NaNoWriMo – National (lesbian) Novel Writing Month
Latest word count: 7177 (41,833 words to go…)
I’m writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve decided to do it here, and will be adding to this post throughout the month. The task is to write 50,000 words between November 1-30th. We’re not supposed to edit or review so this is the first draft, ...
Lesbian Travel Information
The information on this page is provided by Montreal-based Girlports Lesbian Travel Guide. According to Girlports:
- Girlports was launched by Tanya Churchmuch, a longtime broadcast and print journalist and public relations veteran, as a result of her own frustration with the lack of resources available to lesbian travelers. “It’s so annoying for lesbians looking for easily accessible, up-to-date travel information written just for them, especially free travel information,” said Churchmuch. “Many websites sell themselves as providing resources for the LGBT traveler, but unfortunately, the “G” always seems to win out. I figured if nobody else was going to create the resource I wanted, I’d have to do it myself.”
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Lesbian Band wins WAMA Award for Best Duo/Group in the Hard Rock category
Okay, they’re not local gals, but good on them for winning this mainstream music award. Congratulations Wicked Jezabel.
Recent email to LQ:
I am a member of Wicked Jezabel, the Baltimore-DC area’s only all-female, all-gay party band. I would like to announce that on Feb 17, 2008, we were awarded the “Wammy Award” for “Best duo/group in Hard Rock” category for 2007 by the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA). ”We’re probably not only the first all-female band to win a Wammie, but we’re the only all-lesbian band to win a Wammie in 22 years.” I hope you find this announcement is of interest to our community.
Thank you,
Mickey Dehn
“Lately Musings” – Cherilyn Fry
Out of the closet
And into the fire
Hotter than hell the flames lick my face
As my lover
Cools my heels
Out of the closet
And into the sidewalk
Walking as a female looking kind of like a guy
And for once
I am not afraid to be me
Not afraid to be me with you
My spirit
Relaxes
Within the caresses of this chosen way of being divine
Listen to the warbling of a newly made dyke
Singing tenor
And playing the harp
Laying quietly amongst the cd’s that rock my world
k.d.lang
preferred favorite
changes this formerly straight space once inhabited by somebody I didn’t really know.
-Cherilyn Fry is happily married (to her wife Judy) living in Vancouver. She likes writing poetry.
LQ Spring Edition
Vancouver plays this wonderful trick on Vancouverites every February. For a short while, it seems like spring is fully sprung and summer is a whisper away. The snow drops and crocuses pop up from the ground, and buds on trees start to swell. Alas, the only consistent Vancouver weather pattern I’ve been able to discern is this: As soon as the cherry blossoms have finished fallling into nice big petal drifts on the streets, so big you want to pile them up and leap into them, we’re in for at several weeks of non-stop torrential rains.
Now, I’m originally from northern BC, so I apologize for the Vancouver-centrism of talking about cherry blossoms so early in the year, not to mention the fact that they don’t have much to do with lesbians. Gloating about the warm weather down here is mean, I know, so go ahead get even and gloat about your cheap housing.
This edition of LQ is our 17th, and since the first edition of Lesbian Quarterly came out March 8th, 2004, it is LQ’s 4th birthday. The early editions were printed, which got to be too much work for one lone gal, so we went online only about a year ago. The print format archives are available here as pdf documents and still have a lot of good information and profiles in them.
A few days ago I recieved a poetry submission from Cherilyn Fry called “Lately Musings” . I love it when lesbians send me stories and story ideas. Keep them coming! And while you’re at it, how about a flurry of lesbian haikus? If the cherry blossom festival can do it, why can’t we?
I’ve begun posting articles as I come across them, so this edition is a little slim, but I encourage you to check out the following recent posts from the last few days:
L-Word Newsfeed for the L-Word fans out there (I personally stopped watching after Shane left Carmen at the altar…), this is a news-feed from the producers of the series, with interviews with the actors and other tidbits.
Leaping Thesbians – 8×10 Glossy at the Havana - This play by the leaping thesbian theatre company (by lesbians, about lesbians) will be showing on the east side beginning of April. Many thanks to Taylor Stutchbury, one of the thesbians, for sending in this information. I hope LQ readers will support this production and check out their site at: http://www.leapingthespians.ca/ April 16th will be a benefit for the Vancouver Dyke March and April 15th will be interpreted for the deaf.
Other fabulous LQ Items:
L-Word Newsfeed
The following is a newsfeed put out by the Showtime network, which produces the L-Word. Since some of you may have worked on the set of the L-Word, which is shot in Vancouver, I thought you might be interested. They are responsible for the content.
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Local Lesbian Musicians Blogs and Links
Most of this content takes you off of the Lesbian Quarterly site, where we’re not responsible for it.
