Recently, I received a comment from someone online who said I should be “ashamed” of myself for promoting veganism. Shame!? I thought. What’s up with that comment? I think the person is probably ashamed of his own behavior in eating animals–other sentient beings. But anyone experiencing shame for consuming animal products doesn’t have to continue to do so. They can change. Since almost everyone consumes some vegetables–I’ve come to consider non vegan people as pre-vegans. That way I don’t have to be down on humanity. After all, I changed also–and unfortunately later in life. As a response to the comment, I thought I would post some pictures and a video from the vegan Thanks Living celebration we just attended. It was a truly joyous celebration.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
This week, I decided to post a review of the biography on Alain Locke, a key figure in starting the Harlem Renaissance.
I have long been fascinated by the figure of Alain Locke – who I knew as the first African American Rhodes Scholar (in 1907), the philosopher that the civil rights leader Martin Luther King spoke about, the influential Howard University professor (the historically black university located in Washington D.C.), and perhaps most importantly (to me) as the philosophic architect of the Harlem Renaissance. Locke was known for the fact that he championed such writers as Zora Neale Hurston.
That I had heard he was gay only made him more interesting. Then I learned that the long-awaited biography of Locke was coming out written by Jeffrey C. Stewart titled, The New Negro, The Life of Alain Locke had been published in 2018. It was published by Oxford University Press and received the 2018 National Book Award for nonfiction.
Then the book arrived. I have to admit that I was daunted by its 800 pages – 878 to be exact. Also, like many people, if not most, I rarely read biographies. But once I started reading this one, I found it so fascinating that I could barely put it down – even though it is physically hard to pick up because it is so heavy. So, even if you rarely read biographies, I would suggest reading this one. It’s a real page turner and you’ll learn a lot of important historical information.
Locke – as Stewart writes – was “a tiny effeminate gay man – a dandy, really, often seen walking with a cane, discreet, of course, but with just enough hint of a swagger, to announce to those curious that he was queer, in more ways than one, but especially in that one way that disturbed even those who supported Negro liberation. His sexual orientation made him unwelcome in some communities and feared in others as a kind of pariah.”
Some of the intriguing things that I learned was that Locke was very close to his mother, in fact after her death in 1922, left him bereft, and after a stint in travelling in Europe where he could be more sexually open, and after being fired for a time by Howard University for being too vocal on race relations (although he was later hired back), he poured himself into their shared love for art and commenced on starting the Harlem Renaissance, with the idea that there was liberation in art that was African American identified.
The Harlem Renaissance loomed so large in my mind that even though I already knew that it was basically over by 1929, when the American stock market collapsed, it was rather depressing to read about it again. Harlem, long the African American section of New York City, was hit very hard by the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance, however, remains an important part of history – and many African American identified visual artists and writers were influenced and inspired by it long after the 1920s, as Stewart writes.
Some of the things that I learned that intrigued me was that Locke was very close to his mother and that after her death, he replicated his relationship with her to some extent with several older women who were important to him. I also found it fascinating that the campus of University of Oxford (where Locke found himself after he won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship), was a hotbed of gay male activity – and that this was the same university that the gay legend Oscar Wilde was graduated from in 1878, three decades before Locke arrived. I also learned that Locke faced less racism in Europe. However, some of the major racist obstacles that Locke faced at Oxford were created by other American Rhodes Scholars.
Most of what I learned was that Locke, a black, gay man, faced major obstacles in his life because of racism and homophobia. Despite these obstacles he thrived, and he changed the course of history.
His life is inspiring.
Note: This piece originally aired on This Way Out (TWO), the internationally syndicated LGBT radio show.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
The Ally, a novel by the celebrated Spanish author Ivan Repila, translated by Mara Fage Lethem, and published in 2022 by Other Press, influenced the way I thought about many things, particularly about gender. Below is my review which I posted on Book Tube. Under the video is the text of the review. I hope you enjoy it.
Being a second-generation feminist born of a feisty-feminist-ahead-of-her-time mother, I am, in many ways, a product of the feminist revolution. As a lesbian, I’ve been able to live comfortably on the margins. I say comfortably because I’ve been able to avoid a lot of things (in particular, much sexist behavior).
