Our Contributors

• Katherine Arnup is a historian, interdisciplinary scholar, and associate professor in the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of the award-winning book Education for Motherhood: Advice for Mothers in Twentieth-Century Canada and of more than two dozen articles on motherhood and on lesbian and gay families. She served as an expert witness in the Ontario and British Columbia marriage cases. She is writing a book on death and dying about her experiences caring for her sister and her parents and working as a hospice volunteer.
• M. V. Lee Badgett is professor of economics and director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also the research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at UCLA. in 2008, Curve magazine named her one of the twenty most powerful lesbians in academia. In 2010, she was an expert witness in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. Badgett lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her wife, Elizabeth Silver, and their two dogs.
• Gloria Bigelow has appeared in three comedy specials for television, her most recent being Fierce Funny Women, currently airing on Showtime. She was also featured in the film Laughing Matters . . . Next Gen, which documented the lives and performances of five up-and-coming comics. She has performed at numerous festivals, including the New York Underground Comedy Festival, Michigan Gay and Lesbian Comedy Fest, the Outlaugh Comedy Festival, and Womenfest in Key West. Glo, as she is called, is currently chronicling her life as a black kid in the white suburbs.
• Jennifer Camper is a cartoonist whose books include Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and subGURLZ, and she is the editor of two Juicy Mother comix anthologies. Her cartoons and illustrations have appeared in magazines, newspapers, comic books, and anthologies, and have been exhibited internationally. Visit her website at www.jennifercamper.com.
• Mary Beth Caschetta is the author of a book of short stories and a recipient of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their standard poodle, Violette Leduc. She is working on a novel.
• Patricia Cronin is a visual artist and a professor of art at Brooklyn College, CUNY. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Visual Art from the American Academy in Rome, Italy. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited extensively in the United States and Internationally, and are in numerous collections, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and the gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Scotland. Visit her website at www.patriciacronin.net.
• Rachel Darling works as an advertising copywriter by day and a jazz singer/songwriter by night, performing at clubs in the twin cities. She lives in Minneapolis with her author wife, Kimberly J. Brown, and probably too many pets.
• Emily Douglas is the web editor at The Nation and formerly an editor at RH Reality Check. She has written on LGBT issues, reproductive health, women’s rights, and the law for those publications as well as for The Women’s Review of Books, The American Prospect, and others; she blogs at TheNation.com. From 2004 to 2006, she worked in legal advocacy at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
• Erika W. Dyson is a poet, former theatrical costumer, and current assistant professor of American religious history at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. Her research centers on church/ state separation, science and religion, stage magic history, and people who talk to dead people. Her current book project examines the pros ecution of spiritualist mediums and ministers arrested under fortune-telling laws at the turn of the twentieth century.
• Sara Felder is a solo theater artist, playwright, humorist, activist, and juggler, based in Oakland, California. Her solo plays, all comedies, have included the themes of Jewish same-sex marriage (June Bride), the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Out of Sight), mental illness (Melancholy, A Comedy), and grief (A Queer Divine). Felder ran away with San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus, was a featured act in Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades, toured cuba with Jugglers for Peace, opened for Joan Rivers, taught juggling in california prisons, and continues to perform and teach all over the world. Visit her website at www.sarafelder.com.
• Caroline Gambell graduated from Pomona College in 2008 with a degree in gender and women’s studies. Since graduation she has been an intern in public radio, a freelance writer and copyeditor, a nanny, a legal assistant, a clerk in a wine store, and a researcher in child development. She’s pretty sure she wants to be a high school english teacher when she grows up. Caroline is currently a master’s student at the Bread Loaf School of English, and lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
• Cate Glass is a bike-commuting queer girl who has lived on both coasts. She is passionate about gender justice and equality in education, and she hates scented candles. She married Annie on July 2, 2011,in a long white dress. Visit her blog at www.categlass.wordpress.com.
• Susan Goldberg is a freelance writer, and co-editor of the anthology And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our Unexpected Families (Insomniac Press, 2009). She lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, with her partner and their two sons, where she blogs about cancer, sleep deprivation, small-town queer life, writing, and more at www.mamanongrata.com.
• Stephanie Hallett is a writer from Toronto, Canada. She was the director of a hip-hop dance company for girls in Vancouver before moving to Los Angeles, where she now lives with her husband and is associate editor of Weddings for the Huffington Post.
• Holly Hughes is a writer/performer who was either Jesse Helms’s favorite or least favorite lesbian, or possibly both. her books include Clit Notes, O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (co-edited with David Roman), and the forthcoming Memories of the Revolution (co-edited with Carmelita Tropicana). A 2010–11 Guggenheim Fellow, Hughes is currently touring a monologue, The Dog and Pony Show. She and her coconspirator, Esther Newton, are professors at the University of Michigan. When not promoting homosexuality in the classroom, they compete in dog agility with their three poodles and two terriers.
• Kate Kendell has been executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights since 1996. Previously, she was the first staff attorney for the ACLU of Utah. She lives in San Francisco with her spouse, Sandy Holmes, and their two children. (Kate also has an older daughter.)
