The other day I realized I must have heard the Irish language for the first time in the voice of Moya Brennan, who died last week at her home in Crolly, not too far from us.

Moya was the voice of Clannad, whose music even have heard even if you don’t know the name, or how to pronounce it—something like CLAW-nawd.

The band started with traditional Irish songs, singing in Irish and English.

At the time traditional Irish bands with recording contracts sang Irish songs in English. Moya and her brothers and uncles who formed Clannad sang in their own language. Theirs was the first hit song in Britain with Irish lyrics.

They had another hit with this theme from Last of the Mohicans.

Here she is on the Late Late just “giving us a song.”

The BBC obit here emphasized the celebrities who came to her funeral, which isn’t what Moya was about.

Moya was class. Sure you can see the gold records on the wall at Leo’s but that’s where she organized a monthly showcase for upcoming local musicians. She’d always sing a song at the beginning of the show as the warm up act. The room would be packed, not to see her, but to see who she wanted us to support.

I can’t believe a world exists without her in it.

You’re getting this post as an email because I post to Substack several times a month, but only once in a while do I send an email. Usually, I write about life in Ireland, but recently everything has been about launching my book in California. After this post, I’ll return to the usual Irish content.

After the stories in the Sentinel and Good Times, many people ordered my book from Bookshop Santa Cruz, but none of them arrived. So before I left town I dropped off my remaining copies of A Circle Outside. I can’t even say this is a dream come true. It’s bizarre to see a radical feminist novel in print at all and being sold at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

The night before I left for America, Coleen Douglas and I did an interview on Pride Perspectives on KSQD radio to promote Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods. I told the story of my first lesbian experience in Santa Cruz, where to find the lesbians in Ireland, and all three of us talked about how much we love redwoods. Coleen sang a song, and I read a scene from A Circle Outside.

Just before I arrived, the interview in the Sentinel appeared.

Several people ordered copies at Bookshop Santa Cruz, but by the time I left three weeks later, none had arrived. I’m still trying to figure out why.

I was in the Bay Area about three weeks. The first event was at the Berkeley Alembic, “a nonprofit center devoted to conciousness culture.”

This is the interview Sam Webster and I did there. I read a scene from the book that I didn’t read elsewhere; it’s a ritual scene showing what a Dianic ritual is like. Then we talked about how I found Dianic Wicca and what it was like for me as a young feminist who found herself part of the “women’s spirituality movement.” Sam’s expertise is in the history and practice of modern paganism, so he was able to put my experiences into a more academic context. The conversation was super fun. As I read the scene, you can hear the music that the characters in the book where listening to.

My friends ask me what I think of the changes in downtown Santa Cruz. I’m ok with it. Lower Pacific is a perfect place to live.

These post-earthquake buildings were hated in their day too.

I’m not sorry to see the Metro Center gone either. In it’s day, it was an improvement, with its shops and restrooms and shelter from the rain. Now the Metro will be where people live.

Roz Spafford’s interview with me in the Good Times appeared that week. Such a thrill because Roz at one time was the SF/F reviewer for the San Jose Mercury and has a deep knowledge of all the feminist utopia novels I loved.

I met up with Roz Spafford at Chocolate, which has the same menu I’ve always loved.

Another view of post-earthquake buildings looking well.

A friend took me to breakfast at O’Neil’s in the Dream Inn. Still the best view on Monterey Bay.

No change here:

On Sunday March 22, Coleen Douglas, Irene Reti and I did our show, “Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods.” It was everything I hoped it would be. We will put out a little movie of it. We’d like to do it again in a better venue.

A few days later, a friend and I had a San Francisco day, concluding with my event at Fabulosa Books in the Castro.

We recorded my reading on my phone. This is the same scene I read at Wonder and Awe, plus some poems.

The last Santa Cruz event was at the lovely new Felton Library.

I forgot to take pictures. We sat out on the patio. A woman from Ireland came, and wanted to know what surprises me the most about Ireland. I said one thing is that it is “bigger on the inside.” Americans often rent a car in Dublin and drive around it in a week. I suggest picking one city, like Cork or Sligo, and take day trips from there. Every field has a name, every holy well a miracle, every mountain a folk tale. The other thing is that in Ireland, nothing is as it seems.

I spent a few days with my family in Fresno, and like true Fresnans we drove to the mountains.

On the way to Grant Grove in Kings Canyon Park, I grabbed some snacks only found in America.

The Big Trees are not too far away from my Dad’s house. On that day, the Sierras were in a cloud.

This is me and my dad, age 90.

The last gig was at Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo.

Karen Finley, the owner,apologized for the power being out, but I told her I didn’t need anything but an audience.

I recommend writing a novel and then speaking about it in public to strangers. Can’t wait to do it again.

We used one of Irene’s photos in the poster. When I mentioned this in my introduction, I choked up. I’m still choked up.

A friend recorded the show for us, and I’ll post it eventually after it’s edited. She suggested we record interviews of ourselves after the event, and I’m so glad we did.

In 1822, Anne Lister, an unmarried thirty-one year old woman wrote in her diary, speculating on the relationship status of two celebrities she had just visited.

Anne Lister had visited Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known as The Ladies of Llangollen.

Hil and I attended the 2023 Anne Lister Birthday Weekend in Halifax and later made this short film about Anne Lister and a visit she made to the "Ladies of Llangollen." During that year’s festival, costumes from the BBC/HBO series Gentleman Jack were on display at Plas Newdd, their home.

I wrote an essay these early 19th-century women-who-loved-women. Hil and I adapted the essay into this film, using the footage and photos from our iPhones.

For the first time since I moved to Ireland, I’m in Santa Cruz for St. Patrick’s Day. My sister and I are throwing a St. Patrick’s Day party and instead of serving corned beef and cabbage, we’re serving Chicken Fillet Rolls, like you find in an Irish petrol station deli. (It’s too dang hot for corned beef and cabbage anyway.) I’ve ordered baguettes from good old Kelly’s bakery, and my sister collects little serving trays that will approximate the cornucopia of salads and condiments you’d find on a road trip.

The Irish people I know who like Chicken Fillet Rolls usually have developed a specific order that they give to the sandwich maker at the deli. My order is butter and coleslaw, and the spicy chicken.

I’m in Santa Cruz for a few weeks, visiting friends and redwoods, and promoting my novel A Circle Outside. I don’t feel entirely comfortable promoting myself, but as my editor said, you have only one debut novel, so I might as well enjoy it.

Today I’m headed to Berkeley to be interviewed by Sam Webster of the Berkeley Alembic. We’re going to talk about what I learned from Dianic Wicca when I was in my twenties, where I thought it came from (and where it actually did). I want to talk about the power of saying “No,” and the power of saying “Yes.” I hope we’re not too nostalgic, because women getting together and playing together with intention is an approach for healing and growth that never goes out of style.

The night before I left Ireland I stayed up until midnight to appear on Pride Perspectives, KSQD Santa Cruz. It hasn’t been posted yet, but it will be at the KSQD site.

These interviews have been quite fun, much better than I expected, and every one different.

Here’s the link to my conversation on the top UK lesbian podcast.

The Write Club is a show about writers and writing, so we focused on theme and characters and all that technical stuff I learned in the ten years it took to write A Circle Outside.

That’s one of my favorite photographs of all time, by Irene Reti. She said she left her office at McHenry library (UCSC), walked outside with her camera. That’s how a redwood forest is. Moments of breathtaking “wonder and awe” but you need to be there, and you need to open your eyes and see it. We used this photo to advertise the event that will serve as my book launch in Santa Cruz, Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods, March 22.

