Lesbians In The News

[Kobi]

Who she is: The acclaimed author of novels including Room and Hood, works of literary history such as Passions Between Women and We Are Michael Field, and short-story collections including Kissing the Witch and The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits.

What she’s accomplished: Emma Donoghue, born in Ireland and now living in Canada, is one of the most esteemed writers working today. Her best-known work is the 2010 novel Room, whose story is told from the viewpoint of a 5-year-old boy who has spent his entire life in a small room with his mother and knows nothing of the outside world except what he gets from television. It may sound harrowing, but on her website, Donoghue emphasizes that “Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.” It has sold over a million copies worldwide, been translated into 35 languages, and won numerous awards. A film adaptation is planned, with Donoghue writing the screenplay and Lenny Abrahamson directing.

The fame of Room, however, shouldn’t overshadow the rest of Donoghue’s extensive body of work. The author, who is a lesbian, has often dealt with lesbian themes. Her first novel, Stir-Fry, is a coming-of-age tale about a girl from rural Ireland who moves to Dublin for college and unwittingly moves in with a lesbian couple. Her second, Hood, is a story of love and loss involving two women who began their romance as students in the repressive atmosphere of a Dublin convent school in the late 1970s.

Among her nonfiction work, Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature deals with just that, while Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801 is a survey of texts on lesbian themes in that setting, encompassing trial records, newspapers, medical tracts, poems, novels, plays, and more. We Are Michael Field is a biography of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, aunt and niece as well as lovers, who wrote under the pseudonym Michael Field in the Victorian era.

Donoghue has published many collections of short fiction, such as The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, with stories based on, as she says on her website, “peculiar incidents in the history of the British Isles” and written “using both scholarly and imaginative methods to resurrect long-forgotten women, queers, troublemakers, freaks and other nobodies.” Kissing the Witch, another collection, reimagines fairy tales from a feminist perspective. Donoghue’s short fiction has appeared in many anthologies, and she has also written plays, articles on literary history, and more.

Her latest book is Frog Music, due out April 1. This is her first venture into crime fiction, and it tells the story of a woman in 1876 San Francisco investigating the murder of a friend. Says an advance review from Publishers Weekly: “Donoghue’s first literary crime novel is a departure from her bestselling Room, but it’s just as dark and just as gripping.”

Donoghue says she moved to Canada for “love of a Canadian” — partner Chris Roulston, a professor of women’s studies and feminist research at the University of Western Ontario. The two women live in London, Ont., with their son and daughter. Another noteworthy fact about Donoghue’s famly is that her father, Denis Donoghue, is a literary critic, New York University professor emeritus, and scholar of the work of T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, and others. Emma, the youngest of Denis and Frances Donoghue’s eight children, is the only one to follow him into a literary career.

Choice quote, on whether she minds being known as a lesbian writer: “I’m not going to object to ‘lesbian writer’ if I don’t object to ‘Irish writer’ or ‘woman writer,’ since these are all equally descriptive of me and where I’m from. And the labels commit me to nothing, of course; my books aren’t and don’t have to be all about Ireland, or women, or lesbians. (And since publishing Room, I’m mostly known as the locked-up-children writer instead…).” — Donoghue in the FAQs section of her website

For more information: The author’s official site, EmmaDonoghue.com, is a treasure trove of info.

http://www.shewired.com/who-f/2014/0...-emma-donoghue

[Kobi]

Billie Jean King is a badass lady. President Obama knew it when he selected her to represent the U.S. and LGBT people as a delegate for the Sochi Olympics, and after her appearance Tuesday on The Colbert Report, the rest of America does too.

Despite the fact that her appearance in Russia could be considered "gay propaganda," which is illegal in Russia, King tells Stephen Colbert that she won't stay quiet if questioned. When reminded that she could be thrown in jail for supposedly promoting homosexuality, she responds with "I guess I'll have to take that chance." Game, set, match, Billie Jean King.

Watch the full interview on The Colbert Report here:

[tapu]

Just watched the SF Fire Chief apologize for the way FD approached the Asiana flight. Not too many lesbians in that high of a position let themselves look THAT butch lesbian. Cool.

[Kobi]

We’re so happy for out comic and Chelsea Lately Roundtable regular Fortune Feimster for landing a an acting gig in Fox’s upcoming comedy Cabot College, produced by none other than Tina Fey (and Matt Hubbard).

Fortune is set to star as Becca, a popular, openly gay student at the fictional women’s college that has just gone co-ed, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “The character is a three-sport varsity athlete who is an outgoing, extremely loud and raucous partier,” THR reports.

Chelsea Lately fans never fear though. While Fortune has stepped away from her regular writing role on the talk show, she will remain a regular on the roundtable.

The comic behind hilarious alter-egos like Darlene Witherspoon the Hooters waitress and her spot-on portrayal of both Honey Boo Boo and Mama June, was slated to write, produce and star in the half-hour comedy Discounted for ABC back in 2012, but it never came to fruition.

Congrats to Fortune for teaming up with Fey!

[C0LLETTE]

Probably the richest, most Hollywood- powerful (young) lesbian on the planet: Megan Elilison. Yes her father is obscenely rich but she is doing interesting things with all that money.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...ro-dark-thirty

Also, this year:

"Megan Ellison made history on Thursday, becoming the first woman and only the fourth person to receive two best picture Academy Award nominations in the same year.

The producer earned a trip to the Oscars for her work on “Her” and “American Hustle.” She has previously been nominated for producing 2012′s “Zero Dark Thirty.”

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Probably the richest, most Hollywood- powerful (young) lesbian on the planet: Megan Elilison. Yes her father is obscenely rich but she is doing interesting things with all that money.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...ro-dark-thirty

Also, this year:

"Megan Ellison made history on Thursday, becoming the first woman and only the fourth person to receive two best picture Academy Award nominations in the same year.

The producer earned a trip to the Oscars for her work on “Her” and “American Hustle.” She has previously been nominated for producing 2012′s “Zero Dark Thirty.”

This was an interesting article. I didn't know who Megan Ellison was or what she has accomplished in her young life.

It was also interesting that the author, who was a woman, felt the need to comment on Megan being "a bit overweight" and dresses like a "butch".

It is sad when women have to make digs at other women, using their body and attire, to send a message to other women and to men as well.

It is an example of internalized misogyny and sexism i.e Megan might have done this or that but as a woman, she is overweight and doesn't dress like a woman should.

Very sad.

[C0LLETTE]

Yes. I did notice that. It is all too easy to become inured to that sort of commentary. You rarely see mention of Harvey Weinstein's not so "bit" girth.

Megan Ellison's personal success is probably also hard won in the face of accusations that it is entirely due to her father's money.