Roberta Arnold - Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project

I am a lop-sided lesbian elder living in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. I am very close, physically and mentally, to my sister, my dog, and my cat. And as the song goes: none of whom truly belongs to me. I walk and swim and read and write and find myself daily in awe of nature and animals.

I was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in New York City, New York, and have done a good bit of seeing the world. In my good fortune, I was born into a world spurred on by a most unusual and innovative lesbian feminist writer mother, June Arnold.

I’ve published stories and book reviews in Sinister Wisdom: A Multicultural Lesbian Literary & Art Journal. Back in the 70s, I sat down on a grassy lawn and wrote a short story for Ain’t I A Woman? Press in Iowa City, Iowa, when traveling across the country with a van full of radical dykes. This journey was outlined by me and my outlaw compadres in Sinister Wisdom Issue # 89, Reconciliations, Summer 2013: 1971 Dyke Outlaw Roadtrip. More recently, I had a book review about Andrea Dworkin in Ms. I volunteer and serve on the board at Sinister Wisdom and am a member of Dykewriters and OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).