The Sentinel ran a story about A Circle Outside above the fold. It’s behind a paywall, but you can get a subscription for about a dollar. A friend of mine said, “imagine, witches in the Sentinel,” and that reminded me that in 1990 the Sentinel ran a story about local pagans and how they observed Winter Solstice. You can’t read the Sentinel on newspapers.com anymore, but you can still read it in the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

Next week the Good Times will run an interview with me by Roz Spafford. We had a great conversation and she captured the essence of it, which was utopias and feminism.

Tuesday, March 24th, I’ll be at Fabulosa Books in the Castro. I’ve never been to it before and am thrilled the Castro has a bookstore.

The morning of Saturday, March 28th will have a big demonstration in Santa Cruz. That afternoon I’ll be at the Felton Library. If it’s a small group, I thought I might talk about how I was able to get a novel with a overt political message published by a real publisher without an agent or MFA or any connections to the UK literature scene. Or I’ll just try to entertain.

The last event is in Vallejo, at Alibi bookstore.

And now, after all that self-promotion, more redwoods.

Until then, I’m so excited that After Santa Cruz and Ella Young Society have been listed on the GaelStack. If you’re looking at a comprehensive list of all the Irish Substackers, that’s it. Thank you Dian Killian.

In Spring quarter, 1990, Vito Russo taught two courses at UC Santa Cruz. One was a ten-week version of his book, The Celluloid Closet, and focused on the presentation of gays and lesbians in films. The other course was the history of Gay and Lesbian political activism. I audited it, and my final paper was about The Ladder, the magazine of the Daughters of Bilitis. I mentioned the paper in an interview, and a listener asked if the paper were available. Now it is.

In 1960, “Y. A,” a lesbian who dared not disclose her name beyond her initials, wrote a letter of hope and exhortation to a small magazine known as The Ladder:

When we holler long enough and loud enough we will be heard...

Our priestess Sappho wrote:

Let me tell you

This: Someone in

Some future time

Will think of us (1)

Has it been true then, that ever since Sappho lesbians have thought that future generations would remember? That lesbian lives, loves, thoughts, art would pass on? And have their descendants fulfilled this desire? I think I can safely, but regretfully, assert that not only do the generations know nothing of lesbians living before us, but neither do lesbians in particular.

It’s ironic that “Y. A.” would quote Sappho, whose work is—for the most part—unknown and fragmented, in a magazine that today—for the most part—is unknown and unread. Yet The Ladder was the only regularly published lesbian magazine from the mid-fifties to the second wave of feminism in the early 1970s. Lesbians have even less written history than women as a whole. We are hurting ourselves when we forget what little we do have.

When I read The Ladder, I’m astonished how the world of lesbians changed over the sixteen years that The Ladder was published. I remember this when I am told that “real change takes time,” and that I should be patient with slow movement of the system which I am supposed to be working within.

Sometimes I read The Ladder as a story of lesbians from another time, impressed by the mainstream culture of their time. They had a different self-image than my lesbian/ feminist friends. “Looking like a woman,” and finding a permanent “mate” overwhelmingly occupied the romantic stories. The early discussions of whether or not homosexuals are “sick” and can be cured alienates me from these women. Yet, as my parents debate such things, no doubt these questions have bearing on my life.

On the other hand, many of the articles pertain to current problems and controversy: our children, “man-hating,” coming out, breaking up, identifying celebrity lesbians.

I am kin to these women. Often they sound like lesbians I know. I know this is because I’m like them. I’m white and middle-class, I’m out, I like magazines, and I read a lot. I would have subscribed to The Ladder.

What Was The Ladder?

The Ladder was the first (3) regularly published lesbian periodical, appearing monthly or bimonthly from October 1956 to September 1972. It grew from a 16-page mimeographed, typed newsletter to a 56-page, typeset, illustrated magazine. It began as the newsletter of the first known formal U. S. organization of lesbians, who called themselves “Daughters of Bilitis.’‘ The newsletter contained club news, fiction, poetry, non-fiction essays, and speeches. Through the years its contents reflected the self-image and interests of DOB members, but it retained its commitment to subscriber-submitted fiction and poetry, book reviews, and news of anything in the media containing reference to lesbians, or possible lesbians.

The Ladder grew out of a social group, an alternative to the gay bars of San Francisco. However, its primary audience was the sole or paired lesbian in remote towns. Most lesbians still endure a period of life when they believe they are the only women (or pair) to “feel this way.” So it was when The Ladder appeared:

[I]t seems that a magazine basically by and for others in the same group as I am would be even more helpful in overcoming the lost and lonesome feelings I seem prey to at times.(4)

One doesn’t often have a chance to express one’s views to the public on the subject of lesbianism or homosexuality of any kind. Now, as I try to write I find it difficult because of never having even breathed this type of existence to acquaintances, friends, or family. When I first learned that there was such a publication as The Ladder I was most eager to be a subscriber. ? I, like most others, live two lives, one for the benefit of the public and the other for myself. (5) The majority of the so-called “normals” will not accept us on any basis and so we live in a sort of make-believe world, a secret, exciting world, but a bit frightening too. When The Ladder comes to my door once a month I live in that secret world for approximately 20 or 25 minutes while I read each and every word and marvel at the work that is being done to alleviate the pain of falseness that most of us endure just for the sake of not being called queer. (6)

One gay historian believes that the DOB differed from other gay organizations of the fifties because it “preserved a commitment to the personal needs of lesbians.’‘ (7) This personal, more than political, purpose shaped The Ladder. The audience for the magazine was not the politically active lesbian, or the out homosexual woman, or even the closeted bar dyke. According to founding editors Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the audience was “the lonely isolated lesbians away from the big cities.”(8) Though many of the early issues contain long transcripts of addresses to the club and other San Francisco homophile organizations, I think it was the fiction, poetry, biographical sketches, and book reviews that held the readers’ interest. The “Readers Respond” section of this era rarely contained comment on the political or psychological articles. The readers responded most to articles with a strong, personal, lesbian voice.

When you are thus “alone” you look anywhere for evidence of people like you. When everything in the culture about lesbians was bad news evidence entered into indecency trials, newspaper reports of bar raids, psychological articles of deviate sexuality, and sordid novels these lesbians looked at their own sweet loves, wrote down their own stories, and offered them to each other.

Our Way of Life in Print

Though the magazine’s production values improved as time went on, (10) its format remained consistent over the years, though growing in both pages and density. (11) A typical issue would have one or two short stories (usually of the romance genre), an essay about “sexuality” by an expert (psychologist, minister, anthropologist), an historical biography about a famous or infamous woman who was probably a lesbian (or one who passed as a man), several book reviews by “Gene Damon” (Barbara Grier) or other contributors, news of homophile (12) political and legal activities, poems, and letters from readers. “Cross Currents” was added in 1963; it began as “Here and There” and contained any information about lesbians, gay men, feminist actions, rumors of possible lesbians anywhere. By the end, “Cross Currents” would run four or five pages covering news about lesbians, gay rights, media appearances of “out” gay people, and feminist actions.

