Reflecting Back on Sinister Wisdom 94: Lesbians and Exile (2014) with Joan Nestle and Yasmin Tambiah

How did Sinister Wisdom 94: “Lesbians and Exile” come to be?

Yasmin and Joan: We met over twenty-five years ago at the first literary awards night of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation in New York City. At that time, we were both living in the United States. In 2003, we talked about working on an anthology on the theme “Questions of Home: Lesbians and Exile,” but no publisher was interested. Joan was living in Australia by then, and Yasmin was based in Sri Lanka and traveling widely for work. Yasmin communicated with Joan about the consequences of the war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE), and the fallout on Tamils in the country as well as on people of other ethnic groups. Yasmin later moved to Australia, where her family had sought refuge as a consequence of the war. When the opportunity arose for us to be guest editors for Sinister Wisdom, we saw the chance to finally explore a topic that had been on our minds for so long.

What were you most proud of in the issue?

Joan: Wonderful to look down at the cover art by Naina Ayya, and to know the issue exists. The privilege of having the opportunity to create a little world in collaboration with Yasmin, and to be part of extending the world of Sinister Wisdom into new geographies. Meeting writers new to me, to us. It is an experience we would highly recommend–not without its challenges for editors and contributors alike but well worth it. It was the enactment of a vision, an exploration compelled by our life experiences and our political, cultural positioning.

Yasmin: “Lesbians and Exile” afforded us the opportunity to explore whether and how the term “exile” could be opened up to reflect on different types of alienation, not only the one we are most familiar with, namely alienation from geological formations and geographies, as well as related histories and genealogies. Naina Ayya’s exquisite cover image for the issue, titled “Travelers on a Journey”, reflects beautifully the idea of continuous motion, often towards unknown or uncertain destinations, while signalling the attendant transformations to survive and recoup, which are at the core of exilic experiences. Like Joan, it was wonderful to engage with the range of representations/voices from around the world, to be surprised and moved by the unexpected, and to co-witness and co-midwife (including with the support of Julie Enszer) the conscious internationalization of Sinister Wisdom.

What was most challenging?

Joan: What I have learned over the years, both in my thinking and in my actual living place, is that once I left the white American center, things I thought were worse than ever are actually long continuing histories of dispossession. Yasmin often brought me up short by her quiet question, why does this seem so bad to you now, Joan? Working together from our different cultural histories, bridged by our late twentieth century lesbian experiences, I learned to deeply appreciate the questions that shake certainties. Working on the topic of exile is not a comfortable undertaking, and we hope that the reader from time to time also experienced some decentering, some shift of the lesbian expected. We were not satisfied with our exploration, we know there are many more voices to be heard, to be encouraged, we know more fine writing is waiting to be shared, we are curious about how younger writers read the word exile, if social media changes the experience—so much more.

Yasmin: Co-editing with Joan was an invaluable experience. We challenged and accommodated each other. And compromised when needed – after lots of debate. Laughter is so essential to such engagement! As is nourishment: Joan’s wonderful cooking in Melbourne when I visited; and refuge in the foyer bar of a hotel while planning the issue during Joan’s visit to Sydney, where we drank copious amounts of coffee and cucumber-infused iced water. I was reminded by Joan of the need for balance – how to include novelty and unfamiliar perspectives while also offering some views that were more familiar to the existing Sinister Wisdom readership. There were some submissions we thought we should have included but weren’t able to because of the word count and deadlines. For instance, there was a short story we could not possibly have asked the author to trim because it would have compromised that piece. Perhaps it’s time to do a second issue on the theme, also because of where the world is at now?

What impact do you think your issue had?

Joan: If the issue reached new readers from countries outside the American center, if it encouraged lesbian writers and artists from the Middle East, from South East Asia, from Eastern Europe, from Russia, from the Asian diaspora, from Australia to see the pages of Sinister Wisdom as a possible home for their creations, we feel the issue was a success. Many of our writers were in transit, looking for safe places to continue their lives, writers like Samar Habib and Mariam Gagoshashvili, who amidst their travails, sent us markings of their journeys. Having their work in the world makes this issue a success for us.

