The first thing you learn about Æ is that he wanted us to call him by a symbol that he said represented “the æon.” I don’t think he meant to use this magical name publicly, but it is by the “Æ” that he mostly known. He is usually remembered for his work as a cultural leader and friend of Yeats, but he was active in building Irish institutions after independence including cooperative creameries and banks, the first hydroelectric power plant, and an international airport.

I love every one of paintings. Many of them are similar to this one in the National Gallery:

Or this one, “Lordly Ones Appearing to a Turf Cutter:”

There’s a wonderful interview with Æ published in 1908 that’s worth reading for its earnest details.

Q.—Can you describe the shining beings?

A—It is very difficult to give any intelligible description of them. The first time I saw them with great vividness I was lying on a hill-side alone in the west of Ireland, in County Sligo: I had been listening to music in the air, and to what seemed to be the sound of bells, and was trying to understand these aerial clashings in which wind seemed to break upon wind in an ever-changing musical silvery sound. Then the space before me grew luminous, and I began to see one beautiful being after another.’

Q—Can you describe one of the opalescent beings?

A—The first of these I saw I remember very clearly, and the manner of its appearance: there was at first a dazzle of light, and then I saw that this came from the heart of a tall figure with a body apparently shaped out of half-transparent or opalescent air, and throughout the body ran a radiant, electrical fire, to which the heart seemed the centre. Around the head of this being and through its waving luminous hair, which was blown all about the body like living strands of gold, there appeared flaming wing-like auras. From the being itself light seemed to stream outwards in every direction; and the effect left on me after the vision was one of extraordinary lightness, joyousness, or ecstasy.”

(full text in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz 1911.)

My favorite paintings are his Donegal landscapes, and to find them all collected together fills me with joy.

I crossed that same creek this morning, the beach covered in tiny clam shells, just like 100 years ago. If those women looked up, they’d see Muckish just like I did today.

Most Americans who visit Ireland rent a car or board a tour bus in Dublin or Cork and travel clockwise around the island. The Wild Atlantic Way could take them as far as Derry, but usually they turn right at Galway and head home. Which is fine with me, but to be fair I should point out that my part of Donegal is the best part of Ireland and worth the extra four hours from Galway.

In the Irish Times the other day, I see there’s a new route where tour busses seldom rumble.

The Literary Ways are nine different routes that take you through the border counties, where many of Ireland’s greatest writers were born, lived, and worked. The Dramatic Way is about playwrights, from the birthplace of Brian Friel, who created Dancing at Lughnasa, to Lisa McGee who created Derry Girls. Take the Nobel Way if you’re into Ireland’s three Literature Nobel winners. There’s a Novel Way, a Poetic Way, and a Singer’s Way. The Critical Way features the sort of people dreaded by the previous four types of creators, except that it includes Nell McCaffrey, a feminist journalist. The Warring Way traces battlefields, so beloved by Americans and British, which I would give a miss, but it includes the sites of Ireland’s Iron Age story cycle the Táin Bó Cúailnge. The Spiritual Way spans millennia, from Neolithic Newgrange, to competing St. Patrick’s Cathdrals, to the Mourne Mountains aka C. S. Lewis’s Narnia where everybody dies and goes to heaven but the stroppy teenage girl. Finally, there’s a route devoted just to Oscar Wilde who went to school in Enniskillen.

The route is created by Arts Over Borders, a production company who specialize in literary festivals that link what artists create with significant places in their lives. I wish they had included more women, but obscure lady scribblers don’t draw the tour buses.

Those bright scribbled lines crossing over and over the border excite me. That border is so artificial and recent. I’m optimistic about Irish Unity, but even though it’s only been 100 years, the six counties can’t be grafted onto the the root stock of the other twenty six now. Before the border is well and truly gone, the institutions— and more importantly the symbols— need to be sorted. Change the Flag? A new national anthem? Devolved internal political system with stronger provinces and less Dublin control? I imagine it will take years of technical conversations in dreary zoom meetings. While the technical wrangling can’t be avoided, it can be illuminated by all-island projects like this one, bringing artists, seekers, and dreamers into the heart of Ireland.