With the sixth issue Barbara Grier began her column of short book reviews. First anonymously and then under the pseudonym “Gene Damon,” Grier compiled her list of any book with “pertinent” content. Grier used “pertinent” idiosyncratically to indicate any reference of a possible lesbian character, be she predatory, suicidal, or wedded to a man by the book’s conclusion. Eventually The Ladder published these columns as a bibliography, The Lesbian in Literature. Before she stopped writing them for the The Ladder Grier had reviewed more than 2500 books. Grier served her readers well; in those days they faced hundreds of cheap paperbacks which alluded to Sapphic Love, but only fulfilled male fantasies. Bravely she waded through them, offering reviews of the good and the less good:

59. Halo in Brass by John Evan. Bantam Books, 1958 (25¢): Bobbs-Merrill 1949: A Very fast-paced Lesbian mystery. Young Laura disappears in Chicago and her parents hire a private detective to find her. She is described as a very pretty, wholesome girl with no time for boy friends and lots of girl friends. Starting with the mannish Bertha Lund, and covering a lot of territory before the denouement, this little story runs hot and cold and is very, very gay. A treat for the lesbian literature habitue as well as the who-dun-it fan. (13)

65. Girls of the French Quarter by John B. Thompson. Beacon Books, 1954: A sensational expose story with one chapter devoted to overt Lesbian action between a society girl and a street wanton. Not very good. (14)

In a featured review of We Two Won’t Last, by “Ann Aldrich,” Grier wrote: “This tone of personal self-hatred is probably the most serious fault of this and all her books. It is apparent to the Lesbian reader that Miss Aldrich is simply not very happy and for the moment one is tempted to feel pity. There are few things worse to have to live with than self-hatred and Ann Aldrich is steeped in it. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she is highly intelligent and articulate and thus able to disseminate much misleading data which is damaging to all homosexual women.” (15) Aldrich also wrote lesbian pulps under the name “Vin Packer,” among others. Ironically, this Aldrich book mentioned in The Ladder (unfavorably), first brought the magazine to the attention of Alma Routsong (pseudonym Isabel Miller), who wrote one of the first lesbian novels with a happy ending, Patience and Sarah. (16)

Unfortunately, most of the lesbian paperback originals that made up the bulk of the “Lesbiana” columns are not longer accessible to us, unless they exist in private collections, or have been re-issued by Naiad Press as “classics.” Some libraries may still have some of the better ones, especially public libraries, where books are often purchased by lesbian librarians. If a lesbian were to explore only the “Lesbiana” columns of all The Ladder contents, she would find enough pertinent reading material to keep her occupied for most of her life.

I have recently been more than occupied reading, browsing, and skimming the rest of the magazine. In 1975, Arno Press (now defunct) published a complete, bound photo-reprint of The Ladder (17) which is available to me in my local university library. I discovered the following interesting items:

• “Olivia Records” the world’s first lesbian recording company, was named after a lesbian pulp novel. (18)

Here is the “Lesbiana” review:

Oliva by Olivia. William Sloane Associates, New York, 1949: A 16 year-old spends a year in a French finishing school near Paris, where she learns more about human relationships than found in her school books. “Olivia’‘ is a poignant story, delicately told, by an older woman looking back on her childhood. It is the story of youth and first awareness. The French movie, “The Pit of Loneliness,” by Colette is actually an adaptation of “Olivia” for the screen. (19)

• Marion Zimmer Bradley, known today as the author of Mists of Avalon and the Darkover books, was a successful science fiction writer and editor during the early years of The Ladder. She not only frequently corresponded and contributed to The Ladder, but also compiled, with Grier, a “checklist” of “pertinent” books. (20) Bradley also wrote articles on the subject of lesbians married to men. She thought that married women should confide their lesbianism to their husbands, but thought that lesbianism didn’t mean that women couldn’t keep their marriage vows. The essays and letters were obviously a description of her own situation, and are disturbingly objective in tone. I found her opinions interesting in light of current discussions of “Lesbians Who Sleep with Men.” (21)

• In 1968, Rita Laporte (22) wrote “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” after reading Daly’s The Church and the Second Sex.Laporte chastised Daly for remaining silent on lesbians (just like the straight feminists were doing at the time), and proceeded to tell Daly what she could learn from lesbians. (23) This, or similar argument must have reached Daly, as she later made lesbians the very center of her thealogy in Gyn/Ecology and Pure Lust. At this time in history, the word “lesbian” only rarely occurred associated with the political theory and movement of “feminism.”

• I had always heard that Maxine Feldman’s “Angry Atthis” was the first lesbian recording, released in the early 70s. It may have been the first explicitly lesbian recording, but The Ladder advertised Lisa Ben’s (24) 45 RPM: “2 Gay folk songs... ‘Cruising Down the Boulevard’ and ‘Frankie and Johnnie.’ “ (25) I have never heard mention of this recording anywhere else, but Lisa Ben does sing “Frankie and Johnnie” in Before Stonewall, documentary movie about lesbians and gay men’s lives before 1968.

• One of the most popular lesbian books of the 1980s is Different Daughters by Louise Rifkin, an anthology of essays by mothers of lesbians. The mothers are mostly straight, mostly religious, and only part of the time accepting or tolerant of their queer offspring. It’s a nice gift for Mother’s Day, or upon the occasion of your coming out to Mom. In probably another first, Barbara Grier’s mother published “My Daughter is a Lesbian” in 1958. She wrote that though she did not understand her daughter’s “association” with her “mate,” she thought “there are no two more normal persons alive than my daughter and her charming associate.” (26) Her tone and thoughts surprised me; I found them quite similar to the mothers in Different Daughters.

From the first issue The Ladder mentioned lesbians raising children.

“Raising Children in a Deviant Relationship:” This heretofore untouched subject has been broached by members of the Daughters of Bilitis in several discussion sessions.... It is surprising to learn how many women are raising children in a deviant relationship.... To be of any assistance to those who are meeting this problem, we need more data and more research into the various facets of such a relationship. If you are interested or if you can help us in this project please let us hear from you. (27)

Later issues reported on the progress of, what would be called today, a “lesbian mothers’ group.”

• In April of 1960 Laurajean Ermayne listed eleven “films with at least a tinge of interest for the Uranian.” (28) Even this small list excited her, because, as she writes, “in 1947, when I was assisting Lisa Ben with Vice Versa contributions, we knew of only four films that qualified in any way: Escape to Yesterday, ... Turnabout, ... Children of Loniliness, a miserable excuse for a movie of any nature, and Club Des Femmes... . “Club Des Femmes, (1938), according to Vito Russo, offers only a “lesbian sub-plot” (29) and was severely censored before being released in the U.S. Laurajean Ermayne described the thrills of the movie with a passion similar to that expressed by lesbians watching Desert Hearts(1986) for the first time: “I, personally, shall never forget the tender scene when the Almond-eyed Lesbian, newly awakened to her nature, bends over the shoulder of Josette... and begins, ‘Ma soeur...’ (my sister).” (30)

• The Ladder editor Helen Saunders (”Sandy”) wrote “Me vs. Taxes” deploring the injustice of paying taxes as a single wage earner when married heterosexuals enjoy tax relief. “Society may choose to condemn homosexuality. But those of us who live together and own property and join in our community’s interests are householders and have a right to consideration under the constitution. Shall we all become cousins?” (31) The next issue contained a story by Del Martin called “Me vs. Insurance,” which described the difficulty she and Phyllis Lyon had in getting both names on their insurance policies. Insurance companies have changed since then, but I wonder if they would have but for the resistance of these lesbians, facing a world unprepared for “alternative families” long before liberated straight women began living with their boyfriends in the 70s.

• The “Readers Respond” feature was often where readers speculated on the “sisterhood” of entertainers and authors. Here’s on offering: “I’d like to bring to the attention of The Ladder readers two more singers whose work is both relevant and lovely. The first is Chris Williamson (and this is the title of her first album). She wrote the lyrics herself and collaborated with other women for the songs on this album. Very special attention should be paid to the song, “Waiting.” (32)

The letter also mentioned Diane Davidson. Both women are today entertainers and out lesbians.