When I received a copy of The Ally, by the celebrated Spanish author Ivan Repila, translated by Mara Fage Lethem, and published in 2022 by Other Press, I read the synopsis on the back of the book and was intrigued. It is billed as a book that uses “humor, clever story-telling, and hard-core feminist theory to lampoon the macho superiority complex of our modern gender wars.”
There is a fair amount of humor in the book. I was particularly struck by the band of macho men’s distaste for women with short hair who wore baggy clothes prompting me to think, these kinds of guys must love me. The story begins when the protagonist meets his girlfriend, a prominent feminist named Najwa at a lecture that prompts him to enter the world of feminist thought. He goes through a period of what many would call consciousness-raising. But the protagonist takes it upon himself to explain to the women (including his mother) that they are oppressed and sees that they are going about their activism in the wrong way.
The author creates a very flawed protagonist and it’s hard to understand which side he is on—that of the band of macho men or of the women who at one time he purports to want to help. At one point the feminist hero, Najwa, recounts the victories that have been won including the fact that, “People have begun to understand that gender-based violence is not a consequence of inequality, but a structural pillar of a world we’d created.”
As I neared the end of The Ally by Ivan Repila, published by Other Press, I found myself immersed in a thought-provoking novel that placed me in the center of history where feminism is giving way to gender studies and is changing the nature of discourse. I started out reading fiction and ended up thinking about the nature of reality and where it is going.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Book Tube and Spotify.
For more information on my most recent published novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Recently, when I heard about the director of the Mt. Airy Art Garage, Arleen Olshan, being forced out of her position and her artwork being censored by board members who said her work was not fit for “Family Values,” I had occasion to view images of her work which was censored. Looking at the images took me back. Before Arleen and her partner founded the Mt. Airy Art Garage fourteen years ago, Arleen was one of the co-founders of the pioneering lesbian, feminist and gay bookstore Giovanni’s Room (which is still on Pine Street in Center City Philadelphia, but under different ownership). I spent much time in Giovanni’s Room as a budding young writer. For many years, Arleen’s paintings hung upstairs in a room where people could sit among the books and her paintings and soak in the lesbian culture. That culture was rare in those days (even rarer than it is today) and the store was a place where you could feel at home.
Arleen’s work that was censored, contains images of lesbians who are nude. She portrays images of women that are natural and seen through a lesbian eye. There is plenty of nudity in art museums, much of it violent towards women.
Also, as my partner said when we first heard about the situation, kids see their parents naked, and no one thinks that’s harmful.
Last week when my partner and I drove past the Mt. Airy Art Garage on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, we noticed that there is no longer a Pride flag flying outside. Mt. Airy is a section of the City known for its diversity. What happened to Arleen makes me angry, but it also makes me sad.
To learn more about the situation, click on the following link for the article in the Philadelphia Gay News:
In honor of my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage (Thorned Heart Press; 2022) being featured in the Pride issue of Jae’s Pride issue of Sapphic Bingo, I’m reposting this short section of the beginning of Loving Artemis.
It is my pleasure to bring you this opening of my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage (published by Thorned Heart Press) that I read recently at an online reading. The excerpt is on YouTube and below that is the text. The novel starts out when one of the narrators is in midlife and attends the New York Pride march in 2012. This narrator sees a woman who reminds her of an old flame in her youth in the late 1970s and she wonders what made Art (short for Artemis) Art.
Enjoy!
