While Joan Nestle usually lives near Melbourne, Australia, this fall she is circling the globe. Contributor to Sinister Wisdom 94: Lesbians and Exile, Lepa Mladjenović sent us these photos from Joan's recent visit to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Greetings from Vancouver BC to lesbians everywhere!

3 more weeks until the 10th Annual Gathering of BOLD, Old(er), Lesbians & Dykes. We're converging on Vancouver's Gay Village from across Canada, the US and even Australia!

Little did we know BOLDFest would still be going 10 years later!

BOLDFest's theme this year is: "50 Years of Lesbian Lives & Culture" and we're excited about the lineup of presenters and performers who'll definitely live up to this theme! You'll find more details on boldfest.com .

Meantime, here's a sampling of what BOLDFestees will enjoy:

Cris Williamson in concert - Sunday night September 7
Cris was with us the 1st year of BOLDFest, 10 years ago!

"Restrospective of MichFest" with Lyn Davis, Victoria, longtime volunteer and festee-goer at MichFest. Lyn will share stories and memories of this amazing annual land-based lesbian village and community, created and built by women, for the many thousands of women who have been returning for many years to their/our "Lesbian Nation". MichFest is an integral part of our herstory, whether or not you've ever attended. This workshop will run two times, on Friday and Saturday Sept 5, 6.

BOLD Woman of the Year Award will be accepted at the Friday Luncheon by Margy Lesher, co-founder of the the Lesbian Connection, the longest running international lesbian publication and another long-term stronghold and support for lesbians.

Film Showing of "Desert Hearts". This classic lesbian film based on Jane Rule's novel, will be shown, followed by a discussion facilitated by Joan Coldwell of Hedgerow Press, Vancouver Island, publisher of some of Jane Rule's works. Hedgerow Press is sponsoring this event.

Following the discussion we'll move into a "Retro Night" of music, dress, and entertainment including recreating a dyke bar from years past.

Plus, Intro to Dragonboating, "Remarkable Women of Stanley Park" walking tour, dynamic workshops...and much more!

If you want to spend a weekend in total lesbian culture, BOLDFest is it! It's being held at the Coast Plaza Hotel, a gay/dog friendly hotel, situated in the heart of the Gay Village, 3 blocks from the beach, and very near to Stanley Park.

Come a day early, Wed Sept 3, and join us on the popular Harbour Boat Cruise for an evening of spectacular scenery, apppetizers, music, dancing, cash bar, women!! This is an "extra activity". See attached reg. form.

"See you in September"

Sincerely,

Pat Hogan, Claire Robson
BOLDFest Coordinators
604-253-7189

Just announced:
the Coast Plaza Hotel has just extended their cut-off date to August 20 to reserve a hotel room at our special BOLD rate! If you want to get a hotel room there, now's the time to do it. You'll find info on page 3 of attached registration form. If you'd like to find someone to share a room with please email info@boldfest.com. We'll do what we can to put you in touch with others seeking roommates. Need a subsidy to attend. Ask us!

Every subscriber to Sinister Wisdom will receive with Sinister Wisdom 93: Southern Lesbian-Feminist Herstory 1968-1994 a free bookmark. Be on the look out for it in your mailing. Use it while you read Sinister Wisdom--and any other book. We'll keep your place!

Want a few extra to share with friends? The first three are free with postage of a single forever stamp. Send a stamped, self-addressed envelop to Julie R. Enszer, PhD, Editor, Sinister Wisdom, 6910 Wells Parkway, University Park, MD 20782. You can also order bookmarks through PayPal; ten bookmarks for $2. Remit payment to wisdomsinister at yahoo dot com.

LESBIAN ACTIVISM CHANGING THE WORLD: Old Lesbians Organizing for Change

25th Anniversary Celebration at our National Gathering July 23 – 27, 2014

Oakland California Marriott Hotel & Convention Center

________________________________________________________

RECIPIENTS OF THE DEL MARTIN OLD LESBIAN PRIDE AWARD ANNOUNCED!!

OLOC is delighted to announce that the Del Martin Old Lesbian Pride Award will be presented at this year’s 25th Anniversary Celebration to TWO deserving Old Lesbians, Arden Eversmeyer of Houston Texas, and Joan Emerson of the OLOC Bay Area Chapter. The recipients will each receive $500. The Awards presentation will be held at the Gathering's Opening Night on July 23rd, after greetings from local officials and hosts.