History of the Work

The Ladder itself contains several articles about the history of the DOB and the history of the magazine, even one describing how the staff put it together every month. The content of the magazine changed slowly as lesbians changed, however, and changes in editorship usually brought significant changes to the staff and the magazine.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were the newsletter’s founding editors, Lyon for the first four years, then Martin for another three. Barbara Gittings, who later went on to found the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, began her editorship in March of 1963 and continued until December, 1966. About a year later, the subtitle “A Lesbian Review” appeared on the cover for newstand buyers.

Throughout these editorships, a prominent display of “The Purposes of the Daughters of Bilitis” appeared in every issue. These were, in brief: “education of the variant,” “education of the public,’‘ “participation in research projects,” and “investigation of the penal code. “

After Gittings left, Helen (Sandy) Saunders, a long-time DOE officer, began editing. Sandy and her partner Sten Russell had worked on the magazine from the beginning, writing and doing production. Russell contributed many of the reports from meetings of other homophile organizations. Sandy’s editoria1 voice was “cheerful: as one correspondent put it, though at times a bit flip. She instituted a series of columns written by her cat, Ben Cat, which are amusing and very lesbian. While Sandy was editor, the “Purposes of DOB” were modified to suit a changing self-definition influenced by incipient feminism:

The organization and the magazine’s editors were becoming aware that lesbians were women rather than a third sex to be classed with male homosexuals. The word “Lesbian” was generally substituted for “variant” or”homosexual” and a new goal was added to provide “the Lesbian a forum for the interchange of ideas within her own group. (34)

The last editor was Barbara Grier, who encouraged publication of feminist perspectives. Grier began editing in September 1968. She immediately put the magazine on a bimonthly schedule and increased the number of pages to 48. Major changes in women’s lives are clearly apparent in these issues:

The metamorphosis the magazine underwent around the late 1960s is representative of the metamorphosis that occurred in many middle-class lesbians who had come out in earlier decades. While many of them had recognized their choice of a lesbian life to have feminist roots, they seldom articulated it because they believed they were unusual. The books said that most lesbians were born or made in childhood, and the world agreed. With the rise of the second wave of feminism, the perception which they had kept virtually a secret was suddenly expounded everywhere, and new feminists recognized that lesbians had much to teach them. (35)

Two years later, after the DOB national convention, The Ladder split from the DOB, and became profoundly lesbian/ feminist.

The “new” Ladder, “although it maintained a firm distinction between lesbians and heterosexual women, had its roots in lesbian feminist consciousness, whose expression the growing women’s movement encouraged.” (36) In the Aug/Sep issue the familiar DOE “Purposes” are gone, and so is “A Lesbian Review.” Inside the front cover is a new manifesto, probably written by Rita Laporte.

Initially The Ladder’s goal was limited to achieving the rights accorded to heterosexual women, that is full second-class citizenship. The Lesbian knew. And she wondered silently when her sisters would realize that they too share many of the Lesbian’s handicaps, those that pertained to being a woman. The Ladder’s purpose today is to raise all women to full human status, with all of the rights and responsibilities this entails; to include ALL women, whether Lesbian or heterosexual. (37)

What Killed The Ladder?

Two years after splitting from the DOB, The Ladder folded.

Grier says she ran out of money: “lack of money, which hounds all magazines not supported by advertising revenue” (39) forced her to end production.

But why wasn’t there any money? Faderman writes that the magazine couldn’t change fast enough. “Younger women associated The Ladder the politics of adjustment.” In other words, The Ladder was perceived as a magazine for butch and femme married ladies who wanted to be accepted by the establishment. But by 1972, just a few years after Laporte’s letter to Mary Daly, being lesbian had become the “practice” of feminist theory: “Any woman can be a lesbian.” (40) I think that Grier and Laporte knew exactly what was happening to lesbians and baby dykes out in the world, but not enough of those feminist lesbians knew about The Ladder. Already the little pioneering magazine was being forgotten.

But perhaps it was the familiar infighting that helped kill The Ladder: Before the last DOB national convention, according to John D’emilio, “Old Timers were especially furious at what was happening to the magazine.” Martin and Lyon write of this period in their book Lesbian/Woman:

As time when on it was evident that the winds of change were affecting The Ladder well as the DOB, its publisher. Gene Damon [Grier] and Rita Laporte felt strongly that DOB should align itself solely with the women’s movement. They felt that the homophile movement was too male oriented and that the Lesbian’s salvation lay in working for equal rights for women. (41)

Sten Russell told D’emilio that the election of Laporte was “a damned debacle, a damned disaster.” The political activities of the DOB notwithstanding, the organization and the magazine it sponsored had always focused on The Lesbian, the Lonely Lesbian, the Lesbian Just Coming Out. According to Russell, “The women’s lib movement was coming very much to the fore [with] a whole new bunch of people who were talking a language we didn’t understand.” (42)

Martin and Lyon use passive verbs to describe what happened before the DOB national convention that year:

As the 1970 National Convention approached it became obvious that there was disaffection between, on one hand, the national president and The Ladder editor [Laporte and Grier], and on the other, the rest of the organization. The culmination came when the entire physical production and mailing of the magazine was moved to Reno, Nevada, and placed in the hands of the chapter there. Faced with this fait accompli the National Convention the organization decided to let The Ladder go. A legal fight to retain it would have taken too much of the organization’s time and money and probably would have effectively killed the magazine. (43)

D’emilio gives a few more details:

When DOB members, including Martin and Lyon, laid plans to recover control of The Ladder the 1970 convention, Laporte and Grier simply boycotted the gathering, made off with the organization’s membership and subscription list, and began publishing the magazine independently. Without The Ladder subsidize, DOB has little reason to maintain its national structure. The membership sadly agreed to dissolve the national organization, letting each chapter survive as best it could. (44)

The Ladder also survived as best it could, but only another two years. After the last issue, Grier and Collette Ried edited three anthologies from The Ladder: Lavender Herring [feminist essays], Lesbian Lives [biographies], Lesbian Home Journal [ stories]. (45)

A few years later, Grier and her friend Donna McBride were approached by two longtime supporters of the magazine with the idea to begin a lesbian book publishing company. That idea became Naiad Press, the oldest and largest lesbian publishing house in the world. According to an interview in Hotwire, Grier and McBride not only infused their new press with a lifetime of publishing experience and financial backing, they also brought The Ladder’s readership. The first book Naiad published was written by one of the financial backers, and most of the sales were to women on The Ladder’s subscription list. (46)

The Next Steps

Speculations on why The Ladder folded aren’t as important as wondering why lesbians haven’t read it today. Arno Press also folded, but you can still buy the complete reprinted set The Ladder from Ayer Press of New Hampshire for only $328.50. Several University of California campus libraries hold it so I’m sure it must be available across the country. However, the set I read had been checked-out no more than three or four times in 15 years.

[2026 note: Here is digital archive of The Ladder on the Rainbow History Project, May 1963 to Jan 1972).

Most of lesbian history is oral, passed on from lover to lover. Yet, every oral tradition contains its silences. (48) I know so many lesbians who have found their true voice only through writing their words down. We must honor this by reading as well as writing. The lesbians of The Ladder though they sometimes seem quaint and backward, more often remind me that we are telling each other the same stories over and over. For some stories, this is our strength; yet without an institutionalized, widely known “lore”’ can we truly deepen our understanding of ourselves? I believe that we lesbians must write, we must read, and we must remember. Hollering isn’t enough.

Notes and Citations

1. “ Y. A., California,” an anonymous correspondent to The Ladder, vol 4, no. 4, pg. 23. Sappho 53, translation unknown.

2. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History, Lesbian and Gay Men in the U.S.A, Avon, New York, 1976, pg 507.