Yasmin: Julie reported that the issue sold out quickly. Given the inability to more closely assess its impact, I’d like to think it’s because it was an unusual theme and the voices in it, whether familiar or new, whether American or from elsewhere in the world, were compelling and provocative in their articulations. Existing Sinister Wisdom readers took a punt, which I hope was rewarding, and we know Sinister Wisdom 94 made its way to new readers courtesy of the published contributors and others they shared their Sinister Wisdom issue with.

What does Sinister Wisdom mean to you?

Joan: Publications like Sinister Wisdom, like Azalea, like Lesbian Connection, like Conditions, like Heresies, like 13th Moon, helped inspire the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974. We knew how precious these volumes were, mappings of our cultural imaginations. When Yasmin and I finished Sinister Wisdom 94, put it to bed, so to speak, I carefully cataloged all the manuscripts, correspondence, putting them in an archival acid-free box for their eventual home in the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives. But the box is an illusion. These writings will continue to do their work in the world as visitors, researchers, writers, adventurers find them. Because of my life-long connection to LHA, I do not share the worries that our lesbian cultures are disappearing in a broadening of all the ways we can be gender and sexually different, in the expanding alphabet of our communities. I have seen the vitality of our creations, the complex richness of our visions, sometimes as important in their failings as in their accomplishments. Now so many years later, I am so grateful that Sinister Wisdom is vibrantly alive and has given Yasmin and me another chapter in our friendship.

Yasmin: Sinister Wisdom is a grand old dame of the feminist dyke literary and creative scene. Its editors have included transnational and American feminist lesbians whose writings have inspired and sustained me, such as Michelle Cliff and Adrienne Rich. It’s wonderful to have special Sinister Wisdom publications such as The Complete Works of Pat Parker, and those “Aha” moments of recognition on reading Cheryl Clarke’s words in Sinister Wisdom over the years. Sinister Wisdom offers the possibility of seeing both new and familiar voices growing a tradition, and taking it down unexplored cataracts and through unmapped gorges, travels that could expand its readership and keep connecting lesbians across borders and transnationally.

Bar Dykes – a one act play by Merril Mushroom
Link for tickets: https://www.tososnyc.org

by DiAnna Fitztola

The year is 1958, when women were still called girls, and many lesbians were playing butch/femme roles to navigate their lives and desires. The tension women experienced having to keep their lesbian identity under wraps outside the bar plays out in relationship drama, family rejections, and the fear of being harassed, assaulted, and possibly arrested. Merril Mushroom animates all of these tensions to the audience of Bar Dykes, currently being staged in New York City at The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS), the oldest and longest producing LGBTQ+ theatre company. Mushroom also shows characters who love and laugh and dance and defy society’s constraints.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikiodo

The women onstage in Bar Dykes embody butches and femmes as well as a couple of characters who “switch.” The multiracial cast strays from the reality of the segregated social scenes of 1958 but it works to bring the lived experience of lesbians to a wider audience. Throughout the play, lesbians see reflections of themselves. Linda struts and cruises femmes. Joyce breaks down when her mother learns that Joyce is gay (both women and men used “gay” then). Elaine, a new girl in town, is shy and nervous when approaching the more sophisticated Cynthia.

The entwined stories of the women in Bar Dykes reveal who dated who before now, who wishes they could get back together, and how this bar is one of the few places to be fully themselves. Within the play are a vibrant array of women: regulars and newbies, fragile and cocky, eager and reticent. The bartender, Bo, oversees everyone with a slight smirk, a practiced distance, and an eye to sort out trouble before it goes too far, most of the time.

The set features the bar on one side and the jukebox on the other, with formica and chrome tables in between. The lighting is wonderful; lighting and sound transitions show time passing effectively.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikiodo

The show isn’t perfect. At times, the pacing of the dialogue feels rushed, especially since the action takes place all in one night. The staging is in the “round,” which allows for intimacy with the action but also inhibits some audience members from seeing fully (the back row of seats is not raised up for all sections). Some of the characters are less believable and given very little to say. It was obvious the actors were not regular smokers (in 1958 everyone smoked at the bar), though I appreciated the use of e-cigarettes that could be “lit” and used in all the ways that cigarettes were used for connection, flirtation, and timing of conversations. Overall, the depiction of what was known as a “girl bar,” is believable, and the progression of the night from first-drink flirtation through late-night drunken fighting feels all-too-relatable.