Paperback: 416pp

Published: Lightning (August 2025)

ISBN: 9781785634284

A comedy of manners set in a commune of lesbian witches

‘Funny and full of heart but also wise’ Polly Clark

‘A brilliant book. Everyone should read it’ Kathleen Stock

‘A captivating debut novel with a unique and feminist voice. We loved it’ The Write Club

‘Thankfully, author Linda Rosewood, has her tongue firmly in her cheek and is able to make humor of the milieu as well as understanding it deeply and respecting it profoundly.’ Bay Area Reporter

‘Whether A Circle Outside merely entertains you or, like it did with me, has a deeper, reflective impact, … there is no denying that magic is woven into the pages of this book. It is easy to read, entertaining, and with an intriguing through line that makes it hard to put down.’ Villanelle Magazine

It’s the early 1980s, and a household of lesbian feminists establish a women-only commune in an ancient Californian redwood forest.

It seems a perfect place to practise the ritual magic that helps them function harmoniously as a group – even if they aren’t all true believers. By getting back to the land, they can also live more as nature intended and give the finger to the Patriarchy.

That doesn’t stop jealousies arising, as Wren, an artist, nurses an unrequited crush on Robin, the land’s extraordinarily generous owner. Further conflict brews as Gloria, the manipulative leader of the group, disagrees with Robin about her own rule: no men on the land.

Warm, funny and harking unashamedly back to a less toxic era, A Circle Outside is a seductive vision of a utopian dream, where the only real magic is self-transformation.

‘An authentic book that leads us back to a more innocent and idealistic era’ Gaia Media

‘A stylish and entertaining debut in which a coven of lesbians use every means at their disposal to preserve their women-only paradise. Funny, full of heart but also wise in its resistance to easy conclusions’ Polly Clark, author of Larchfield

‘Rosewood has written a wild, witchy and whimsical book with engrossing and complex characters. This novel is nearly impossible to put down’ Irene Reti, author of Out in the Redwoods

‘With enthusiasm, good humour and fellowship, the women of A Circle Outside break new ground. The fresh growth on this farm is joyfully rampant, in so many ways’ Roger Swain, presenter of The Victory Garden

‘Witches, lesbians, psychedelic trips and political activism set among the redwood groves of 1980s California is a bubbling cauldron of interpersonal strife, love affairs and feminism—all dished up with a side order of wisdom and humor. A Circle Outside is a cracking read which is sure to appeal to anyone who ever had a misspent youth or an ideal or two.’ Sally North, Holythorn Press

Order at your favorite bookstore

Ask for A Circle Outside at your favorite bookstore. They are unlikely to shelve it, but can order it for you. Or Bookshop.org.

In the UK and Europe, buy A Circle Outside directly from the publisher, Eye and Lightening.

If you have a bookstore in the US, order it from IPG. If you have a book store in the UK/EU/Aus/NZ, order it from Booksource. ISBN 9781785634284.

Yes, it is on Amazon, please avoid buying it from them if you can.

Media

Interview: Good Times Santa Cruz.

Interview: Santa Cruz Sentinel. “Author Linda Rosewood sets first novel, ‘A Circle Outside,’ in Santa Cruz” by Nick Sestanovich. (Please subscribe to the Sentinel, but if you can’t, try this link at archive.is.

The Bay Area Reporter reviewed A Circle Outside, saying “A Circle Outside is an entertaining as well as educational read, easy to read and delightful. It concerns a more innocent time of the 1980s and in many ways is a sort of time capsule of that period in women’s social history. Remarkably, many of the issues dissected in the novel are extremely relevant today, particularly the discussions around monogamy and polyamory. Sisters were doing it for themselves!”

Vallejo Times Herald: “Arts-Entertainment Source: Alibi bookstore welcomes author Linda Rosewood”

Interview: The Lesbian Project Podcast

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.

Review: Gaia Media. Gaia Good News is a free non-profit newsletter about “communication information that contributes to a holistic understanding of nature and human existence” and also all the news of the current state of psychedelic science, art, and politics.