3. The first known periodical for lesbians, Vice Versa was typed out on six carbons(thirteen copies per issue), by “Lisa Ben,” from June 1947 to February 1948. Though The Ladder reprinted many poems and stories from Vice Versa I haven’t yet found it described or referred to therein. An interview with Lisa Ben and an in-depth description of Lisa Ben’s reviews of movies with lesbian characters appears in Gay Almanac by Jonathan Katz. Lisa Ben is also interviewed by Leland Moss, in Gaysweek, Jan 23, l97S, pp. 14- 16.

4. “B.M. of Battlecreek MI,” “Readers Respond,”The Ladder, vol 1, no 5, pg 16, (1956).

5. Just this past year lesbian entertainer Lucie Blue Tremblay released a recording containing the song “Two Lives” on this very theme, as well as other secrets and desires.

6. “Niki” of Minnesota, “Readers Respond,” vol 4 no. 5, (1960).

7. John D’emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, Univ of Chicago, 1983, pg 104.

8. Ibid

9. “T.F. of Seattle ,WA,” “Readers Respond,” The Ladder, vol 1 no. 2, pg 15 (1956).

10. The Ladder measures 5.5 inches by 8.5, the size of a standard piece of paper, folded and trimmed. The office went through several typewriters; sometimes several are used in the same issue. For most its life, The Ladder was typed, often in all capital letters, with typeset or “rub on” headlines and typeset “slugs” for monthly features like”Lesbiana” and “Readers Respond.”

11. By the last volume, every page was crammed with two columns of tiny type, and very little white space around headlines or between stories. For our relief there were a few photos in the last two volumes, but for the most part, graphically the magazine is quite inhibiting. However, the subject matter, “lesbian anything” is more than enough to hook me.

12. “Homophile’‘ was the word used by some gay men and lesbians to describe themselves in this era. The word was an alternative to “homosexual” a psychological term, and to the slang terms for “gay people” used among themselves.

13. Gene Damon, “Lesbiana,” The Ladder, vol 2, no. 8, pg. 18 (l958). For several years, the reviews in “Lesbiana” were numbered. Later she used a more narrative format.

14. Gene Damon, “Lesbiana, “ The Ladder , vol. 2 no. 9, pg. 16 (1958).

15. Gene Damon, “We Two Won’t Last,” (book review), The Ladder, vo1 8 no. 1, pg. 18 (1963).

16. Alma Routsong (Isabel Miller), in Gay Americans, Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Jonathan Katz, Avon, 1976, pg 656.

17. Arno also reprinted The Mattachine Review, a primarily male homophile magazine of 1950s.

18. Judy Dlugacz, “If It Weren’t for the Music, Fifteen Years of Olivia Records,” Hotwire, vol 4, no. 3 (July 1988), pg, 28. “One day Meg [Christian] came running down the stairs saying, ‘Gee I have this novellette Olivia, this would be a good name’... We liked the idea of taking from difficult roots and creating something beautiful... sort of owning the history of the way in which our culture has survived over the years, which is not always the best of ways.... We decided to take that name and turn it into something better.

19. Gene Damon, “Lesbiana,” The Ladder, vol.1, no 10, pg. 19 (l958).

20. Checklist: a complete cumulative checklist of lesbian, variant, and homosexual fiction, in English, or available in English translation, with supplements of related material, for the use of collectors, students, etc. Rodchester, TX, 1960.

21. See Out/Look, Winter 1990,cover story.

22. The last DOB president.

23. Rita Laporte, “An Open Letter to Mary Daly,”The Ladder, vol. 13, no. pg. 24.

24. Who also published the first lesbian magazine. See above.

25. The Ladder; vol. 4, no. 9, pg. 19.

26. Mrs. Doris Lyles, “My Daughter is a Lesbian,”The Ladder, vol 2 no. 10, pg. 4 (l958)

27. The Ladder , vol. 1 no. 1 pg. 9 (1956).

28. Laurajean Ermayne, “The Sapphic Cinema,” The Ladder, vol. 4 no. 7, pg. 5 ( 1960).

29. Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet, rev. ed, Harper & Row, 1987, pg. 59.

30. Ermayne, pg. 8.

31. Helen Saunders “Me vs. Taxes,” The Ladder, vol 2, no. 8. pg. 10 (1958).

32. “C. F., New York, “ “Readers Respond,” The Ladder, vol. 15, no 11&12, pg 51 (1970).

33. Gene Damon, “The Ladder, Rung by Rung,”, introduction to the reprinted edition of The Ladder, Arno Press, 1975.

34. Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men, William Morrow & Co, 1981, pg. 382. This book contains an interesting discussion of The Ladder in the context of lesbian literature through history.

35. Faderman, pg. 383.

36. Faderman pg 378.

37. The Ladder, vol. 14, no. 11 & 12, pg. 2, (1970).

38. “Editorial,” The Ladder, vol. 16, no 11&12, pg 3, (1972).

39. Damon, “ The Ladder, Rung by Rung. “

40. Which became a lyric on the first lesbian LP, Lavender Jane Loves Women by AlixDobkin, Kay Gardner, Patches Attom (1975).

41. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian/Woman, Glide Publications, 1972, pg. 253.

42. D’emilio, pg. 229-30.

43. Martin and Lyon, pg. 253.

44. D’emilio, pg. 229-30.

45. Faderman, pg. 407. All three were published by Diana Press (Baltimore) in 1976.

46. Sue Gambill, “Naiad Press,”Hotwire, vol. 3, no. 2 (March 1987) pg. 18. Grier claims in this article that by “demise” of The Ladder the magazine had become “a 72-page, slick glossy magazine.” The largest issue is the last, containing 56 pages.

47. The Ladder, house ad, vol. 12, no. 7, pg. 23, (1969).

48. I first heard about silences inherent in oral traditions from Amber Hollibaugh, panelist, “Writers as Activists, “ Out/ Write 90, The First National Conference of Lesbian and Gay Writers, San Francisco, March 4, 1990.

I was on the Lesbian Project podcast with Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock this week to talk about my book.

We got into the salacious stuff first, and then into utopias, feminism, and lesbian essentialism. We discussed an article about Queers and guns, (we are against it) and then line dancing, which morphed into my Minecraft evangelism.

I especially enjoyed that they both liked the character “Gloria,” who really grew on me as I wrote the book.

When we talked about lesbian literature, I mentioned a paper I wrote for a history of gay activism taught by Vito Russo in 1990. I was able to find it, and you can read it here.

The show notes link to a UK bookstore, but if that doesn’t work for you, order it from your favorite bookstore or Bookshop.org, or the odious online bookstores.

Errata

I mention Libana singing on the music used in one of the book’s rituals, but I forgot to say that A Rainbow Path is composed by Kay Gardner. You can buy the original recording for your own rituals or just to listen to. See Libana’s other work here. My favorite release by Libana is Night Passage.

I misquoted something. What I meant to say was “When you offer a healing tradition, that which is not love comes to the surface to be heal.” I got the sentiment right, but its better said in the original.

Sacred ireland by Cary Meehan is available again on Amazon, Apple Books, Kubo, and Overdrive, which you know as the library reading app Libby.

For years it’s been out of print, and if you looked for it, you found only scams. Now you can get put it on your phone in seconds for about $15.

Years before I first came to Ireland I found Sacred Ireland, an oddly shaped thick paperback at Bookshop Santa Cruz. It became the key that unlocked Ireland for me, bringing me deep into the island, far from the coach tours and Blarney. Meehan’s book gave me three important aspects of Ireland all other guide books lacked: context, comprehensiveness, and coherence.