Grace stood on the crowded sidewalk and watched the Dykes on Bikes contingent kick off the parade. The skyscrapers on both sides of Fifth Avenue echoed the roar: rage turned celebratory. Today was their day. Pride. Motorcycles, full of motion, crawled at parade speed. Hands gripped controls at the ends of shiny handlebars. Engines revved. Rainbow flags rippled red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Horizontal stripes danced. The colors represented the many nationalities and ethnic groups — all of them — in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community. Like a telephoto lens, Grace focused in on a woman in the center of the crowd, and mirrored sunglasses stared back. The woman’s short, mahogany hair looked like it had been carved by the air, like wings. A thrill shimmied up Grace’s spine. The woman was riding slowly. but in Grace’s imagination, she zoomed. She reminded Grace of a girl from her adolescence, her lover (even though they didn’t call it that then), a girl named Art. Maybe Art had blazed through time — from high school to the present nearly three decades and a world of difference later. Art had been short for something, but Grace couldn’t remember what. Grace had known Art so long ago that it felt like a previous life; one that Grace never talked about. No one knew about her past except Thalia, Grace’s partner of twenty-four years. Thalia was a compassionate person. She almost always saw the best in everyone. Her voice lilted. Her hair fell to her shoulders in a cascade of loose curls of silver and shades of blond and brown. Beyond salt and pepper, her hair resembled shades of light. When Thalia looked up at Grace, her hair framed her face. Her crown caught the light and a halo appeared. When Thalia listened intensely, her deep-set blue eyes enveloped Grace. One time, when Grace mentioned that “No one believes me when I talk about my past.” Thalia responded by saying somberly, “I believe you.” In that moment, Grace relaxed into herself. Thalia made her feel understood. She was safe with Thalia. Grace never mentioned her past, even to her friends. She made sure never to tell her students. What kind of example would that set? Grace hadn’t used drugs for years and dealing them was in her past. She had come to understand that life was too precious to risk. She had seen firsthand that actions had consequences. Even Thalia had her limits. Before becoming involved with Grace, she had been involved with a woman who had a drinking problem and who got involved in messy situations. Thalia made it clear that the relationship hadn’t lasted long. Grace knew she was lucky
To order my most recently published novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
To see the Pride issue of The Sapphic Book Bingo, click here.
As part of a Unitarian Universalist service focusing on women’s history month, I revisited the work of Audre Lorde in her book Sister Outsider, Essays and Speeches, first published by The Crossing Press in 1984.
It is also Nation Poetry Month and I wanted to bring you review of a book written by the important poet Audre Lorde that was so important to me when I was a young poet.
The review is on Book Tube and below the video is the text.
Recently, I reread Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important and often quoted poet, Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider was first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press.
Lorde was born in 1934 and died in 1992, having been cut down by breast cancer in the prime of her life.
I was fortunate to hear the poet Audre Lorde speak and read several times when I was in my twenties. Lorde was an important figure to me when I was a budding writer and a young adult looking inward and outward and making sense of life.
It was interesting to re-read this book which I had last read close to the date of publication and to see the places where I had highlighted Lorde’s words.
In this collection of writing, Lorde writes about the importance of speaking your truth, of being all parts of yourself, accepting difference, knowing yourself, and being unafraid to feel. Since so much has changed since she died, I found myself wondering what she would say about the mess we are in now.
And there in her essay, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” is a clue to what she would say and did say as she foresaw the future. In prose, she writes: “Change means growth, and growth can be painful.”
Then she includes “Outlines,” an unpublished poem:
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each other’s battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting.
Rereading Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important poet Audre Lorde first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press reminded me of who we can be.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Spotify and Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
I was (and still am) so happy that this essay was published in the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review that I immediately wanted to bring it to you. The world is changing and I’m so glad to be changing with it!
Janet Mason (right) and her partner Barbara (left) in 2014.
In the old days, I thought of the marriages of people of the same sex (usually older lesbians) in our circle as “quaint.” My partner Barbara and I were new lovers. This was in the early 1980s, long before marriage equality was legally recognized. As one older former acquaintance wrote to me in 2015, “we never thought we’d see the day when it would be legal.”
We knew them as Pat and Carol and met them through the women’s liberation movement circles that made up our community at the time. We called it “The Women’s Community.” I don’t remember Carol’s last name, but I remember them getting married in the early 1980s at a mutual friend’s home. They both wore tuxes. Pat’s was black and Carol’s was white. I found their choice of wardrobe to be memorable, even if my partner and I did think they were imitating an outmoded patriarchal institution. They were probably about 25 years older than us.
Carol wrote to me in 2015. Her partner Pat had died about a decade before that. Same-sex marriage may not have been legal when they got married in the 1980s, but in their eyes, they were married. Even if not legally, they were at least committed to each other, and even had the ceremony with friends witnessing their union. However, Pat never got to see the day when same-sex marriage became legal.
Maybe it was a case of not wanting what we thought we’d never have, but both my partner and I didn’t think that marriage was for us. Like two of the characters in my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, we thought marriage had too much baggage and history as a patriarchal institution.