• Davina Kotulski, Ph. D, is a psychologist, life coach, and the author of Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage (2004) and Love Warriors: The Rise of the Marriage Equality Movement and Why It Will Prevail (2010). She has appeared in several documentaries, including Freedom to Marry and Pursuit of Equality. Davina currently leads self-empowerment, creativity, and coming-out workshops. Visit her website at www.davinakotulski.com.
• J. Keiko Lane is a poet, essayist, and psychotherapist. in addition to her literary writing, which has been published in journals and anthologies, she also writes essays about the intersections of queer culture, oppression resistance, and liberation psychology. She lives with her family in Berkeley, California, where she maintains a private psychotherapy practice and teaches undergraduate writing and graduate psychology and cultural studies. Visit her website at www.keikolanemft.com.
• Leslie Lange lives in Yucca Valley, california, and is the author of the lesbian self-help manifesto Dyke Drama: Your Guide to Getting Out Alive. She also co-wrote (and had two cameos in) the award-winning short film Tools 4 Fools.
• Kari Lerum is an associate professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences and cultural studies at the University of Washington, Bothell, and an adjunct professor in gender, women, and sexuality studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research, teaching, and everyday life musings often dwell at the intersections of sexuality, institutions, and culture.
• Joan Lipkin is a writer, director, social activist, and cultural critic who divides her time between St. Louis, New York City, and other parts of the country. Her work is widely anthologized, most recently in Women’s Comedic Art as Social Revolution, Out & Allied, Feminist Disability Studies, and The Best American Short Plays 2005–2006, and has been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and the U.K. She would be happy to shop for a wedding dress, as long as it’s her own.
• Phyllis Lyon is one of the pioneering lesbian activists of the twentieth century. She and her late wife, Del Martin, were among the cofounders of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first U.S. social and political organization for lesbians, and they edited the lesbian journal The Ladder. Phyllis and Del were also the first lesbian couple to join NoW and were active in San Francisco’s first gay political club, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. trained as a journalist, Phyllis also wrote two books with Del: Lesbian/Woman and Lesbian Love and Liberation. Phyllis and Del were the first same-sex couple to be legally wed in california—twice.
• Wendy MacLeod’s plays have been produced around the country, including at The Goodman Theater, Steppenwolf, Second Stage, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle rep, and the Magic Theater. Her play The House of Yes was made into an award-winning feature film. She is published by dramatists Play Service and Playscripts, Inc.
• Mary Meriam’s poems have appeared recently in the New York Times, Poetry Foundation, American Life in Poetry, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Bridges, Journal of Lesbian Studies, and the anthologies Two Weeks, Hot Sonnets, and Gay and Gray. She is the author of The Countess of Flatbroke and The Poet’s Zodiac, and the editor of Filled with Breath: 30 Sonnets by 30 Poets and Lavender Review.
• Colleen Michaels is director of the Writing Center at Montserrat College of Art, where she hosts The Improbable Places Poetry Tour. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Patterson Literary Review, Blue Collar Review, The Mom Egg, and Literary Mama, and her poem “Align” appears in an art installation at Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts. She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts, with her family and is a member of the Salem Writers group.
• Caridad Moro is a first-generation Cuban American who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Miami. Her chapbook, Visionware, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009 as part of their celebrated New Women’s Voices Series. She is the recipient of an artist fellowship for poetry from the state of Florida and has been thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Moro is an English professor at Miami Dade College and an English instructor for Dade County Public Schools in Miami, where she resides with her nine-year-old son and her partner, fellow poet Stacie M. Kiner. Visit her website at www.southernartistry.org/caridad_Mccormick.
• Lesléa Newman is the author of 64 books for readers of all ages, including Donovan’s Big Day, a picture book about a young boy who has a very big job to do on the day his two moms wed. Other titles include the novel, The Reluctant Daughter, the short story collection, A Letter to Harvey Milk, and the children’s classic, Heather Has Two Mommies. A past poet laureate of Northampton, MA, Lesléa teaches in the Spalding brief-residency MFA in Writing program. October Mourning: A Song For Matthew Shepard, a poetry collection that explores how the murder of Matthew Shepard impacted the world, is forthcoming from Candlewick Press in the fall of 2012. www.lesleanewman.com
• For over 25 years, critically acclaimed writer/performer Monica Palacios is widely recognized as working at the forefront of Chicana/Latina, lesbian, queer, feminist performance. She has been featured as the subject of critical discussion by leading scholars, activists and artists concerned with matters of social justice and human rights. Palacios has written several one-woman shows and plays including:  Latin Lezbo Comic; Sweet Peace, Clock, Miercoles Loves Luna and Prom.  Her plays, short stories, poems and essays, have been published in numerous pivotal anthologies such as: Out of The Fringe; Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About; and Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology.  She is on the cover and featured in the book: Homecoming Queers: Desire & Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production by Professor Marivel Danielson. Monica’s performances and publications continue to be studied in universities nationally and internationally.  Please visit http://www.monicapalacios.com and check out her new blog at the website she helped launch www.Epochalips.com  a cyber community for lesbians and allies.