Meehan’s Sacred Ireland taught me a history of Ireland embedded in the landscape I had arrived in with reverence and total ignorance. It was this book’s more than 200 different sites that taught me to appreciate the variety of the sacred, from ruined churches, to a solitary tree, or a holy well covered with a tea tray in the middle of the forest. And it was this book that taught me how to think about Irish spirituality, which seems to be an intersection of the sects of Christianities, the shadows of a pagan past and light of a pagan present, and a continuous human connection with the Irish Otherworld: enternal, co-existing, potent.

Meehan made the wise choice to not update the book from its 2011 version. All of the sites are much easier to find now; many of them have webpages devoted to them. But unlike any other guide, Cary began writing each site description while she was present, smelling the moss, feeling the rain, hearing the birds as she attempted to capture each sites unique energy. Nothing like it has ever been attempted, and probably never will again.

Get your copy, and tell your friends.

This post is for people who know me who want to stay in touch. I haven’t been writing personal essays about life in Ireland recently because I’m writing another novel. Now that I have one, I want two more, like eating oysters.

Instead of essays, here are topics for essays I will never write:

• Putin and Trump have everybody’s porn history. That’s why the other guys are compliant.

• Cutting the grass in Ireland smells completely different than California.

• Snow drops. Daffodils. The songbirds are arriving from Africa. Launched Merlin for the first time this year.

• Someone in my feed advised writers: “clean as you go” so when you finish your draft, it has no errors. This is terrible advice. Writing needs imagination and courage. Editing demands rules and suspicion.

Two years ago I was working on four books and a movie. Two of the books have been published (Flowering Dusk, A Circle Outside). The third, Sacred Ireland, is now available as an eBook. This is the guidebook that opened me to this island’s real magic. If you live in Ireland, or will visit Ireland, you want to have this on your phone. I helped the author, Cary Meehan, prepare this as an eBook, and she gets all the money (less distribution fees).

I’ll be in California for four weeks, March 10 to April 5. Most of the time I’ll be in Santa Cruz visiting friends, so if I forget to call you, please call me.

• March 8 KSQD Pride Perspectives (public radio). 5 pm.

• March 14 Berkeley Alembic, Sunday afternoon 2-4pm. “Dianic Wicca in Life and Literature”

• March 22 Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods. This is the Santa Cruz launch of A Circle Outside, an event with my friends Irene Reti and Coleen Douglas. 239 High St, Santa Cruz 2-4pm. Free, but reserve your ticket here.

• March 24 Fabuloso Bookstore, San Francisco 7 pm.

• March 28 Felton Public Library. 3:00pm - 4:30pm, 6121 Gushee St

• April 4 Alibi Bookshop, Vallejo 5 pm.

  

My sister and I are throwing me a party, and if you’d like to be invited ask me for details.

While I type out all these little news items, I know things are really bad. It’s a crucial moment to get outside and tell the truth together. Nothing else works but non-violent direct action. We need songs to sing. Here’s one by Starhawk, and when you sing it in a group it raises energy, courage, hope, and power. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Yours faithfully,

Linda

We can rise with the fire of freedom
Truth is the fire that burns our chains
We can stop the fires of destruction
Healing is the fire running through our veins

Here’s my interview on the Write Club podcast. We talk about redwood circles, the place of lesbians in literature, the most dangerous thing a woman can do.

The conversation is well worth your time, if I do say so myself.

Writers’s Substack

Finding power, humour, and history on the page – with Linda Rosewood

This week on the Write Club Podcast, Mary and Beth chat with debut novelist Linda Rosewood, author of A Circle Outside - a comic, feminist novel set among a 1980s coven in the Californian forest…

Listen now

3 months ago · 4 likes · 2 comments · Writers Online

I have an article in Writing Magazine this month. I have only written one book, but like a sophomore, here I go publishing what I learned. Before I tried to write fiction, was a skilled non-fiction writer, like a carpenter who could build a chest of drawers, but couldn’t begin to carve a statue.

The internet is full of struggling writers trying to teach other writers what they know. So that’s great value in getting a monthly magazine of curated advice. It’s published in the UK, but I get the pdf and it’s not very expensive. They also have a great podcast called The Write Club.

I found the FiLiA-sponsored Labrys Lit Book Group several years ago. It’s organized by Claire Huechan, a Scotland-based writer who works very hard to find a selection of books by lesbian writers that I would never had heard of otherwise.

We’ll be reading stories by lesbians across generations, ethnicities, cultures, classes, and religions. Like every branch of FiLiA, Labrys Lit is passionate about amplifying the voices of women who are less often heard or purposefully silenced. Priority is given to stories about lesbians of colour, working-class lesbians, and lesbians from religious minorities. Yes, books about women like Anne Lister are important. But the average lesbian doesn’t have her wealth or privilege, and stories belonging to the most visible lesbians aren’t the only stories worth exploring.

You can see the list of books we’ve read so far here. I can’t say I loved all of them, but they are all worth reading. If you’re a lesbian you can join the group at the same link. We meet the last Sunday of the month, 4:30 pm UK time.

In 2026, Claire’s selection focuses on the theme of the Lesbian Past and Pulp Fiction. I’m really looking forward to this entire year, and especially December.

• January: Spring Fire, by Vin Packer/ Marijane Meaker

• February: Pulp, by Robin Talley

• March: 3,000 Lesbians Go to York, by Jane Traies

• April: These Letters End in Tears, by Musih Tedji Xaviere

• May: Other People Manage, by Ellen Hawley

• June: Notes of a Crocodile, by Qiu Miaojin

• July: Experienced, by Kate Young

• August: Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H

• September: A Family Matter, by Claire Lynch

• October: House of Monstrous Women, by Daphne Fama

• November: Chutzpah!, by Yehudis Fletcher

• December: A Circle Outside, by Linda Rosewood

One thing I know about Irish people is that it’s impolite to complain about the food in a restaurant and they never send anything back to the kitchen.

I learned this years before I moved here when I met up with an Irish friend in a pub somewhere in Massachusetts. I think I was on vacation and she was there for a conference. We ordered our burgers and when hers arrived something was terribly wrong with it. I think it was raw.

My friend said she would “just eat around it,” and I told her to send it back. She refused. Never in her life had she sent something back to the kitchen. She could never. I said that might be true in Ireland, but this is America. The kitchen would want her return it. That convinced her. She apologised to the server for wanting her burger cooked, and of course the server saw what had happened and took it back. I think they just made her another one. My friend had a cross-cultural experience and I have a feeling to this day she sends back inedible dinners—when she is abroad.

I remembered this story the night after the citizenship ceremony as my dinner in a Galway restaurant was placed before me.

In Killarney the night before I had ordered a plate of hot wings in a pub, and those mini-drumsticks with the crispy breading were so delicious, I wanted to eat the same dish again. I was curious about this Galway restaurant’s version.

The order arrived. I expected crispy mini-drumsticks, but this kitchen made the dish with the distal end of the wing.

It looked like a bowl of insects.

But I did not send it back. Because I’m Irish now.

Everyone had to work the rest of the week, and spent their time off packing and getting ready for a yard sale Gloria organized for Saturday. Robin spent those days clearing out the bottom floor of the house then got started on the barn.

On Saturday, Nikki avoided working the yard sale by meeting Robin at before dawn. Nikki was tall, strong, and handsome. She kept her hair short, and more than one woman had been carried away on fantasies after hearing her voice.

Nikki arrived in her work truck, “N. Poletti, General Contractor” painted on both doors. Her logo was a crossed T-square and a hammer that looked a little like a labrys.

Nikki inspected the stairway and agreed it was lethal. She pulled a ladder off her truck and measured how high the staircase would be. While she was up there, she pried up the decking and declared the joists and walking surface sound.

