe there next to the doll that I never touched.


In the large apartment complex in Whitestone, Queens, where we lived, my play area was a paved quad, partially inhabited by a one-story parking garage and a concrete playground made up of seesaws and swings. Adjacent to the playground were rows of do- it-yourself clotheslines that sagged in the background from the weight of boxer shorts, undershirts, and bleached white bedsheets that swayed in the wind like flags of surrender. The smell of fresh detergent permeated the air around us. Corralling the quad on all sides were the indistinguishable and unadorned two-story, connected, redbrick apartment buildings. Sparse trees and grass were scattered around, but pavement underlined almost everything.

LESLIE COHEN has been a museum curator, a nightclub owner and promoter, a limousine driver, and a lawyer, as well as a writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Curve and The New York Times Style Magazine. Now retired, she and her wife Beth live in Miami, Florida with their cat, Birdie.

For more information: https://www.leslie-cohen.com

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Barbara Wilson is the author of seven previous mysteries, including Gaudí Afternoon, which introduced translator sleuth Cassandra Reilly and was made into a movie starring Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Hardin. She is a winner of two Lambda Literary awards and the British Crime Writers’ award for best thriller set in Europe. In Not The Real Jupiter oin traveling translator Cassandra Reilly as she solves a new mystery in Lambda Literary Award winner Barbara Wilson’s series about the London-based, Irish-American sleuth with “a mind like a steel trap, a literate, uplifting voice, and a wicked sense of humor” (Library Journal).

Globe-trotting translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly returns—this time to the country where she was born: America.

What are the origins of the Cassandra Reilly series?

Cassandra first appeared in a short story I was asked to write in the late 1980s for a British anthology of feminist mysteries, Reader, I Murdered Him. For several years around that time I was frequently in London, where all my books were being published by Virago and The Women’s Press. I also lived in Seattle, where I was the co-publisher of Seal Press, but while I paid attention to American feminist and queer issues, I also had this other life in London, and a connection to the British feminist and international scene. I was doing a lot of traveling for pleasure and for work throughout that period and had friends, sometimes expatriates, in cities like Barcelona, Brussels, and Amsterdam. So it seemed natural to create a character, born in the States, who was based in London but had no real fixed address, and who made a living from translation. I was translating from Norwegian during those years and also having my own fiction translated by publishers in Germany, Italy, Finland, and Japan, so I was often thinking about language and place. My maternal grandfather was an Irish immigrant from West Cork and my Irish-American mother went to college in Kalamazoo, so some of Cassandra’s background mirrors that side of the family (the other side is Swedish).

What attractions does the mystery genre hold?

I’ve always liked genre writing and I was a fan of mysteries from an early age, starting with Agatha Christie and James Cain. I had begun to read some women’s mysteries that had a more feminist message in the late 1970s, like the Kate Fansler mysteries by Amanda Cross (Carolyn Heilbrun). Around 1983 I heard an anecdote in Seattle of two collectives at odds with each other and for fun I started writing a mystery of my own. Initially it was just a satire, but I could see that the mystery genre had some unexplored possibilities. I experimented with making the characters diverse in a way that reflected my circles and I created twin characters, one straight and one newly gay; the lesbian twin was Pam Nilsen, part of a printing collective in Seattle. When Murder in the Collective came out in 1984 and was popular, I wrote two other mysteries that more explicitly combined politics around sex work and gender with an investigation undertaken by Pam, a somewhat clueless but likeable lesbian sleuth.

The lesbian mystery really took off in the 1980s and led to a very durable genre that, probably more than any other form of lesbian writing, really captured the day to day lives of queer people in a realistic way—except for all the murders, obviously. What I was trying to do with the Cassandra Reilly character became quite different than what I’d done with Pam, who was deeply embedded in her Seattle community. I was still working with gender and queerness, but by setting in the stories and novels in other countries, I also explored how same-sex attraction manifests in other cultures. My model for the Cassandra stories and full-length mysteries was more the caper model. Not all of them featured corpses, but there were usually heists and dubious identities. Cassandra is very much a flexible adventurer, for whom detecting comes naturally, even though it’s undertaken reluctantly. As a translator she’s used to disentangling meanings.

Can you say more about Cassandra as a translator?

I made Cassandra a Spanish-to-English translator because I too had studied Spanish at one point for a year at the University of Granada in Spain and had spent quite a bit of time in Barcelona. I ended up as a translator of Norwegian and Danish myself, but I’ve always kept Cassandra working with the Romance languages. Gaudi Afternoon takes place in Barcelona, but the project she’s working on is a magic realism novel by Gloria de los Angeles, from South America. In some of the stories in the collection, The Death of a Much-Travelled Woman, Cassandra is working with authors like Luisa Montiflores, from Uruguay, who is also a character in the new mystery, Not the Real Jupiter.