ARDEN, a committed member, served as OLOC’s Co-Director of OLOC from 1997 to 2004 as well as serving on its Steering Committee for 14 years. She founded The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, (OLOHP) in 1997, collecting stories of Lesbian friends who were ill and dying in the Houston Texas area where she lives. Now, she and others continue to collect the life stories of Lesbians 70 and older wherever they are and whenever they are willing to share them, with OLOC’s support and help. Arden co-edited two collections of OLOHP stories. A Gift of Age: Old Lesbian Life Stories and Without Apology: Old Lesbian Life Stories can be ordered at www.alibris.com"

JOAN taught sociology at Carleton College where she also wrote articles that became classics. She left her academic career to train as a psychotherapist, working with children. Joan attended the OLOC National Gathering in Minneapolis in 1996 at age 61. Arriving “to explore the lesbian world”, 24 hours later she enthusiastically joined the Old Lesbian community and for 18 years - 1996-2013 - she worked in revitalizing and coordinating OLOC’s San Francisco chapter. Joan says: “Old age has been the best time of my life”.

This award solicits nominees worldwide and nominations include a description of the outstanding accomplishments of the nominee who must be alive and over the age of 70, and whose life and/or work has impacted the lives of Old Lesbians.

This is the third award to be given. The first was in 2010 at the National Gathering in Cleveland to activists Carmah Lawler and Kathy Glass. In 2012 the award went to Joy Griffith, long-time organizer of the annual Golden Threads Gathering in Provincetown MA.

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Old Lesbians Organizing for Change

Oakland California Marriott Hotel & Convention Center

This is a call to Old Lesbians in their 60th year or more to join hundreds of our peers at OLOC’s Biennial National Gathering -- 5 days of workshops panels, caucuses, entertainment and socializing with some events welcoming women of all ages!

To date a diverse lineup of award-winning presenters and performers have been confirmed…with more to come!

· Dorothy Allison, http://www.dorothyallison.net/ Poet, Storyteller, Feminist

· Cherrie Moraga, http://www.cherriemoraga.comPlaywright, Essayist, Activist Educator

· Chrystos. http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/chrystos.phpPoet, Writer, Land and Treaty Native American Rights Activist

Carolyn Gage’s riveting Lesbian Tent Revival, an Author's night, the Del Martin Old Lesbian Pride Award, and a dance with the Bay Area Women's Liberation Boogie Band add to the impressive list of events and celebrations scheduled throughout the Gathering.

An Intensive will trace the roots of feminism and envision our next steps through stories and feminist political analysis.

For and by Lesbians, OLOC works to empower and improve our lives with a support network consisting of a quarterly newsletter, regular e-news, more than a dozen chapters, and OLOC Gatherings both Regional and National. Using education and public discourse, we confront ageism, sexism, racism, classism, and we work for justice.

For more Information, please go to our website: www.oloc.org, email info@oloc.org, or call 888 706-7506

Carol Anne Douglas and Sue Lenaerts are having a book party for me at our SW editors home this coming Saturday afternoon. I want to thank Julie and Kim in advance for their kindness. Those who truly love books and writing can always be counted on to go that extra mile. Many Blessings.

http://carolyngage.weebly.com/blog/strong-enough-to-bend

Strong Enough to Bend is the new book by Judith K. Witherow long time writer, and SW Board Member

Lesbian Truthtellers Write Books to Take Home With You: Essayist Judith Witherow and Novelist Renee Bess
Posted: 04/25/2014 10:45 am EDT Updated: 04/25/2014 10:59 am EDT

