Sibling Rivalry Press is thrilled to announce the debut of Adrienne: a quarterly journal of lesbian poetry in January 2014. Adrienne is open to submissions from all lesbian, bisexual, and self-identified queer women. The project began as Lady Business, a celebration of lesbian poetry, published in 2012. In the same form as Assaracus, Sibling Rivalry Press’s journal of gay men’s poetry, Adrienne will feature a substantial profile of writing by ten to twelve emerging and established poets in each issue. This format showcases the diverse talents of lesbian writers in our community. Valerie Wetlaufer is the editor of Adrienne. The issues will release at the same time as Assaracus: in January, April, July, and October.
In the past three years, Sibling Rivalry Press has established itself as a LGBTQ publishing force with quality work by diverse authors, straight and LGBTIQ alike. Sibling Rivalry Press and Valerie Wetlaufer selected the name Adrienne as a tribute to Adrienne Rich. In a 1999 interview with Michael Klein, Adrienne Rich said,
There’s a lot of what I would call comfortable poetry around. But then there is all this other stuff going on—which is wilder, which is bristling; it’s juicier, it’s everything that you would want. And it’s not comfortable. That’s the kind of poetry that interests me—a field of energy. It’s intellectual and moral and political and sexual and sensual—all of that fermenting together. It can speak to people who have themselves felt like monsters and say: you are not alone, this is not monstrous. It can disturb and enrapture. (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/1in10/99/06/RICH.html)
Given Rich’s words and Sibling Rivalry Press’s overall mission is to publish work that disturbs and enraptures, it seemed fitting to honor Adrienne Rich in the title of the new lesbian poetry journal.
Editor Valerie Wetlaufer says of the new journal, “In Adrienne I hope to publish the best established lesbian poets alongside exciting emerging poets. I’m looking for all kinds of writing that captures the broad range of queer women’s experiences. I have no single aesthetic I want to promote, beyond really great poetry. I’m especially interested in writing by women of color and trans women.”
Wetlaufer continued, “The name Adrienne has special meaning to me, because it was her poem “Twenty-one Love Poems” that inspired me to write my first verse. Her line “Whatever else happens with us, your body will haunt mine” struck me to my core and I penned an elegy for my first love. I’m thrilled to provide a space for the work of other queer women poets. As more and more attention is brought to the inequities of traditional publishing, through the VIDA count and other venues, I think it’s vital to provide places that openly support work elsewhere-marginalized writers. Assaracus and Jonathan do that, and now we have Adrienne to do that as well.”
Valerie Wetlaufer’s first poetry collection Mysterious Acts by My People was chosen from the open submissions to Sibling Rivalry Press in 2012, and will be published in March 2014. She was previously a poetry editor of Quarterly West, and editorial assistant at Western Humanities Review and The Southeast Review. Wetlaufer holds a MA in Teaching from Bennington College, a MFA in Poetry from Florida State University, and a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from The University of Utah. In 2010, she was a Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Writers Retreat Fellow. She has published two chapbooks, Scent of Shatter (Grey Book Press 2010) and Bad Wife Spankings, winner of the 2010 Gertrude Press Chapbook Prize.
For Adrienne submission information, visit siblingrivalrypress.com. Subscriptions will be available after the first few issues, with the same structure, pricing, and discounts as are available with Assaracus.