Nikki and Robin had never built anything together, but after Robin saw the contents of Nikki’s tool boxes, and Robin agreed to buy the more expensive redwood, they began their lasting construction partnership.

After a euphoric hour in the San Lorenzo lumber yard, before they got to the cashiers, Nikki pulled Robin over to the tool aisle and put a hammer, cat’s paw, gloves, and a leather tool belt into Robin’s hands.

“All this? For me?”

“You won’t believe the effect of a tool belt.”

They set up their shop in the yard behind the kitchen, carrying lumber, extension cords, two ladders, and half-a-dozen toolboxes from the truck. Nikki taught Robin how to deftly drop a hammer into the hook at the back of her new belt.

“You wreck out the old stairs while I start on the new one.” Nikki showed Robin the proper way to remove a nail with the cat’s paw and watched Robin struggle to extract the four long nails from the bottom step. Eventually Robin held the tattered board over her head like a trophy and Nikki cheered.

“Okay, good. Now use this,” Nikki said laughing, and plugged in an electric reciprocating saw. “Just cut the stairs to pieces.”

“Why did you make me use the nail puller?”

“Every carpenter needs to know how to remove a nail before she pounds one in,” Nikki said declaratively. “You finish, and I’ll calculate the cuts for stringers.”

“Stringers?”

“Those gorgeous two-by-twelves we tied to the top of the truck. Stringers are the diagonal boards that hold the treads. What we walk on are treads. We call the vertical board between each tread the riser.”

Robin finished cutting apart the rotten stairway before Nikki was done scribbling her calculations in a notebook. Nikki told Robin to take the remains of the staircase to the dump pile while she muttered over the calculations until they satisfied her.

Nikki marked the stringers and Robin held the ends while Nikki sawed her precisely measured triangular notches. Then they cut boards into treads and risers.

“Do we put it together now?”

“Let’s clean up first.” Nikki produced mauls and splitters from a toolbox and they reduced the scraps to kindling. “That reminds me, we need firewood.”

“I’ll call Locatellis. Do we put together the stairs now?”

“We need a foundation.”

The old stairway was well rotted away from a cracked concrete slab. Nikki and Robin used chisels and pickaxes to break it up. While they worked, their conversation turned to women.

“So were you and Wren lovers?”

“Wren and I were together a long time ago, but we were never serious.”

“Is that true?” Robin remembered Wren describing it differently.

“Well,” Nikki pried up a big chunk of concrete and they carried it to the dump pile. “I wasn’t as serious as she was. She hadn’t been in a relationship with a woman before, and I was also seeing this older woman. That woman was into women’s spirituality, so that’s how I got into it. I met Wren in one of those classes. Ginny, Lupe, and Ginny were in it too, but we knew each other in high school.”

“At the Halloween ritual Lupe and Ginny were the Spider and the…um…harvest?” asked Robin.

“Yes.”

“Why were you a beaver?”

“They’re so hard working,” Nikki said, but Robin knew she was joking. “What was your mask about?”

“A campfire?”

“Whoa, a woman who thinks campfires are scary. Cripes.”

“It’s a long story.”

They finished breaking up the old foundation and started digging a trench for the new one.

“Were you all gay in high school?”

“I was, but not out.” Nikki paused as if realising something. “When did you come out? You were so much older than me.”

“I knew I was gay when I was about 15.”

“I was eight then. You were so cool.”

“Really? No fifteen-year-old feels cool. I remember you, another little tomboy. But I was wrapped up in my own troubles.”

“I wouldn’t be fifteen again for all the tofu in Oakland.” They fetched concrete foundation piers from the truck and set them into the trench.

“Okay, that looks pretty good. Let’s use the level to make sure.” Nikki set the level and liked what she saw. “Yup.” Before she continued, she finished her thought. “Anyway, I knew Lupe and Ginny were girlfriends, and no one can figure out what’s going on with Ginny.

Now they were ready to connect the three stringers to the veranda.

“What breaks my heart about the women I’ve been with is the shame they live with,” Nikki said, drilling a pilot hole, then driving a screw through the stringer and into the upper joist.

“Shame about being lesbian?”

“Most women get over lesbophobia shame in no time, once they figure out how much better the sex is than with men.” Ziiiip, another pilot; drrrript, another screw.

“But they’re ashamed to tell their girlfriend they still masturbate, or if they want to be fucked with fingers, or when they have a fantasy during sex—women always find something to stop themselves from really enjoying sex, even once they are lesbians.” Zip. Dript.

“I think there’s a difference between shame and guilt,” Robin said, who was holding the stringers as Nikki attached them. “Guilt is feeling bad for really doing something wrong, whether or not you knew it was wrong at the time. Shame is the feeling you get when your desire for pleasure is interrupted.”

Zip. Dript. Nikki paused for a moment to let that sink in. “So feeling guilty is a positive emotion, because it keeps us from hurting each other. But feeling shame is an emotion that prevents you from your own pleasure.”

“That’s how it seems to me,” said Robin.

They started in on the last stringer. “So when I was attracted to you when I was a girl, was that shame or guilt?”

“You were attracted to me?”

“Yeah, I felt guilty because we were cousins, but I felt shame because guilt interrupted my pleasure in it.” Nikki grinned. She wasn’t sorry or guilty. Zip. Dript.

“You felt the cousin thing was wrong, but not that we were two women?”

“Nah, being attracted to women always seemed normal to me. It was the rest of the world that seemed wrong.”

“I’m sorry I never noticed. I was way too wrapped up in my own troubles. Maybe I could have helped you, you little baby dyke.”

“Don’t worry about it. If we’re going to be housemates, I thought I should tell you. You’re not really my type, anyway.” Zip. Dript.

“What is your type?”

“Rounder than you.” Zip. Dript.

“I hear ya, sista-woman.”

“So you decided we’re going to be housemates?”

“Yup. I think Lupe and Ginny will move up for sure too.” Nikki started screwing the lower ends of the stringers into the wood embedded in the pier.

“How long have you known them?”

Zip. Dript. “They were a year behind me in high school. Ginny moved with her family to Santa Cruz up from Watsonville, and she and Lupe and I started to hang out. I knew something was going on between them. Zip. Dript. When they told me they were having sex, oh my god that opened my eyes to the possibilities. We did everything we could to learn more about lesbians. There were lesbians at UCSC, but those women were so different from us locals. Then we found Our Bodies, Ourselves and that chapter on lesbians. Zip. Dript.

“I was so happy to read that,” Robin said, moving out of Nikki’s way. “When I came out to myself, I also came into my memories of past lives.”

“So that’s how the past life stuff works?” Zip. Dript.

“That book excited me. This is the first time in history when there are lesbians in public. We have always existed, but now there are lesbian magazines and lesbian dances, and lesbian poetry readings and lesbian car mechanics and lesbian bands. Now I’ve found the lesbian witches!”

“And they happen to need a place to live.” Nikki stood back and admired the completed stringers and reached for a board that would be the first tread. “Watch this,” Nikki said. “Women will be up and down these steps in bare feet. We don’t want a nail to pop up and cut them.”

Nikki carefully lay the first tread across the notches in the stringers and with her pencil marked where the nail would go. She pulled a narrow chisel from her tool belt and tapped her hammer against it, incising a curled sliver of wood across the mark. She dropped the chisel into her tool belt and fetched out a nail in one motion, then drove it into the groove under the curl of wood. Then she dropped the hammer into the hook at her back and pulled out a tube. She drew a thin line of glue, and with her finger pressed the curl of wood back flush with the surface of the board. The nail disappeared, hidden under the sliver.

“Do you think you can do that?” Nikki said, admiring her work.

