Nancy Blood

Interviewed July 13, 2015

Nancy Blood was born in 1948, and raised in Massachusetts. She earned an undergraduate degree in art history in 1970 from Wilson College and a master’s degree in library science from the University of Michigan in 1972. She has lived in the Research Triangle area [Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina] since the early 1970s when she moved there after graduate school.

Nancy came out as a lesbian in 1976. She was part of the collective that published The Feminist Newsletter in 1973 which became known as Feminary (1974-82 and turned into a journal in 1977). With another group of women, both straight and lesbian, Nancy published a North Carolina resource guide called The Whole Women Carologue [Diana Press, 1974]. With her friend, Leslie Kahn, she started Whole Women Press (1976-81), which published several early issues of Sinister Wisdom and the journal Feminary. They also published Break de Chains of Legalized U$ Slavery (1976), a collection of writings and art by women incarcerated in the women’s prison in Raleigh, North Carolina; collections of poetry by lesbians, including Sleeping Beauty: A Lesbian Fairy Tale, by Vickie Gabriner; Sign Language by Monica Raymond; and Crazy Quilt by Susan Wood Thompson.

Nancy was part of the group (not a collective) that started a new lesbian-feminist newsletter for the Triangle area called The Newsletter, published from 1981-2001. She worked on that newsletter until November 1990. In 1986, she and Joanne Abel created a display about gay and lesbian history at the Durham County Library. This led to public controversy associated with a recall vote when the mayor proclaimed Gay Pride week. The public discussion of these issues made 1986 a watershed year for Durham’s move toward becoming a tolerant community. In 2003, Nancy led a group that successfully lobbied the Durham County commissioners for domestic partner benefits for county employees.

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