More on Sugarbeach
Blues Guitarist / Vocalist Jill Newman
Jodie Foster thanks her partner Cydney at Oscars
Jodie Foster has kind of shocked Hollywood by publicly acknowledging her same-sex lover of almost 20 years for the first time ever. Here’s a link to the story in the Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Winter 2007-2008 Edition
Welcome to the winter edition of Lesbian Quarterly.
Winter holidays. As someone who celebrates the secular version of Christmas, it’s a time of figuring out what to buy people and when to mail it so they get it on time. It’s also a time to focus on the things I like about the various winter holidays, and leave the rest.
My spiritual holiday is Winter Solstice, which is a nice thing to celebrate, since you can make it whatever you want to be. Lesbians are like that, taking what we like about popular culture and hopefully leaving the rest. Yule evergreens decorated with blessings, decking the halls, candles and blessing people with gifts belong to Solstice/Yule as much as Christmas, and that makes me happy.
About 20 years ago, young, broke and unwilling to go to my parents place for Christmas, I chose to gather my chosen family around me and start some new traditions. That year, my Solstice / birthday candlemaking celebration was born. Each year since then, the people I’m closest to, and some others that just seem nice, are invited to my home to sit around, drink mulled apple juice and dip candle wicks in tall jars of hot coloured wax. It’s nice, homey and peaceful, the kind of thing I’d want my children to remember fondly, if I was going to have children.
This quarter in LQ we have some resources for making lesbian and gay friendly purchases from companies with positive practices towards people like us. We also have a book review by guest contributor Jeanette Nelson, about a first novel written by a Canadian lesbian, published by a Canadian publishing company. As well, a new opportunity to recommend your favourite lesbian-owned businesses and artisans.
In This Issue
The Skin Beneath - Human Rights Campaign Holiday Shopping Guide
- Recommend Lesbian-Owned Businesses
- More Lesbian Book Reviews
- Lesbian Musician Blog Feature
- LQ Supporting Businesses
- Lesbian Resources
- Lesbian Agenda Calendar
- Recurring Lesbian Events
- Site Contents
- Lesbian Owned Businesses
- Editorial Information
Lesbian-Owned Business Recommendations
I was recently at one of my favourite holiday events, the Women’s Winter Craft Faire hosted by Pat Hogan of Sounds and Furies Productions. This yearly fair, held at the Heritage Hall on Main Street brings a great assortment of quality women artisans together in one place, and is held on one weekend in November and one in December. It’s a great place to browse and meet up with people I haven’t seen in awhile, much like the East Vancouver Farmers market. I bought some earings for my mother, and got my cards read along with getting some snacking and visiting done.
What’s your favourite lesbian-owned business in BC or lesbian-run event? Who is your favourite lesbian artisan?
Tell all in the comments below…
For more on lesbian-owned busineses, please see this link to our archives.
Intuitive Readings @ Rhizome Cafe
Every Tuesday, 3:00 to 5:00
Roz Shakespeare and friends provide intuitive readings at Rhizome Café.
$20 for 20 minutes, $45 for 45 minutes.
December at Rhizome
Café * Community Space * Arts Venue
317 East Broadway, Vancouver
Human Rights Campaign (Holiday) Shopping Guide
People often ask me for advice on what brands of computers and other equipment to buy. During the holiday season, a lot of people buy gadgets and gifts. In general I usually recommend good solid brands I’ve had direct experience with like Hewlett Packard or Dell.
Recently, I also came across a social evaluation of these products that I found helpful. The Human Rights Campaign, a non-profit in the US, has evaluated a large number of US companies on their level of respect for gay and lesbian people’s human rights in the workplace. They classify the companies in three groups, basically ones that are doing a good job, ones that are getting better and ones that are awful. Here’s a link to their technology section. You can click on other categories from that page to see the ratings of other items, including cars, food, hotels and more. If you click on a company’s scores you will see why they scored as they did. There’s also a printable pdf version you can take shopping with you.
I was pleased to see that my old standby recommendations (HP and Dell) had a 100 pt rating. However, other products I’ve purchased such from Polaroid, McAfee and Nokia were rated a lot lower. McAfee wouldn’t be my first choice to recommend in antivirus software anyhow. Only Norton has been worse in my experience in conflicts with other software. Lexmark also has 100 pts, but I can’t recommend their printers, whose driver software I’ve found to be buggy and intrusive, and whose ink is quite expensive.
The Skin Beneath
The Skin Beneath by Nairne Holze, Insomniac Press 2007
Reviewed by Jeanette Nelson.
The Skin beneath is like Agatha Christie gone conspiracy theorist. We are all searching for the answers in life. The answers to the question; why we are here? Who will notice if we are gone?
Sam’s sister dies. Five years after her death Sam receives an anonymous postcard that sets in motion a journey into the answers to her sister’s questions. Sam in turn finds answers to her own questions, questions she didn’t even know she had. Would Chloe have loved her if she knew her sister was gay?
