Maureen Brady (born June 7, 1943) is an American writer, editor and educator. She is best known for her novels [1] Ginger's Fire, Folly, [2] and Give Me Your Good Ear. [3] [4] [5] [6] She currently lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, NY.
Brady was born on June 7, 1943, in Mount Vernon, New York and spent her adolescence in Florida. She practised as a physical therapist and also taught physical therapy at Russell Sage College, Troy, New York. [7] In 1977, she attended a New School workshop in writing which gave her the confidence to begin writing. [8] She currently lives in New York with her partner, Martha. [9]
In 1982, she wrote the novel Folly out of a desire to cast a woman who was an outsider in her community splintered by racism, homophobia, patriarchy and capitalism as a hero. [8] [10] The novel focuses on a workers strike of North Carolina garment workers with various sub-plots about the diverse set of characters lives in a segregated town. [8] [11] The novel has been described as "pro-labor, feminist, anti-racist, queer positive." [2] In 1994, it was reprinted as a classic by The Feminist Press. [12]
Brady has received awards and fellowships from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the New York State Creative Arts Public Service program [7] of the New York State Council on the Arts, the Briarcombe Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
In 1978, Brady founded the lesbian feminist publishing company Spinsters Ink with Judith McDaniel. [13] As one of the oldest lesbian feminist publishers in the world, Spinsters Ink is widely regarded as a pioneering feminist institution. [14] [15] [16] [17] Brady has served as the editor of many books, including The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde, Spinsters Ink (1980), and The Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire: Poetry and Prose by Kitty Tsui, Spinsters Ink (1983). [18]
A page from one of Brady's manuscripts was included in "Statements from Lesbian Artists", which accompanied the 1978 exhibition A Lesbian Show. [19] Curated by Harmony Hammond, the show was the first lesbian-identified art exhibition in the United States. [20] [19]
Brady has taught writing at Skidmore College, Bard College, and The Resource Center for Accessible Living in Kingston, NY. She currently teaches creative writing at New York University, the New York Writers Workshop and the Peripatetic Writing Workshop. [21] [22]
Brady serves as the board president of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. [23]
Cherríe Moraga is an influencial Chicana feminist writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. A prominent figure in Chicana literature and feminist theory, Moraga's work explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class, with particular emphasis on the experiences of Chicana and Indigenous women. She currently serves as Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Grace Atkinson, better known as Ti-Grace Atkinson, is an American radical feminist activist, writer and philosopher. She was an early member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and presided over the New York chapter in 1967–68, though she quickly grew disillusioned with the group. She left to form The Feminists, which she left a few years later due to internal disputes. Atkinson was a member of the Daughters of Bilitis and an advocate for political lesbianism. Atkinson has been largely inactive since the 1970s, but resurfaced in 2013 to co-author an open statement expressing radical feminists' concerns about what they perceived as the silencing of discussion around "the currently fashionable concept of gender."
Political lesbianism is a phenomenon within feminism, primarily second-wave feminism and radical feminism; it includes, but is not limited to, lesbian separatism. Political lesbianism asserts that sexual orientation is a political and feminist choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for women as part of the struggle against sexism.
Off Our Backs was an American radical feminist periodical that ran from 1970 to 2008, making it the longest-running feminist periodical in the United States. Marilyn Salzman-Webb and Marlene Wicks were among Off Our Backs original founders, creating the periodical in Washington, D.C. as a response to what many felt was an underrepresentation of the women’s liberation movement in mainstream media. It was a self-sustaining periodical edited and published by a collective of women consisting mainly of volunteers who practiced consensus decision-making. Reporting on feminism related topics, the periodical transitioned from a monthly to a bi-monthly newspaper, and ultimately to a quarterly magazine before financial difficulties led to its termination in 2008.
Beth E. Brant, Degonwadonti, or Kaieneke'hak was a Mohawk writer, essayist, and poet of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada. She was also a lecturer, editor, and speaker. She wrote based on her deep connection to her indigenous people and touched on the infliction of racism and colonization. She brought her writing to life from her personal experiences of being a lesbian, having an abusive spouse, and her mixed blood heritage from having a Mohawk father and a Scottish-Irish mother. Her published works include three edited anthologies and three books of essays and short stories.
Founded in Upstate New York in 1978 by Maureen Brady and Judith McDaniel, Spinsters Ink is one of the oldest lesbian feminist publishers in the world. It is currently owned by publisher Linda Hill, who purchased the Spinsters Ink in 2005. Hill also owns Bella Books and Beanpole Books.