If you’re in NYC, go see Bar Dykes. We need to remember not only who we were, but how far we have come. It has been 50 years since the Stonewall Riots, and lesbians are still fighting for our rights as full human beings. In Bar Dykes, we can see that not only have we come out of the darkness and secrecy of the bar, we also have come a long way in understanding our worth and having pride in who we are and how we love.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikiodo

Merril Mushroom, Rose Norman, and Kate Ellison are the editors of Sinister Wisdom 98: Landykes of the South. Sinister Wisdom 98 is a special issue of Sinister Wisdom where memoirs, interviews, essays and artifacts from the Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory’s Project, a project of Womonwrites, the Southeast Lesbian Writer’s Conference were featured. The collection of Landyke stories begin in 1969 with the possibly first Lesbian land group in the country, and comes to an end through the storytelling present at the end of the twentieth century, more specifically 1998 with Maat Dompim.

Merril, Rose and Kate responded to these questions about Sinister Wisdom 98: Landykes of the South and the challenges and pride that came with editing it.

1. Tell me about the issue of Sinister Wisdom that you edited. What were you most proud of in the issue? What was most challenging?

Merril: Getting herstories of landykes into print so women who didn't know about this, would. We have a whole new generation that this is new for. Difficulties were getting folks to meet deadlines and, most especially, cutting these wonderful stories so they'd fit within the even extended wordcount.

Rose: From our interviews with landykes living in the South, we pulled together stories of 19 different women’s lands, eleven of them still going concerns, plus stories about culture that supports and connects the women’s land movement—Maize, Shewolf’s Directory, Lesbian Natural Resources—and related topics, such as Naj’s story of being a traveling dyke and Merril’s interviews with young lesbians’ more recent experiences with collective living.

The timeline of 51 women’s lands in the South was the most challenging to create and also the thing I’m most proud of in the issue.

Kate: Sinister Wisdom 98: Landykes of the South contained beautiful, compelling stories of lesbian lives lived in community, with careful intention to create something new. It contained my story, and it was the first time I was challenged to write the whole story of my land, from my point of view. It had to be cut deeply (from 4000 down to 1500 words) to fit, and that was terribly difficult. I had to put together one of my friend’s stories from an interview, and then drastically cut it, and that was hard. The reward is that finally I got to share this story with a wide group of lesbians. Beyond my story, it was extremely rewarding to work with Rose and Merril to create this tangible, readable volume from our imaginations.

2. What impact do you think your issue had?

Merril: Many lesbians, especially younger ones, didn't know about the landdyke movement. They've learned something about our herstory and struggles. Also, several of the younger lesbians I know who are currently trying to live collectively on the land were interested to find that we had the same struggles back then that they do now. Then, the fact that ALL the material can be accessed through the archives makes it available to impact lesbians who may be interested in the future.

Rose: I think it was a positive for women’s lands. Since then, and directly because of this issue, Full Circle Farm got new residents who found it from reading our issue. After they moved there and had lived there awhile, Lynn Hicks decided to will them her share. The story of Maat Dompim –a land group started by the women who created the women of color tent at MichFest and intended as permanent space for women of color to gather--may be coming back out of dormancy under new ownership (see a 2017 update here)

Kate: I know it was well-received because it had to be re-printed!

3. What does Sinister Wisdom mean to you?

Merril: What SINISTER WISDOM means to me is that there is hope for the future for lesbian-feminists to persist even though so many lesbian-feminist publications are defunct. SW provides hope, support, information, enjoyment, and a sense of home for us in the cultural alphabet soup we seem to be disappeared into. I was present for the conception of SW at a meeting with Catherine & Harriet (see my Knoxville writing group piece this issue and also my piece in the 30th anniversary issue) and had a story in the very first issue of SW which motivated me to do much more writing for lesbian publications.

Rose: I had been a subscriber for several years before seeing SW as a place to publish the stories of lesbian feminist activism that we have been gathering. Like the women’s land groups, SW supports and sustains lesbian culture, much in the way that Maat Dompim was intended to sustain women of color.

[NOTE: In talking with Merril and Kate about this, I thought it interesting that though Merril and I were both subscribers—Merril since the very beginning of SW—neither of us thought of publishing our herstoirs there. Kate didn’t even know it was still in print. Barbara Ester was the one who suggested we pitch the stories to you. Merril adds that part about being in on the conception of SW in a followup email, and she has written about that for SW twice, the second time in her Knoxville Writers Group story for SW117.]