Sam had never come out to her sister Chloe, but when she starts following the threads of Chloe’s life she meets and falls in love with Chloe’s ex-roomate it changes her perspective on being lesbian. Sam goes from one night stands to wanting the dream - a real relationship; someone to come home to every night.
Set for the most part in Montreal, Sam tries to unravel the conspiracy theory that her sister was working on. It takes her to the fringes, where exist some hard core conspiracy theorists and into a world she knows nothing about how to survive in. Is this what killed her sister?
The author webs a stream of mystery and colorful characters that tell her story and answers her questions. While technically a murder mystery, the book focusses a lot on Sam’s personal journey and history with her sister, which makes for a slower pace that might appeal less to mystery genre readers looking for a more action focussed book.
The Skin Beneath by Nairne Holze, Insomniac Press 2007. Insomniac Press is a Canadian independent book publisher.
Nairne Holze is a fiction writer who lives in Montreal with her lover and miniature dogs. She co-edited No Margins: writing canadian fiction in lesbian (Insomniac, 2006), which has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. This is her first novel.
Fall 2007 Edition
I have more than one good friend who happens to have a mental illness. Two friends have recently ‘outed’ themselves to me as having been diagnosed with a mood disorder and schizophrenia respectively. I also have a close friend I have taken to the emergency department, and waited there with her all night, so she could get admitted and get the help she needed. She’s part of my ‘family’ and that’s what family does.
Lately I’ve been a bit immersed in the world of mental health services. One of my main clients in Technology Tailoring, my management and technology consulting business is the BC Schizophrenia Society. They’ve hired me to set up and run an online support group for families like ours who have people we care about with a mental illness. The society has lots of good information on how to cope well with having a loved one with a serious mental illness as well. The support group is just getting started so it could use some brave lesbians (& other queer folks) to get the discussion rolling. I think it’s good for us to have a place to talk about supporting our kinds of families. You need to register to get access to the group. It’s a private discussion area and you can use your real name or a fake one if that suits you better. I hope you’ll check it out at www.support.bcss.org
Another program helping lesbian, gay, bi & trans families is Prism Alcohol and Drug Services, a Vancouver Coastal Health funded program which “offers counselling and groups for substance-use-affected lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit and queer people, and for trans people regardless of sexual orientation”. As the program site says, “With Prism, you can be open about all of who you are, and know that you will receive respectful treatment from knowledgeable counsellors.” This edition features an article about Prism and an interview with a lesbian staff member of the organization.
On a lighter note, this edition also features lesbian book blogs and book reviews and some miscellaneous and amusing bits of internet fluff about lesbians. I was pleased and amazed to discover all the good lesbian content out there, so I brought it home to show you. We also have a feature on lesbian musical duo Sugar Beach, who performed at this year’s Dyke March stage and are getting married September 1st here in Vancouver.
This edition has more stories than it’s had in a long time. I hope you enjoy this edition and please keep in mind that I post lots of juicy events listings in between quarterly editions. You can subscribe to the RSS feed to keep in touch or just check back from time to time when you’re looking for places to go and women to see…
As always, you can check out our regular features: Lesbian Resources, Lesbian Agenda, Supporting Businesses and the list of stories containing lesbian and women-owned businesses and lesbian and lesbian-led community organisations.
In this issue:
Online support group for LGTB people caring for a person with a mental illness
The British Columbia Schizophrenia Society is beginning a new project for the LGTB community. The project will provide private online support groups for LGTB persons who care about/for a loved one with a mental illness, such as psychosis, depression, mood disorders, anxiety disorders or schizophrenia.
Family members and supporters of persons with mental illness sometimes feel isolated and disconnected with services, and can benefit from peer support. LGTB families may be reluctant to access resources, fearing 
discrimination. ‘Family member’ in this context means our kinds of families – ex-partners, old friends, room-mates, lovers as well as siblings, cousins, parents, wives and husbands.
The group is an online bulletin board, that is only visible to registered group members, open 24 hours a day. It’s moderated, and you don’t have to use your real name to increase your privacy. It’s meant to be a safe place to discuss the challenges, experiences, questions and successes that go with supporting someone with a mental illness.
The project is looking for volunteer LGTB family members/supporters who are willing to participate in the online group over the first two months, in order to get it established. Volunteer commitment would involve logging in to the group every couple of days at their convenience and initiating or participating in discussion. Participants are welcome to use their real name or a pseudonym and can live anywhere in BC.
Information on resources available to help people caring for a partner, friend or other family member with a mental illness will be provided as well.
For more information, please contect the project coordinator at psychosis@bcss.org or register on the system at www.support.bcss.org Note, the group has just been launched, so there might not be much discussion yet, but you can help out by initiating a topic or responding to one to get things started. There are also some good resources already posted in the group space. The coordinator is an out lesbian and can help refer people to lesbian and LGTB friendly resources.
Information on services for family members is available at the BCSS Website at www.bcss.org
Funding for this project was provided by BC Partners for Mental Health and Addictions Information