Elana Dykewomon was an American lesbian activist, author, editor, and teacher. She was a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Joan E. Biren or JEB is an American feminist photographer and film-maker, who dramatizes the lives of LGBT people in contexts that range from healthcare and hurricane relief to womyn’s music and anti-racism. For portraits, she encourages sitters to act as her “muse”, rather than her “subject”. Biren was a member of The Furies Collective, a short-lived but influential lesbian commune.
Jeanne Córdova was an American writer and supporter of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. A former Catholic nun, Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and self-described butch.
Fag Rag was an American gay men's newspaper, published from 1971 until circa 1987, with issue #44 being the last known edition. The publishers were the Boston-based Fag Rag Collective, which consisted of radical writers, artists and activists. Notable members were Larry Martin, Charley Shively, Michael Bronski, Thom Nickels, and John Mitzel. In its early years the subscription list was between 400 and 500, with an additional 4,500 copies sold on newsstands and bookstores or given away.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is a collection of essential essays and speeches written by Audre Lorde, a writer who focuses on the particulars of her identity: Black woman, lesbian, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist. This collection, now considered a classic volume of Lorde's most influential works of non-fiction prose, has had a groundbreaking impact in the development of contemporary feminist theories. In fifteen essays and speeches dating from 1976 to 1984, Lorde explores the complexities of intersectional identity, while explicitly drawing from her personal experiences of oppression to include sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and ageism. The book examines a broad range of topics, including love, self-love, war, imperialism, police brutality, coalition building, violence against women, Black feminism, and movements towards equality that recognize and embrace differences as a vehicle for change. With meditative conscious reasoning, Lorde explores her misgivings for the widespread marginalization deeply-rooted in the United States' white patriarchal system, all the while, offering messages of hope. The essays in this landmark collection are extensively taught and have become a widespread area of academic analysis. Lorde's philosophical reasoning that recognizes oppressions as complex and interlocking designates her work as a significant contribution to critical social theory.
Adrienne J. Smith (1934–1992) was an American psychologist. She came out as a lesbian in 1973 and became one of the first openly out lesbian psychologists in the American Psychological Association (APA). She worked for reforms in the APA and spoke on LGBT rights across the country.
Aswat - Palestinian Feminist Center for Gender and Sexual Freedoms, also known as Aswat, is an Israel-based feminist organization that advocates for lesbians and other LGBT women in the Palestinian community. The group started as an online platform in 2000, started having the regular meetings in 2001 and was joined Kayan-Feminist Organization in 2003 as an independent project, making it the first Palestinian organization for Queers and lesbians (LBTIQ). It was initially membership-based, but has since transitioned to a movement-based structure. It is based in Haifa, Israel.
Mother Journeys: Feminists Write about Mothering is a collection of essays, poems, cartoons, and drawings edited by Maureen T. Reddy, Martha Roth, and Amy Sheldon and published by Spinsters Ink in 1994. The collection was among the first books to address the topic of mothering from a specifically feminist perspective at a time when many assumed "feminism and mothering were mutually incompatible".
The Women in Print Conference was a conference of feminist women involved in publishing, including workers from feminist bookstores, in the United States. It was conceptualized by June Arnold and involved networking and workshops. The conference was held three times: in 1976, 1981 and 1985.
Elaine Mikels was an American activist and social worker. In 1960 she opened Conard House, the first psychiatric halfway house in San Francisco. She wrote an autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess: From Closet Lesbian to Radical Dyke (1993). Her papers are held in the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.
Ginny Z. Berson is a radical lesbian feminist, political activist, and community organizer who lived and worked collectively as a lesbian separatist with The Furies Collective and Olivia Records.
Joan Drury was an American novelist, book publisher, book seller, and philanthropist. She owned Spinsters, Ink, a publishing company that focused on books by women, especially those identifying as lesbian. She was the author of a series of mystery novels featuring a lesbian protagonist, Tyler Jones, and owned and operated a bookshop, Drury Lane Books, in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Drury won several awards for her services to publishing as well as for her own writing, including a Lambda Literary Award. She was also a philanthropist who sponsored writers' retreats, and created the National Lesbian Writer’s Award.
Lea Hopkins is an American LGBT rights activist and poet from Missouri, best known for founding Kansas City's pride parade.
Speak Out was a second-wave feminist newsletter, launched in 1977 by the Brixton Black Women's Group (BBWG). The aim of the newsletter was to keep alive the debate about the relevance of feminism to black politics and provided a black women's perspective on immigration, housing, health and culture.