One of the things that was apparent to me early on in making translation Cassandra’s livelihood is that the non-binary nature of changing words into other words means that there’s always a space between meanings. And I think that space reflects Cassandra’s own way of living and her gender presentation, which can be fluid. She’s a lesbian, but she’s not an American lesbian. She’s not fully a British lesbian either. She’s never had a long-term relationship and her affairs have often been with queer women in other countries, where queerness can present differently. So “translation” has that sense in the fiction about Cassandra. However, I’m also very interested in actual translation as a practice and as a form of literature. Cassandra often struggles financially as a translator and can feel insecure and marginalized, which reflects the reality of freelance book translation. Only very recently have translators had their names on book covers and been given credit along with the authors. Generally they’ve been invisible—necessary but neglected. So I play with that invisibility in writing about Cassandra—she has a lower status in literary circles and is constantly complaining about the writers whose work she translates. At the same time, her ability with languages is a sort of super-power, and in terms of investigating crimes it can give her an edge.

Cassandra in your newest book is considerably older than when we last saw her twenty years ago. Not all mystery writers “age” their detectives, but Cassandra is not only older, she is now old.

It’s possible that if I’d continued to write about Cassandra steadily for the past twenty years I might have only gradually increased her age. But since a lot of time had passed—for both her and me—and I myself was in my late sixties when I started to write Not the Real Jupiter, I thought it would be more interesting to jump forward in time to Cassandra as woman “hovering around seventy,” as she says. In some ways she’s not that different—she’s still working as a freelance translator, she’s still single, for instance—but in other ways she’s starting to wonder what retirement would look like, to look at some of her friendships as anchors and to see London as more than a base. This becomes more apparent to her in Not the Real Jupiter, when she’s stuck in Oregon because of a murder case, and starts to panic about getting back to life in London.

There are certainly women mystery writers who keep their detectives young enough year after year to continue to be able to do the physical things private eyes or cops need to do, but I think that can end up being awkward. Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, a character I’ve always liked, is still kicking ass and getting regularly beat up by the bad guys even though, by rights, she should be past seventy-five by now. I find that jolting sometimes. There’s also a certain amount of artificiality with a detective who started out in an analog world that is now digital, and who seems to have no memories of that earlier time when you didn’t just Google suspects, but had to gumshoe everything.

But a more interesting reason for me in making Cassandra older is that I’d always been interested in the character of the elderly female sleuth, who often appears in the Golden Age mysteries as a sort of spinster busybody who’s unseen because old women are unseen, and who’s allowed to gossip and ask questions because she’s so harmless. I’m thinking of Miss Marple of course, but also Miss Climpton in Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey series, who eventually manages an office full of undercover female agents. I also really liked Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax character, who’s a spy in her sixties and investigates international espionage cases. I was fascinated by the idea of writing about a queer sleuth of seventy who was technically a spinster. While women around her are often retired, Cassandra is still working for a living and eager to do so. She’s physically healthy, yet the prospect of the time when she will be more slowed down by age weighs heavily at times. Why shouldn’t readers of any age encounter an active older woman engaged in meaningful work, travel, and new experiences, while also dealing with issues of mortality? I should mention that I was just finishing Not the Real Jupiter when the virus struck and most travel began to cease. But I’m hopeful that Cassandra can resume her globe-trotting after she’s had her vaccine from the NHS in London.

What made you decide to begin writing about Cassandra again?

Cassandra was always a delightful part of my life, from her first appearance in my imagination so many years ago. I began thinking about her again a few years ago when I was asked about reprinting a story in a British anthology, Deadlier: 100 of the Best Crime Stories Written by Women. That coincided with resuming visiting London again on a regular basis and seeing longtime British and expat friends. I had originally stopped with the mysteries because I began to get so interested in narrative nonfiction, in essays, journalism, travel books, and memoir. I began to spend more time. in Scandinavia, translating and writing cultural history for university presses. It’s been intellectually challenging as well as satisfying to work on issues to do with the indigenous Sami people in the Nordic countries.

But after one big research project I felt I needed some fun, and I wrote a couple of long stories about Cassandra. Eventually I jumped into a full-length mystery and remembered how happy it made me to spend again with Cassandra, one of my oldest friends. t the Real Jupiter, I thought it would be more interesting to jump forward in time to Cassandra as woman “hovering around seventy,” as she says. In some ways she’s not that different—she’s still working as a freelance translator, she’s still single, for instance—but in other ways she’s starting to wonder what retirement would look like, to look at some of her friendships as anchors and to see London as more than a base. This becomes more apparent to her in Not the Real Jupiter, when she’s stuck in Oregon because of a murder case, and starts to panic about getting back to life in London.

