Judith Katz

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Judith Katz (born 1951) is an American playwright, thespian, and novelist. Her debut novel, Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound (1992), won a Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.

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Early life and education

Judith Katz was born in 1951 in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she grew up in a traditional Jewish family. [1] [2] [3]

She graduated with a bachelor's in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1973. [1] [2] While at UMass Amherst, she experienced homophobia at the student women's center, which led her to come out as a lesbian by publishing the article "Hard Ass Dyke Tells All" in the school newspaper. [1]

Career

Katz is known for her work as a playwright, novelist, and theater-maker. Katz's writing frequently features lesbian and Jewish characters, including in both of her novels. [1] [2]

Her first full-length play was The Franny Chicago Play, which was originally produced in 1973. [1] The play explores the relationships among three lesbian women, two of whom are grappling with the third's suicide. [4] [5]

Later in 1973, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where she worked with the Magic Theatre as a playwright-in-residence, technician, producer, and performer until 1977. [1] [2]

In 1977, she returned to western Massachusetts, where she obtained a master's in theater from Smith College in 1979 and co-founded the Chrysalis Theatre Eclectic. [1] For her master's thesis, she wrote Tribes: A Play of Dreams, a family drama with allusions to women's history. [2] [6]

Katz moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1983 to work with the feminist theater group At the Foot of the Mountain. [1] [7] While with the group, she wrote and performed in plays such as The Monster in My Mother's House. [8]

In 1992, she published her first novel, Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound. [1] [2] [3] [7] The book tells the story of a woman named Nadine Pagan as she deals with her difficult Jewish family and settles in a lesbian Jewish community known as New Chelm, featuring references to Jewish mysticism, including the dybbuk of Jewish folklore. [2] [9] [10] It won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction the following year. [1] [2] [11]

Her next novel, The Escape Artist, was released in 1997. [3] [7] A historical novel set in early 20th-century Poland and Argentina, it follows a Jewish lesbian girl navigating the underworld of Buenos Aires. [12]

From the early 1980s until her retirement in 2020, she also worked as an adjunct and academic advisor for the Departments of English and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota. [1] [2] [7] She also taught at the Loft Literary Center and as an adjunct at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Hamline University, and Macalester College. [1] [7] Additionally, Katz has long been involved in lesbian feminist and peace organizing. [1] [13]

Her papers are held as part of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries. [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Judith Katz Papers". University of Minnesota Libraries. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Shatzky, Joel; Taub, Michael (July 16, 1997). Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 166–173. ISBN   978-0-313-03329-2.
  3. 1 2 3 "Judith Katz". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  4. ↑ Koerner, Elaine (October 30, 1974). "The Blue Sneaker Playwright". Valley Advocate . Amherst, Massachusetts. p. 19. Retrieved June 26, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "The Franny Chicago Play". Lesbian Herstory Archives AudioVisual Collections. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  6. ↑ Kraft, Stephanie (May 9, 1979). "Tribal Histories". Valley Advocate . Amherst, Massachusetts. p. 31. Retrieved June 26, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Huynh, Hamy (May 15, 2020). "Judith Katz: Writer, Teacher, Academic Advisor, Troublemaker, Retiree". University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  8. ↑ "Playwright-actress to speak". Duluth News Tribune . May 26, 1984. p. 24. Retrieved June 26, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ Howe, Mica; Aguiar, Sarah Appleton (2001). He Said, She Says: An RSVP to the Male Text. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 34–36. ISBN   978-0-8386-3915-3.
  10. ↑ "Women's Fiction". Seattle Gay News . May 19, 1995. p. 57. Retrieved June 26, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "5th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary. July 14, 1993. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  12. ↑ Scott, Tara (December 20, 2017). "The Escape Artist by Judith Katz: Book Review". The Lesbian Review. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  13. ↑ Stern, Ella (September 25, 2024). "The Chain of History: a conversation with three Jewish lesbian activists". Minnesota Women's Press. Retrieved June 3, 2025.
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