Kate: Before the Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project, I was not aware that Sinister Wisdom was still publishing. In the past, I viewed it to be out of my reach, yet as a result of this issue and the on-going series, it has become part of my life. I have been in contact with skilled writers and editors, and I am grateful.

4. Is there anything about the issue you edited that you would change now?

Merril: The only thing I would change about the issue is for it to be even longer, and I know Julie (thank you) bent the word count requirements so we could do as much as we did.

Rose: I learned about at least one more Southern women’s land I wish we had included, Yellowhammer, 80 acres in northwest Arkansas, which Trella Laughlin contacted me about after she read the issue.

Kate: Hard to imagine what I would do differently besides allowing it to be twice as long! We so appreciate that Julie allowed it to run long, and she had to do extra fund-raising to accomplish that! Yet we could easily have filled two volumes.

5. What lesbian literature or creative work has impacted you since working with Sinister Wisdom?

Merril: Not a whole lot actually impacts me that much anymore, but I wallowed in the pleasure of reading a beautifully written novel by Edith Konecky, A PLACE AT THE TABLE, because it was about an old Jewish lesbian writer which I, too, am, and finding all of that in one character is rare.

Rose: I’m very immersed in the Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project. The Pagoda interviews I did for the Pagoda story that Merril wrote for the Landykes issue led me to start working on a book about this lost lesbian treasure, once known as “lesbian paradise” by the sea in Florida.

Kate: I take myself more seriously as a writer now. However, I have primarily immersed myself in the task of growing the Democratic Party in a small, rural, conservative county. It has been hugely rewarding and hugely frustrating. One of the rewards is to know and work with local community leaders, who are primarily African American. Democrats here are a mix of African Americans who have lived here most of their lives, deeply rooted in their communities and churches; and white people who (ALL) moved here from somewhere else for the beauty and space of rural living, and the affordable land. I never bring up my sexual orientation. Well, I did once, and the woman I was talking to said her pastor tells her to abhor the sin and love the sinner. She went to the AME church, which I thought might be more progressive. So, Democrats voting, that is the focus.

It takes a very long time to knock on doors and find people who will register to vote, intend to vote for Democrats, and get them actually voting. It takes hours to call them and urge them to vote. Active Democrats in my county were those who showed up for a meeting once a month, and worked on voting for a couple of months before each election. There is so much more to do and so few hands on deck.

Today, we were four Democrats in blue t-shirts at an African-American neighborhood event, to register people to vote, and collect signatures on the ballot petition to expand Medicaid (because Flori-duh). It was very productive for us, with six voter registrations (new or change of address) and 29 petitions signed!

Order Sinister Wisdom 98: Landykes of the South today!

Author Megan Volpert is seeking 75 queer writers in all genres to contribute to Closet Cases, a forthcoming anthology on queer fashion (Et Alia Press, spring 2020). Submission guidelines here: http://www.meganvolpert.com/closet-cases.html

As a verb, "fashion" is exceedingly queer. Our queer community learns to fashion its identity out of the clothes we wear, the costumes we choose, the fabrics we desire--and the statements these make. No other community of people allows clothing to serve as such a primary, dominant marker of subjectivity, both individually and collectively. And we don't simply permit it; we rely upon it. Queers communicate through what we put on our bodies. So this is not merely a "fashion book." It's a collection of artifacts that testify to the power of fashion as a verb, to the complex and lovely strategies that govern what we do in the LGBTIQ community to build authentic selves that are both comfortable and seen.

Each contributor will get a two-page spread with photo of their clothing and accompanying text explaining its significance. This gorgeous, full-color coffee table book will be published by Et Alia Press in spring 2020. Deadline July 15.

PHOTO SUBMISSIONS:

-Photograph must include item of clothing
-Author may or may not be pictured with item
-Hi-resolution files preferred, pixelated photos will be rejected
-Square-shaped photos preferred, photos may be cropped
-Full-color, relatively unfiltered/unedited photos preferred
-All-ages appropriate background, no drugs/violence

TEXT SUBMISSIONS:

-Text must address item in photo
-All genres & mixed/experimental genres welcome
-Must fit on one standard page, about 350 words max

GENERAL INFO:

-Simultaneous submissions welcome
-Multiple submissions welcome, just fill out separate form for each
-Expect notification of your submission status by August 1, 2019
-Direct any other inquiries to the editor, Megan Volpert