Notable Lesbians
Thursday, April 17th, 2008This week’s Notable Lesbian is:
Sarah Waters
1966 -
Sarah Waters is a British novelist.
She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. She grew up in a family that included her father, mother, and sister. Her mother was a housewife and her father an engineer who worked on oil refineries. She describes her family as “pretty idyllic, very safe and nurturing.” Her father, “a fantastically creative person,” encouraged her to build and invent. Waters was a “completely tomboyish child”, but “got into” femininity in her teenage years. She had always been attracted to boys, and it was not until university that she first fell in love with a woman.
Interesting tid bit:
Before writing novels, Waters worked as an academic, earning a doctorate and teaching.Waters went directly from her doctoral thesis to her first novel. It was during the process of writing her thesis that she thought she would write a novel; she began as soon as the thesis was complete. Her work is very research-intensive, which is an aspect she enjoys. All of her books contain lesbian themes, and she does not mind being labeled a lesbian writer. She said, “I’m writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It’s right there at the heart of the books.” She calls it “incidental,” because of her own sexual orientation. “That’s how it is in my life, and that’s how it is, really, for most lesbian and gay people, isn’t it? It’s sort of just there in your life.”
More Notable Lesbians
If you have a suggestion for a Notable Lesbian, e-mail me at ldark21@yahoo.com or use the contact form above and I’ll highlight her in an upcoming post.
*Some information provided by Wikipedia.com
is a television director, producer and screenwriter. She is the creator, writer and executive producer of the television series The L Word. Chaiken had previously written the screenplay Barb Wire (1996), and the television films Dirty Pictures (2000), and Damaged Care (2002) before the success of The L Word raised her profile. She was also the coordinating producer for the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and the associate producer for Satisfaction in 1988. Prior to writing and producing, she worked as an agent trainee for Creative Artists Agency, and as an executive for Aaron Spelling and Quincy Jones Entertainment.
was raised in a Greek community in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Her grandfather and father were both restaurateurs. Her cuisine is a blend of her Greek and Southern roots like her favorite dish Kota Kapama (Greek cinnamon chicken), and slow-cooked lamb shanks with feta salsa verde.
is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem “America the Beautiful.” Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The daughter of a Congregational pastor, she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley. While teaching there, she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied. The first draft of “America the Beautiful” was hastily jotted in a notebook during the summer of 1893, which Bates spent teaching English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
15-year old African American lesbian who was murdered in a hate crime in Newark, New Jersey in May 2003. While waiting for the #1 New Jersey Transit bus at the corner of Broad and Market Streets in downtown Newark, Gunn and her friends were propositioned by two men. When the girls rejected their advances (by declaring themselves to be lesbians) the men attacked them. Gunn fought back and one of the men, Richard McCullough, stabbed her in the chest. Both men immediately fled the scene in their vehicle. After one of Gunn’s friends flagged down a passing driver, she was taken to nearby University Hospital, where she died
was an American stage and silent film actress. Some of her major roles include the title character in Peg o’ My Heart and the indomitable but deluded Southern matriarch Amanda Wingfield in the original Broadway production of the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie, a legendary performance that marked one of the most dramatic comebacks in theater history. Taylor’s oversized personality, mercurial moods, and eccentricities became legendary. Writing after Taylor’s death, Tennessee Williams paid tribute to “the great warmth of her heart,” saying, “There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us.”
was the eldest child of novelist Thomas Mann. She was born in Munich and had what was considered to be a “privileged” childhood. In 1932 she published the first of many children’s books. Shortly thereafter she became involved in several lesbian affairs in her private life. Her first noted affair was with actress Pamela Wedekind, whom she met in Berlin, and was engaged with her brother Klaus. She later became involved with director Therese Giehse, and journalists Betty Cox and Annemarie Schwarzenbach, whom she served with as a war correspondent during World War II. As was later written, her relationships were both sexually passionate and intellectually stimulating. Mann enjoyed being in the company of women who were intelligent, and with whom she could converse with on any number of international topics.
is considered the first openly gay photojournalist of the gay rights movement. Her photographs of lesbians have appeared on several covers of The Ladder, A Lesbian Review from 1964 to 1966. She help found the GAA (Gay Activists Alliance) in 1970 and frequently contributed to a New York-based weekly newspaper called Gay Newsweekly.
went on to become a successful jazz and blues recording artist, often compared to the likes of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith.. In the 1950s, Alberta retired from music and entered the medical field. She reemerged in the 1980s and resurrected her singing career. She continued to perform until shortly before her death in October 1984.
writing career in the 1960s, but she is probably best known for her novel, Fried Green Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Cafe. She went on to write the screen play for the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes which garnered her a great deal of attention, not to mention an Oscar nomination. Flagg also dabbled in some acting and appeared in minor roles in television shows and movies such as Grease.
multi-instrumentalist and composer, known as the only (and first) female member of the 
Orman literally worked her way to the top. She was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from which she holds a B.A. in social work. In 1973, she and some friends moved to Berkeley, California, where she became a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery until 1980. From 1980-1983, she was trained by and worked as an account executive at Merrill Lynch, and from 1983-87 she was Vice President of Investments for Prudential Bache Securities. In 1987, Orman founded her own business, the Suze Orman Financial Group, which she directed from 1987-1997.
was a British poet and author of eight novels, including the lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness. Considered an introvert of sorts, Hall eventually reached adulthood without a vocation and spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage. In 1915 she fell in love with Una Troubridge, a sculptor who was the wife of an admiral and the mother of a young daughter. The relationship would last until Hall’s death. (She also became involved in affairs with other women throughout the years, possibly including blues singer Ethel Waters) Hall is best known for The Well of Loneliness, the only one of her eight novels to have overt lesbian themes. Published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness deals with the life of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall herself, identifies as an invert. Although Gordon’s attitude toward her own sexuality is anguished, the novel presents lesbianism as natural and makes a plea for greater tolerance.
rapper, bassist, and multi-instrumentalist. She has been hailed in the music press as a redeemer of soul music. Her music incorporates funk, soul, hip hop, reggae, R&B, rock, and jazz and has been featured in a number of film soundtracks including How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Batman and Robin, Love Jones, Love & Basketball, The Best Man, and Down in the Delta. She has also appeared on recordings by Basement Jaxx, Indigo Girls, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and The Rolling Stones’ 1997 album Bridges to Babylon, playing bass on the song “Saint Of Me”. She can also be seen in the documentary movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown, singing The Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me”. In the late 1990s, she toured with Lilith Fair. Not surprisingly, Ndegeocello has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards.
She is the daughter of Sweet Honey in the Rock co-founder Bernice Johnson Reagon, with whom she has sometimes collaborated on musical projects. Her band, BIGLovely, has been performing together since September 1996. The name allegedly comes from a love-letter she received from her girlfriend, which was addressed “To My BIGLovely.” The band includes Judith Casselberry on acoustic guitar and vocals, Robert “Chicken” Burke on drums, Fred Cass, Jr. on bass, Adam Widoff on electric guitar, and Catherine Russell on mandolin and vocals. The line-up also includes Jen Leigh, Ann Klein, Debbie Robinson, Alison Miller, Kismet Lyles and Stephanie McKay as replacements. Reagon lives in Brooklyn, New York with her partner Valerie and her daughter.