I was reminded of the quote from the late poet Muriel Rukeyser -- ''What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open'' -- when I read Judith K. Witherow's collection of essays, Strong Enough To Bend, Twin Spirits Publishing, 2014. Then when I read The Rules by S. Renee Bess, a novel published by Regal Crest Enterprises, 2014, I was reminded of this quote again.
Judith and Renee are both lesbian writers who bring their truth home through their writings.
In her collection of essays, Strong Enough To Bend, Judith K. Witherow describes herself as a "back up writer, one of many who stand in the background, providing the harmony and staging the recognition for those whose names are on the covers of the books or the mastheads of the publications."
She describes Strong Enough to Bend as her solo performance. And what a performance it is. I found that I could not put Strong Enough To Bend down -- except for time to recollect how much the essays reminded me of friend's lives and my own.
Native American lesbian and truth teller, Witherow starts her collection with essays on her background being raised poor in the northern Appalachian mountains.
"We never lived in a place that had screen doors or screens in the windows. This allowed everything, including snakes, to come and go at will. We learned at an early age to pound on the floor before getting out of bed."
In the second section, Judith talks about how she came out with three sons that she gave birth to during a marriage to an abusive man. Raising her sons in the 1970s a time when lesbians were losing their children to custody battles with ex-husbands, presented Judith with an ongoing dilemma of when to officially come out to her children. It's not surprising that her three sons, who were raised by Judith and her long-term partner, Sue, knew that their mother was a lesbian far before she told them and were fiercely protective of their two mothers.
She devotes another section of the book to her multiple health issues which stem, no doubt, from her poverty ridden childhood, and to her struggles with the medical establishment. In 1979, Judith was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Judith's health issues are numerous and it is clear that we are lucky to have her with us on this planet. Hers is a voice that we were not meant to hear.
A strong feminist, Judith is a role model for valuing herself. In the 1996 U.S. presidential election, Judith was a write-in candidate prompted by her belief that she "was the best qualified of any of the candidates. Her belief was bolstered by,
"Clinton's first shot at four years of Democratic leadership...Don't Ask Don't Tell sounds like a warmed over version of the Reagan's 'Just Say No.'"
When I read The Rules, a novel by S. Renee Bess, I was reminded that truth can be found in fiction. Ranee is a Black lesbian and in these pages we meet an assortment of characters, most of them Black lesbians, at least one of whom lives by the rules -- meaning that she lives her life by a certain code of ethics but sometimes she is confused by what the rules are. The protagonist, a woman by the name of London, defends herself to her long-term lover who is leaving her.
"What do you mean?"
"You don't seem sure about your blackness."
"What are you talking about. I know I'm black."
"Do you? You could have fooled me. Most of your friends aren't black. You don't talk like a black person. You couldn't even keep working for a black-owned construction company."
"My friends are all different colors. I speak the way I was taught to speak, and I left Clive Wittingham's firm because I wasn't climbing the ladder there, not because I didn't want to work for a back man's company."
Two of the characters are profoundly influenced by their childhoods -- and in fact we meet them as children when they were friends. As adults they are joined by a cast of characters complicated by intrigue and lesbian love. Equally intriguing to me was the prism of race and class.
I read this lesbian duo back to back and when the last page was turned, I felt the world split open -- just a little.
(Strong Enough To Bend--can be bought on Amazon, B&N, etc. Judith K. Witherow

Strong Enough to Bend

a new book by Judith K. Witherow--Sinister Wisdom Board Member.

$14.95 includes shipping and handling
In Strong Enough to Bend, author Judith K. Witherow compiles a sampling from four decades of her essays and poems that describe the real life experiences of a disabled, mixed blood Native American Indian lesbian raised in Appalachian poverty. Much of the work has been previously published in anthologies, university women's studies texts and feminist periodicals. This unique memoir is the first collection exclusively authored by Witherow.

Website:
http://www.jkwitherow.com/setb.htm (Can be bought on Paypal or by check.)

amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Enough-Bend-Judith-Witherow/dp/0974717290

‘Edgy Chronicles’
An Evening of Readings by Cheryl Clarke and Janet Rose

Saturday, April 5, 7-9pm

Bluestockings Bookstore

172 Allen Street, NYC

(between Rivington and Stanton--F train to 2nd Ave; or W. Houston Bus to Allen St and walk south toward Stanton)

Two edgy lesbian authors read from their different but complementary genres for personal, artistic and political expression. Clarke, acclaimed activist, scholar, poet and essayist, is a prolific analyst and chronicler of struggle. Rose, activist, educator and psychologist, approaches issues through literary science fiction. Clarke will read from her published works, LIVING AS A LESBIAN, THE DAYS OF GOOD LOOKS: PROSE AND POETRY, 1980-2005. Rose will read from her published novel, BEYOND THE HORSE’S EYE —A FANTASY OUT OF TIME.

http://bluestockings.com/

http://www.WordSpacePublications.com