Are Lesbians Going Extinct?

*Trivia, Voices of Feminism, *is now accepting submissions for its tenth issue, “Are Lesbians Going Extinct?” edited by Lise Weil and Vancouver poet and essayist Betsy Warland. See description below.

*Trivia #9, “Thinking about Goddesses,” *is now online at http://www.triviavoices.net <http://www.triviavoices.net/>

an extraordinarily rich and diverse collection of essays, poems, and artwork, including:

   * *Deena Metzger* /Vulture Medicine/,/ Augury /
   * *Luciana Percovich* /When hens were flying and god was not yet born/
   * *Marianela Medrano-Marra*/ Canoeing our Way back to the Divine
     Feminine in Taino Spirituality/
   * *Judy Grahn* /Goddess is Metaformic/
   * *Vanita Leatherwood* /Testify/
   * *Carolyn Gage* /For Want of Goddess/
   * *Nane Jordan* /What is Goddess? Towards an ontology of women
     giving birth/
   * *Betty deShong Meador* /Inanna Comes to Me in a Dream/
   * *Shannyn Sollitt* /Calling Amaterasu ­ The Great Eastern Sun
     Goddess of Peace/
*Trivia #10, “Are Lesbians Going Extinct?”*

In an essay written in 1983, Nicole Brossard wrote: /”Une lesbienne qui ne reinvente pas le monde est une lesbienne en voie de disparition.”/ (A lesbian who does not reinvent the world is a lesbian going extinct.) At that time, the phrase made very good sense. As writers, thinkers, activists, and in our day-to-day lives, we felt (many of us) compelled to reinvent a world in which we were for the most part invisible if not unthinkable, a world whose values we largely rejected. Today, over 20 years later, we are accepted, even embraced, by mainstream culture–as co-workers, wives, mothers, talk show hosts–in ways we could not have imagined then. But how have we gained this inclusion? Have we gone quiet as lesbians (not denying our lesbianism but seldom foregrounding it)? Are we still reinventing the world? As writers, are we inventing new forms? Is there still a radical edge to the word “lesbian”? Or are we now, by Brossard’s definition, a disappearing species?

We want to hear from young lesbians as well as anyone who ever embraced and/or lived this notion of lesbians as political trailblazers, radical visionaries. If you still identify as lesbian, what does it mean to you to be a lesbian today? In what relationship do your politics stand to your sexuality? Do you still see lesbians as a vanguard? See yourself as reinventing the world? If you no longer identify as lesbian, are there political/cultural reasons for this? Are there aspects of lesbian existence that you miss? Are glad to be free of? Do you still identify as a political trailblazer, a radical visionary? We welcome responses in the form of essays, poems, stories, creative nonfiction, and any in-between genres. *Deadline: May 29, 2009*.

please see our submission guidelines: http://www.triviavoices.net <http://www.triviavoices.net/>

TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism is an online relaunch of TRIVIA: A Journal of Ideas, an award-winning international feminist literary magazine published from 1982 to 1995. The online journal is a team effort by Lise Weil, founding editor of Trivia: A Journal of Ideas and feminist geek web developer Susan Kullmann.

TRIVIA publishes feminist writing in the form of literary essays, experimental prose, poetry, translations, and reviews. The journal encourages women writers to take risks with language and form so as to give their ideas the most original and vital expression possible. TRIVIA’s larger purpose is to foster a body of rigorous, creative and independent feminist thought.

Leave a Reply