About Us

The SLFAHP Mission

We collect, archive, and celebrate oral and written stories of unsung, Southern, lesbian-feminist activists during the second half of the twentieth century.

We are proud of our contributions to lesbian culture, strengthened by our collective voices.

At that time, Beth York and Rose Norman went to Durham, North Carolina, bringing in many stories of Triangle Area lesbian feminists. They visited the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture (SBCWHC) at Duke University to see where those archives might lead us.

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture – SBCWHC

Beth York and Rose Norman found in these SBCWHC archives at Duke University a treasure trove of materials about:  1) the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance –ALFA;  2) Atlanta’s Charis Books and More;  and 3) two Womonwrites cofounders, Minnie Bruce Pratt and Mab Segrest.

Well received, they turned over to Duke our massive collection of Womonwrites material previously stored in a garage. See https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/womonwrites

Duke University: A Repository for Lesbian-Feminism

By then, we were calling ourselves “The Herstory Project,” with a nod to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York.

We count more than ninety lesbians who have submitted stories, poetry, and song. Even more lesbians have been interviewed. The audio recordings and some transcripts have been preserved in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture – SBCWHC – in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University in North Carolina.

The SBCWHC at Duke University, being in the South and already archiving southern lesbian feminists, soon became the obvious place for archiving our interviews. All of those interviews in the SLFA Herstory Project are a subset of the Womonwrites archive: https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/slfaherstoryproject

Herstory Project Launches with Julie Enszer and Sinister Wisdom

A turning point came when Barbara Ester asked, “Why don’t we contact Sinister Wisdom?” Barb Ester had been published in an issue on music and the arts, and she thought that the editors of the magazine Sinister Wisdom would be interested in our project. She was right.  Our relationship with Julie Enszer, Editor of Sinister Wisdom has guided and shaped our project ever since.

Our project grew from a handwritten timeline of remembered events and organizations to Womonwriter members committing to writing about those topics.

We are deeply grateful to Julie Enszer, the volunteer editors, and the contributors who have made that collection of issues possible. Even though we were cutting down long interviews into shorter stories, we often struggled to fit a wealth of stories into the limits of a single magazine issue. Mercifully, Julie Enszer often allowed us to exceed our word limit.

Accomplishments with Sinister Wisdom

With the leadership and expertise of Rose Norman and Merril Mushroom, Sinister Wisdom published the first special issue, Southern Lesbian Feminist Herstory, 1968–1994 (vol. 93, Summer 2014). In the process of creating that first issue, the project was flowering from what we had thought would be one magazine issue into three, then four, and finally six special issues. Julie Enszer enthusiastically encouraged us to continue.

More Sinister Wisdom magazine issues followed: Landykes of the South, vol. 98, Fall 2015; lesbian-feminist arts with Lesbianima Rising, vol. 104, Spring 2017; lesbian spaces with HotSpots: Creating Lesbian Space in the South, vol. 109, Summer 2018; and Making Connections, vol. 116, Spring 2020. Making Connections honors bookstores, publishers, newsletters, and the byways through which lesbian literature was distributed throughout the South. The final issue is about our spiritual and political paths, which we view as one; and a version of our SLFAHP history appears in it: vol. 124, Spring 2022, Deeply Held Beliefs: Spiritual/Political Activism in the South.

Note that Hot Spots: Creating Lesbian Space in the South, vol. 109, Summer 2018 is only available through Sinister Wisdom in digital format, except as part of a boxed set. All the others volumes are available in hard copy through Sinister Wisdom: https://www.sinisterwisdom.org/issues

Lesbian Feminists Collaborate

The project has been intensely collaborative and geographically dispersed. The nine editors of those six issues of Sinister Wisdom live in five, southern states. They communicated primarily through email, plus three times a year in person at Womonwrites conferences and during Womonwrites planning weekends through 2019.

All of us lesbians and many more have worked tirelessly to find more and more stories as themes emerged that took us well beyond our original idea of collecting stories from the people we knew and their friends.

Rose Norman and Merril Mushroom, who coedited all six issues, live about two hours apart, in Alabama and Tennessee, respectively. Kate Ellison and Barbara Esrig, who coedited two issues, live fairly near each other in Florida. Beth York, who also coedited two issues, lives in South Carolina. B. Leaf Cronewrite, Gail Reeder, and Lorraine Fontana, who coedited one issue, all live in the area of Atlanta, Georgia.

Robin Toler, whose striking and stirring art graces all six covers of the issues, lives in Louisiana.

Rather than simply recording interviews and archiving them, we began mining the interviews for more polished stories. In that vein, Phyllis Free turned Rose Norman’s six separate interviews with founders of Southerners on New Ground, SONG, into one interview, as if they had been interviewed together.

Womonwrites Transforms into Outrageous Voices and Dykewriters

By May 2019, Womonwrites had come to a difficult crossroads. For years, conference attendees had agonized over how they, as lesbians, would respond to the trans-inclusive issue. One group wished to keep the membership focused as it had been on women-born women. The other group wished to be more inclusive of the LBGTQ spectrum. During the May 2019 gathering, we agreed to dissolve Womonwrites, and to form two, separate organizations. Some women became members of both groups.

Dykewriters was created for lesbian writers who are womyn-born-womyn. See http://dykewriters.com

Outrageous Voices is “a fully inclusive, intersectional, southeastern, lesbian (bi, trans and queer inclusive) women’s writing conference.” See https://www.outrageousvoices.com/we-are

SLFAHP Continues: the Pagoda, Music, and Beyond

The Herstory Project, which has members from both organizations, agreed that the Herstory Project should become a stand-alone entity, with membership open to lesbians who remain faithful to the mission of preserving the herstory of lesbian-feminist activists in the southeastern United States.

Rose Norman is writing a book, The Pagoda: A Community Biography, scheduled for publication by Sinister Wisdom in 2023. She began in 2013 interviewing the women of the Pagoda, the lesbian-feminist, intentional community and cultural center that was in St. Augustine, Florida.

Phyllis Free’s “Goddess Chant” and Barb Ester’s “Lover’s Touch” are included on a new recording of original songs performed at Womonwrites. Look for the musical album/CD entitled Finding Home, copyright 2019 by Beth York.

Do You Have a Story to Share with Us?

We will continue to collect and archive stories of lesbian-feminist activists in the South. Possibly, some of the stories will find their way into future, open issues of Sinister Wisdom and other publications.

If you would like to archive your story of lesbian-feminist activism in the South, write us at: SLFAherstoryproject@gmail.com