• N’Jai-An Patters has a Ph. D. in history from the University of Minnesota. She writes about gender and sexuality in modern America and works as a social studies teacher in Minneapolis, where she lives with her partner, Kelly.
• Heather Purser, one of only two female commercial divers for the Suquamish Indian Nation of Washington State, writes and speaks fearlessly about her life and experiences growing up a multicultural lesbian member of her small tribe. in 2011, she successfully completed her efforts to bring about the legalization of same-sex marriage within Suquamish tribal law. She lives on Capitol Hill in Seattle with her “roommate” Becca.
• Chella Quint is a comedy writer and performer living in Sheffield, England, but she’s originally from New York. She’s behind the Adventures in Menstruating zine series, as well as a number of other comedy writing and performance projects that reflect her inner (and, okay, outer) geek. She still loves weddings. Visit her website at www.chellaquint.com.
• Kimberly Reed is a Montana-born filmmaker now living in New York City. Her very personal documentary Prodigal Sons has won more than a dozen awards and has been shown around the world in theaters and on television. She was named one of OUT magazine’s “Out 100” in 2010 and has been featured on such media outlets as The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NPR, Details magazine, and “The Moth.” She is also the recipient of a 2008 Yaddo residency. In Kim’s next film, 50 States of Wedlock, she and her fiancée claire will request a marriage license in each state. Visit her website at www.kimberlyreed.com.
• Amelia Sauter is a writer, cartoonist, martini lounge owner, and musician from Ithaca, NY. She pens a humor column and scribbles cartoons for The Ithaca Post, and shares cocktail and culinary adventures in Edible Finger Lakes, the Finger Lakes Wine Gazette, and at www.feliciaspeakeasy.com. She describes meeting her soon-to-be-wifey in Dear John, I Love Jane (Seal Press, 2010). Unless they lose their minds in the throes of wedding planning, Amelia (right) and Leah (left) will be legally wed in New York State on September 22, 2012. www.drinkmywords.com.
• Judy Scheer is a writer, actor, comedy improviser, and creative strategist. With careers intersecting advertising, broadcasting, and entertainment, she has numerous radio, theater, television, film, commercial, voice-over, and creative campaign credits. This is her first cartoon collaboration. She is married and lives in Los Angeles. Visit her websites, judyscheer.com and yesdesigngroup.com.
• Stephanie Schroeder is an anti-assimilationist queer feminist dyke writer and activist.
  Her work has been anthologized in That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting
  Assimilation, Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex, Hot & Bothered: Short, Short
  Fiction on Lesbian Desire, volumes 3 & 4. She was also an original reviewer for Erotic
  New York: The Best Sex in the City. She is currently a Contributing Editor at Curve Magazine and the Hooked-Up Blog blogger at Curvemag.com. Her journalism can also be found on Shewired.com and at LesbianLife at About.com. Schroeder Schroeder lives in Brooklyn, New York. www.stephanieschroeder.com
• Bette Skandalis lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her lover, Jo, and her dog, Jimmy. She has read her story “Frosting on the Cake” on NPR, and is currently working on a memoir about growing up in a Greek family obsessed with grape leaves. You can find her stories at http://betteskandalis.wordpress.com.
• Melissa Sky is a proud femme lesbian, feminist writer, and filmmaker. She has a Ph. D. in English Literature from McMaster University. You can read more of her work in Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, Twilight Tales, and Judging a Book by Its Cover. her award-winning LGBT films are featured at www.femmefilms.ca.
• Jen Sorensen is a cartoonist and writer best known for her political cartoon, Slowpoke, which has appeared in the Village Voice, Ms. magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and on Daily Kos and NPR.org. Visit her website at www.slowpokecomics.com.
• Lydia Stryk has been living in a bi-national partnership with a German woman for two decades and is based in Berlin. She and her partner will continue to have no legal rights to live together in America unless DOMA is repealed or federal marriage made legal for all citizens. Her plays, including Monte Carlo, The House of Lily, The Glamour House, American Tet, An Accident and Lady Lay have been produced at, among others, Denver Center Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, the Magic Theatre and in Germany at Schauspiel Essen, Theaterhaus Stuttgart and the English Theater Berlin. http://www.lydiastryk.com
• Linda Villarosa is a writer and editor who runs the journalism program at the City College of New York in Harlem. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, their two kids, a dog, and a cat.
• Candace Walsh is the author of Licking the Spoon (Seal Press, Spring 2012), a food memoir. She is also the editor of the Seal Press anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her wife, Laura André, their two children, and two dogs.
• Helen Zia, former executive editor of Ms. magazine, is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (FSg, 2000) and coauthor with Wen Ho Lee of My Country Versus Me (Hyperion, 2002).

About the Editors

• Audrey Bilger is the faculty director of the center for Writing and Public discourse and associate professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College.
• Michele Kort is a longtime journalist, senior editor of Ms. magazine, and co-editor of the Ms. Blog. She is the author of three books: Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro; The End of Innocence (with Chastity Bono); and Dinah! Three Decades of Sex, Golf, & Rock ’n’ Roll. She loves basketball, ’60s soul music, and chocolate-chip cookies. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their two corgis.