Hi, all–
I was sad to learn yesterday that Barbara Grier, a pioneer and architect in lesbian and feminist publishing and writing.
Victoria Brownworth at Lambda Literary provided this lovely piece about her. The Washington Post also had a good write-up in her obituary here. How far we have indeed come, that a woman who came of age during which “queer” was a dirty word and when LGBT people were routinely outed after bar raids in local papers and often lost their jobs, families, and friends, would be acknowledged like this in the Washington Post. And that was due, too, to the work that Grier did throughout her life.
For those of you who don’t know who she was, Grier was a founding partner of legendary lesbian/feminist press Naiad, which subsequently helped pave the way to the vibrant and expanding world of LGBT fiction and publishing. Many of us writing LGBT characters today and publishing books with those characters can thank Barbara Grier. Those of you who read in those genres, well, thank Barbara for helping with that.
More on my thoughts here.
Happy Saturday.
Andi Marquette 