There are certainly women mystery writers who keep their detectives young enough year after year to continue to be able to do the physical things private eyes or cops need to do, but I think that can end up being awkward. Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, a character I’ve always liked, is still kicking ass and getting regularly beat up by the bad guys even though, by rights, she should be past seventy-five by now. I find that jolting sometimes. There’s also a certain amount of artificiality with a detective who started out in an analog world that is now digital, and who seems to have no memories of that earlier time when you didn’t just Google suspects, but had to gumshoe everything.

But a more interesting reason for me in making Cassandra older is that I’d always been interested in the character of the elderly female sleuth, who often appears in the Golden Age mysteries as a sort of spinster busybody who’s unseen because old women are unseen, and who’s allowed to gossip and ask questions because she’s so harmless. I’m thinking of Miss Marple of course, but also Miss Climpton in Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey series, who eventually manages an office full of undercover female agents. I also really liked Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax character, who’s a spy in her sixties and investigates international espionage cases. I was fascinated by the idea of writing about a queer sleuth of seventy who was technically a spinster. While women around her are often retired, Cassandra is still working for a living and eager to do so. She’s physically healthy, yet the prospect of the time when she will be more slowed down by age weighs heavily at times. Why shouldn’t readers of any age encounter an active older woman engaged in meaningful work, travel, and new experiences, while also dealing with issues of mortality? I should mention that I was just finishing Not the Real Jupiter when the virus struck and most travel began to cease. But I’m hopeful that Cassandra can resume her globe-trotting after she’s had her vaccine from the NHS in London.

For more information: https://www.barbarawilsonmysteries.com

The post Not the Real Jupiter: Cassandra Reilly Is Back! first appeared on Lesbian.com.

What made you decide to write this piece?
I wrote this piece to help me understand, process, and ultimately accept what I was going through: a recurring eating disorder, a dark depression, and a deep heartache about how to see myself as anything but a failure. I wanted to work through it and to create the opportunity for connection with anyone who might be going through the same thing. Healing is anything but linear. There are peaks, valleys, and devastating spirals, and it can be hard to make sense of those setbacks when you feel like you’ve already come so far. But in writing the essay, I had a reason to think clearly and intentionally about what I was going through and how I could make sense of it moving forward, and I’m proud of what I was able to do.

What is your writing life like? Do you write during the day, after work, etc.?
Writing is not my primary career; I work full-time at a nonprofit, so my writing tends to be confined to nights, weekends, and the occasional lunch break. I tend to go long periods without writing anything, and then I’ll get bursts of ideas that keep me writing for days at a time. Those creative sparks have been much harder to come by since the start of the pandemic, but I’m excited about what I’m writing next and hopeful that it’ll propel me to keep going.

Where do you see your writing going next? Any firm plans or upcoming publications?
I’m working on a memoir about my relationship with my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and world traveler who shaped my understanding of mental illness, identity, and how we give and receive love. It sounds very heavy, but her life was actually one of joy and lightness; I’m planning to punctuate the chapters with her favorite dirty jokes, for example. No firm plans for publication yet, but I’m looking forward to writing it either way.

Why do you think people should buy and read the anthology?
We’re going to feel the impacts of the pandemic for much longer than any of us realizes. It’s crucial that we not lose sight of how this time has irreparably changed us and our world, especially for those folks already living on the margins: people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and the like. Reading this anthology is another way of connecting to our shared humanity and ensuring we continue to show up for each other.

What is the theme in your piece and how does it come through? Is that an ongoing theme in your work?
Self-reflection and self-acceptance — and the challenges they open up, particularly in the context of mental illness — are ongoing themes in all my work, including this piece. Writing my story down has long been part of my process of coming to terms with who I am, what I look like, and the space I take up in the world. At the same time, I know that countless others are going through the same or, in some cases, much more challenging experiences as I am, and so I hope I addressed themes of compassion and community here, too.

How will your life be different than before the pandemic?
I hope I’ll be a more empathetic and giving person who can pay closer attention to how I can help someone else. And I’ll never again take for granted the things that I’m missing so much now: regularly seeing family, sharing space with loved ones, unmasked hugs.

FIND CAMILLE
camilleberedjick.com
Twitter: @cberedjick
Instagram: @bookstacam

More from Camille: Bylines in BuzzFeed, Catapult, Narratively, Autostraddle, Mic, In These Times, The Daily Dot, Patheos

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