“Linda Rosewood’s droll but affectionate debut is about a vanished era, set in the Santa Cruz mountains square in the middle of the 1980s, not far from UCSC where she attended school. … Rosewood’s attitude toward these young people is amused and dry, and never becomes contemptuous or overglamorizing. Her theme sounds woo-rich, but it has a point.” Richard von Busack (Film and Culture Critic)

Interview: Pride Perspectives, KSQD.

Coleen Douglas and I in conversation with Cece Pinero on KSQD promoting our show “Wonder and Awe in the Redwoods.” I tell the story of my first lesbian experience in Santa Cruz, where to find the lesbians in Ireland, and all three of us talk about how much we love redwoods. Coleen sings a song, and I read a scene from A Circle Outside. (If you don’t like this link, search for it in your favorite podcast app.)

Interview: The Write Club

Interview: Radio Europe

Richard Hall review on Insta.

Interview: I Heart SapphFic

Me, pitching A Circle Outside for 60 seconds

Events

I was in California for most of March 2026.

March 8 interview on KSQD Pride Perspectives (public radio). Apple podcast link. Search for it in your podcast app if those don’t work.

March 14 Dianic Wicca in Literature and Life, Berkeley Alembic, 3 pm

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.

Here’s a short impressionistic video. A longer one will arrive shortly.

March 24 Fabuloso Bookstore, San Francisco

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

(I forgot to take pictures. That’s why I need to remember to bring someone with me.)

About a dozen of us sat outside on the patio at the beautiful Felton Library. I read some poems and a scene that takes place in a redwood circle. I was able to gesture to the redwoods growing just a few yards away from us.

April 4 Alibi Bookshop, Vallejo

With Alibi Books owner Karen Finley.

With April Whitney, best publicist in the world.

The power was out, but it didn’t matter a bit.

I highly recommend 1) writing a novel 2) selling it to a publisher 3) hiring a publicist 4) going on a book tour reading passages from your book out loud to strangers and talking to them about lesbians, feminism, paganism, utopias, and psychedelics. Can’t wait to do it again.

Many Irish towns have a old burial ground like the Old Leck Cemetery in Letterkenny. You see mostly 20th and 19th-century gravestones, with a few naming the oldest families in town in the 21st. If you look closer you see the low stones with soft edges marking graves from three, four hundred years ago, maybe earlier. I had long wanted to visit this graveyard, but never had, so a few days ago I invited my friend Sinead to join me.

See that notch in the wall? An invitation. Beyond I found a brook, merrily burbling on its way to the river Swilly (An tSúileach). I stood in the shade, taking in that bright green sunny field, listening; remembering that time many years ago on an early holiday in Ireland I sat near a similar brook in Sligo, listening, getting back into my body after the disassociating flight from California.

In those days I was seeking “Sacred Ireland.” I met teachers and writers and artists. I read books and followed incomprehensible instructions to locate sacred sites. I climbed mountains and entered caves.

Here’s the secret to finding sacred Ireland: just come here and sit down.

The secret works anywhere, but you may want to begin by sitting down an old cemetery like Old Leck.

As I turned away from the brook to rejoin Sinead, I saw this:

Look at that. A sacred well. The kind of well created from a bullaun stone, which is a rock with a circular depression in it. Because this is Ireland, if you leave it outside, it fills with water, and the water becomes magic. People say this bullaun stone at Old Leck holds a cure for warts.

(Some people say we don’t know the original purpose for a bullaun stone, but I like the theory described by Brian Dolan, in “Mysterious Waifs of Time,” a scholarly paper about bullaun stones. I think these stones were once used to grind ore in preparation for smelting. The technology of Bronze Age metalwork is always associated with magic. The story of the boy pulling a sword from a stone is simply the final product of a technical process that begins with grinding ore to powder in a bullaun stone. Long after people no longer needed to ask a magical king make them a shiny blade, the cast off tools retained their magic.)

Finding sacred Ireland is as easy as stepping through a notch in a wall… or gathering with good people, like I will tomorrow. Tomorrow is Bealtaine, the fire holiday marking the first day of summer. Sinead and her Himalayan House Band will host Teach na Sean-Ghaeilge (Old Irish House). Dinner, music, poetry, songs, chat, friends, special guests and open mic. I try never to miss it. All I need to do is sit down.

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

5 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.