“That was so beautiful, I think I’d rather watch.”

“Oh, so that’s your thing.”

“I have a lot of things.”

Robin watched while Nikki worked her way up, laying a tread, creating thin slivers, nailing, gluing, and vanishing the nails like magic. Robin handed her each tread as she needed it.

After a while they talked about sex again. “Have you been lovers with any other women in the coven?” Robin asked.

“It happens doesn’t it? We can’t help it.”

“Nope. Put women alone together and they find a way to have sex with each other. Even nuns and their mortal sins.”

“Next please.”

“So? Have you?”

“We don’t have a rule against it, but no. We do stuff in ritual that sort of settles tension.” Nikki nailed the rest of that tread. “Hey, when’s your birthday?”

“In a few weeks, after Thanksgiving.”

“Oh good, then we can give you your birthday massage.”

“Uh oh.” Nikki put her hand out and Robin placed the next tread in it.

“We do a ritual on each woman’s birthday, a group massage. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but now I like it. You get touched—lovingly not sexually touched—by everyone in the coven. You need to learn how to let it happen and not give back, you know? Doing that in ritual without a give and take. Gloria says that eros is part of all friendships, even when you’re not lovers.”

“Don’t other people’s girlfriends have a problem with a group massage they aren’t invited to?”

“Sometimes we invite them. But girlfriends always have a problem with us. Girlfriends don’t always understand our coven sister thing. That’s why most of us are non-monogamous.”

“How does that work out?”

“Works great for me.”

“I should have known.”

“Only Ginny doesn’t have girlfriends. She seems to be happy with herself and loves animals. She’s looking forward to getting goats. She’ll probably need me to help her with a chicken coop.”

“Speaking of animals, she and I saw a snake the other day.”

“Really? It’s late in the year to see snakes.”

“But it hasn’t rained for a while. I think it was just sitting in the sun.”

“I don’t blame it. Anyway, back before the coven started, the witchcraft class tried to do a group sex ritual.”

“How was it?”

“Magnificent.” Nikki was halfway up. “But the couple who wanted to do it the most, of course they broke up after. And then there was all the processing of the childhood sexual abuse that comes up when any group has sex.”

“Probably for the best?”

“Yes, in the long run. But we could have done better by each other.”

“I think I know what you mean. You’re still so young.”

“I don’t feel young.”

“Well, you are, and it’s so much to deal with. You don’t have the tools.”

“I got the tools right here,” said Nikki, grasping the buckle of her tool belt with both hands, and giving Robin a salacious look.

They were quiet for a while, enjoying the rhythm of work. They were near the top when Nikki continued her last thought.

“For lots of women, non-monogamy is exciting because it’s radical. Women have political reasons why non-monogamy is better. Did you hear about that women’s collective back east that forced everyone to sleep with everyone else?”

“Why force them? Just wait.”

“I know,” said Nikki laughing. “God, isn’t it great when a woman wants you?”

“Even if she’s not supposed to.”

“Especially. It shocks me when they come to bed.”

“A new lover gives you a sense of self-worth.”

“Yeah.” Nikki reached for the last tread. “Shit, that’s lame.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself.”

“I try not to be.” Nikki hammered in the last nail. She climbed down. “Let’s do the risers later. You should try them out.”

“There’s no rail.”

“The stairs are three feet wide. You won’t fall off.”

“Did you know I’m afraid of heights?”

“You go first, I promise I’ll catch you.”

“Har har.”

Robin nearly ran up the new stairs and stepped off onto the veranda. The surface was spongy with a thick layer of leaves and needles, but felt firm underneath. Nikki followed and walked around the entire house opening each door. “The construction here is weird,” she said. “Every room has its own door? No interior hallway?”

“No, there isn’t. I think that’s how people did it back then. It was easier for multiple families to live together.”

“All in one room?”

“That’s how most human beings still live.”

“I forget about that.”

Robin opened the middle room. “I want to show you the attic,” Robin said. “I haven’t been up there since I was a kid.”

This bedroom contained a rusted iron bed covered in a decayed mattress and empty wine bottles. A roughly constructed ladder of two-by-fours leaned across one wall and disappeared through the ceiling.

“Age before beauty,” said Nikki, with a gesture. Robin took a breath before climbing the ladder and gingerly stepped off the ladder at the top. “Yuck, spider webs,” she said, crouching next to the ladder. Nikki only stuck her head through and looked around. She pulled a flashlight from her tool belt.

Unlike the rest of the house, the attic was empty. Four dormer windows overlooked the plaza, four faced the forest.

“Can you imagine this room in the summer? Light coming in on both sides?”

“Yes, I can,” Nikki said. “But it would be cold. No fireplace. I suppose we’ll have to get a furnace, eventually. And a better stairway up here.”

“I like the way you think,” said Robin.

Later that evening Robin and Nikki drank beers on the porch, and the phone rang.

“Our first phone call,” Robin said, getting up to answer it. It was Lupe and Ginny asking for directions.

“Bring beer,” Nikki shouted before Robin hung up, and they arrived forty minutes later with a case of Henry Weinhard’s and Pizza My Heart boxes.

Lupe and Ginny admired the house and the new stairs. They got very enthusiastic about the cabins in the back. Nikki agreed they could be rehabilitated. Lupe and Ginny then explored behind the house because Lupe had read in a book where to locate and build an outhouse. They were disgusted to find the old one.

Most of my After Santa Cruz posts are personal essays intended to be of interest for anybody. I promote my book in its own section. Occasionally, like today, I send a note to subscribers that’s a more personal update.

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas, Nollaig na mBan in Ireland (Women’s Christmas). This Irish holiday really needs to catch on. Traditionally the bean an tí (woman of the house) takes a day off from household chores and enjoys herself as she pleases. These days most Irish households divide the work more equitably, but women still go out to lunch together, and celebrate the women of their lives. There was a women’s dip in the sea this morning, but alas, I slept in.

Some of my friends have asked what it is like to be an Irish citizen now. It’s been a subtle state change, where normal life feels more normal. My tax attorney tells me that my ties to Ireland are “substantial” so maybe I won’t pay California’s income tax. He advises me to let my California driver’s license lapse. At one time, the absence of a CDL in my wallet would be an existential threat. Now, that card lives in the stack of other old IDs that aren’t me. I decided to change the country of my computer’s dictionary the other day. Small changes, all good.

If I still lived in Santa Cruz I wouldn’t be thinking of leaving the US. But if you know anyone who is contemplating it, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.

Besides Nollaig na mBan today, we’re one month out from the release of my novel A Circle Outside in North America. If you were thinking about buying it, today would be a good day to call your favorite book store and pre-order it. (Especially Bookshop Santa Cruz.) If you’re in a book club, would you consider reading it? It’s suitable for all ages of any adult, not just women. The Labrys Lit book club in the UK will read it next December. If you’ve already read it, a review on Amazon would help a lot. After about twenty reviews, search ranking improves.

To promote the book, I’m coming to Santa Cruz in early March and will stay a month. My sister and I will host a private party at our house; I’ll send you the details if you contact me. I should to have plenty of time to meet up with you, my friends, for a meal or a walk or art show or music or something we will remember forever.

On March 22, I’m doing an event called Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods with my friends Coleen Douglas and Irene Reti. I wanted to create an event that would offer something better than a reading in the corner of a bookstore. An event with friends I haven’t met yet, something different and worth leaving the house for. Reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite.

If Nolliag na mBan isn’t for you, let it be an inspiration to make your own holiday, today, tomorrow, whenever you can. This is your life, now. Sing your favorite song. Eat something sweet. Put on an old sweater. Press a handful of leaves to your nose.