Author Biography
Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, writer, and social theorist. She grew up in a working-class home in New Mexico. Seeking options not available in her small-town community of origin, she broke away and joined the Air Force. She was given a blue discharge (named for the blue paper on which these letters were printed) from the Air Force because she was a lesbian. This experience galvanized Grahn into public ownership of her lesbianism, into the writing of poetry, into lesbian activism, and into the project of publishing lesbian literature. She co-founded the Women s Press Collective in Oakland, California in 1969; using a barrel mimeograph machine, the WPC published the work of Grahn and other lesbians, including Pat Parker, Willyce Kim, and more. The WPC edition of Grahn s book Edward the Dyke and Other Poems appeared in 1971. Other poetry collections include The Common Woman (1969), A Woman is Talking to Death (1974), The Queen of Swords (1987), and Love Belongs to Those Who Do the Feeling (2009). Aunt Lute published a collection of Grahn's work in 2009, The Judy Grahn Reader. In addition to her poetry, Grahn has written extensively of what it means to be a lesbian and a lesbian writer in books including Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (1984), Really Reading Gertrude Stein (1989), and Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (1993).
