Women on the Verge: Lesbian Tales of Power and Play [Paperback]

Susan Fox Rogers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 1999

In this lively, eclectic collection, veteran anthologist Susan Fox Rogers explores the passionate experiences of lesbians that exist outside of sex and/or romance. From an essay on "being" Superman as a kid to ones on rafting and sky-diving; from getting arrested for political activism to the overwhelming and complicated urge to procreate, these pieces seek to represent the unexplored territory in modern lesbian life. Including work from Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Marcia Munson, Karla Jay, Linnea Due, among many others, these personal essays and memoirs with their sharp insight and complexly rendered moments, pairing humor with serious political thought, make up a wholly original and utterly compelling anthology.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A woman's desire for another woman, or for women in general, may offer a pretty clear definition of lesbianism, but in her introduction to Women on the Verge, Susan Fox Rogers explains that she began to feel confined by these terms. "I wanted complexity," she argues, "more of 'life'--more of those experiences, not overtly sexual, that make us emotionally and physically excited, that make us sweat, that define us." In her anthology, writers explore the less familiar lesbian terrain of the racquetball court, the Hawaiian volcano, the river rapids, and the prank phone call. Su Penn describes her successful skydiving adventure, after having been discouraged by her instructors to jump because she weighed 213 pounds. BK Loren recounts how the stillness she had learned through years of martial arts training helped her avoid a rape. These end up being stories of female bravery, of chances taken or moments seized. While not specifically lesbian in content, they tend to be lesbian in tone--written from the margins, with an awareness of how easy it is to accept limitations, how thrilling to cast them off. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

Outdoorswoman and sports maven Rogers (Another Wilderness) chronicles yet another round of adventure stories about lesbians, involving river rafting, skydiving, rock climbing, racquetball and other activities. Interspersed among these sporty tales are slightly disjunctive piecesAin which a woman details her quest to become pregnant; a political protest goes awry; and a lesbian gets an anonymous phone call from two teenage girlsAthat are linked to the others only by the book's broad subtitle. Although Rogers asserts in her introduction that she sought to include "more of the complexity of life" beyond the eroticism that often defines lesbianism, many of these tales are deeply sexual, particularly B.K. Loren's gritty "Eye of the Storm," Judith Nichols's sensual "Naming and Other Tricks of Learning" and Marcia Munson's sex-driven "Burger King Baby." As it happens, the stories without a sexual element don't seem particularly lesbian. The best piecesAGretchen Legler's bittersweet "Lake One, Lake Two...," Donna Steiner's lyrical "Connect the Dots" and Lucy Jane Bledsoe's ruminative "On Being at Sea"Aexplore interior landscapes laid bare by the challenges of the outdoors. Some pieces provide stunning visual moments: poet Eileen Myles gets lost "stalking" a volcano in the dark in "The Big Island." But despite glints of excitement, most of these tales lack narrative power: all are memoirs or episodic vignettes, and few have real direction or focus. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Stonewall Inn Editions; 1st edition (July 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312209711
• ISBN-13: 978-0312209711
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,503,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Drama > Lesbian

More About the Author

I was born premature. That was the end of my precociousness. Mostly, I have spent my life trying to find quiet jobs that allow some psychological space where I can write in my head as I work. I've worked on a ranch, in a candy factory (Russell Stover), in retail stores selling shoes. I've built furniture, cooked for a gourmet catering service in NYC, cooked, also, in a weird little cafe run by a reverend healer who cured people's ailments with a pendulum and herbs. I was an aide on a locked psych ward, a tenured college professor, a graphic artist, a UPS driver, and now and again I still work as a professional brainstormer for branding companies. I was extremely grateful for the chance to go to college (it was never a given), but I also feel that these life experiences inform my writing as much as any class ever has. The publishing editor of one of my books told me I wrote like I was raised by wolves. I try to live up to that daily.

Along with the books listed here, you can read my work in many magazines, including, Orion Magazine, Spirituality and Health, Three Coyotes, Yoga International, The Body-Soul Connection, Fourth River, Hawk and Handsaw, and many others.

I'm grateful to these fellowships and Residencies:
Mary Roberts-Rinehart National Fellowship
Ucross Foundation
Colorado Council on the Arts Literature Fellowship
Colorado Art Ranch
Atlantic Center for the Arts
and others.