Every now and then, friends would have commitment ceremonies, and we even went to a few, but stubbornly maintained that there was no point to it unless same-sex marriage were legal. It still wasn’t something that we ever thought we’d see, so mostly we didn’t think about it. My relationship with marriage was complicated to say the least. I grew up in a time and place where it was expected that all females should find a man, settle down, and have children. Once I came out in the early 1980s, I was extremely happy to have escaped the heterosexual yoke of marriage and children. My partner had been married to a man before we got together. That was common in those days, since it was expected of us. The lesbian poet Adrienne Rich called it “compulsory heterosexuality.”
Then, when I was around forty, a lesbian baby boom started happening all around us. It probably felt like more lesbians were having babies than actually were, but it seemed like having children was another expectation from which I managed to escape. My partner and I certainly supported the right of lesbian women and gay men to have children, but we always said that “having children was the best thing we never did.”
So, when President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act last year, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer talked about protecting children, it made perfect sense. Children are the most vulnerable victims of hard divorces, and it is far worse when each parent does not have the legal rights that marriage provides.
Anyway, the years went on, and we were getting older. We were afraid that the surviving one would have legal problems and might even lose the house if she couldn’t pay the taxes on it. But when we did finally get married, it meant more than being protected legally. Like many other same-sex couples, we felt like legal marriage had deepened the bond between us.
By the time 2015 came along, and the U.S. Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, Barbara and I were already married. Another lesbian couple—who had been together for more years than we had—suggested that we have a double wedding at a local county that was performing same-sex marriages before it was legal nationwide. Gleefully, we went off to our “protest wedding,” which was later made legal. Leaving the courthouse after we had done the deed and signed the papers, we all agreed that it felt too easy.
This was on the heels of Edie Windsor’s landmark victory, whose case in 2013, United States v. Windsor, overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. Two years later, in 2015, history was made when the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges made full marriage equality the law of the land.
My partner and I were both amazed on that day, and we were astounded again when the Respect for Marriage Act was signed into law. When this Act was signed into law, my partner and I were both very happy. I didn’t make the connection earlier, but even as I was joking around and calling Barbara “my bride,” I must have been channeling the happiness of Pat and Carol and all of the older LGBT+ couples that I once regarded as “quaint.”
Janet Mason is the author of the novels Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage (Thorned Heart Press); The Unicorn, The Mystery, and THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (both from Adelaide Books). She is also the author of Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters (Bella Books) for which she received a Goldie award. She has been with her partner, Barbara, for thirty-nine years. They have been legally married for nine years.
To read the article on the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, click here.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
I was getting caught up on the news today when it hit me: the power of intersectionality. I often think that being vegan/plant-based is an advantage. My brain works better and being on a non-alkaline diet means I have a tendency to have less bone issues as I age. I am also much healthier than I was in my pre-vegan days (just three years ago).
In my case, being vegan/plant-based is an open secret. Going vegan/plant-based certainly saved my life, and I am not alone. My partner has gone vegan with me resulting in her being much healthier and the number of stories I’ve heard about people going to a plant-based diet and overcoming health issues are beyond many.
In doing research on trauma, I began to understand how the tendency toward obesity in lesbian and bisexual women makes perfect sense. We are women who don’t care about appearance–especially in regard to attracting the opposite sex. We are women who have learned to respond to inner beauty. The problem is that obesity leads to so many diseases. The problem is that we are dying.
The news of the day, the attacks on drag queens, trans people and LGBTQ rights, makes me furious. It also makes me feel determined. We are living through a very difficult period of history and it’s important to be as healthy as possible.
I was delighted to learn about vegan drag queens. It makes sense that marginalized people understand oppression. There is no denying that what is happening to the animals in unconscionable. What the Standard American Diet is doing to the human animals is unconscionable also.
This is the power of intersectionality. When we share our rage, it is contagious and powerful.
What is happening to drag queens and the trans- and the LGBTQ community is not separate from anything. It is just the beginning.
One of the things that is wonderful about being an author is that I hear from people all over the world that the worlds that once lived in head are meaningful. Of course, this is often influenced by events that have actually happened as is the case with Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage published by Thorned Heart Press.
I was really touched by this review from Kira who is associated with The Sapphic Book Club.
Loving Artemis wasn’t exactly what I expected – but I think it was what I needed. The book is divided into three main sections; one in roughly modern day, one from Art’s perspective about her life growing up, and the last from Grace’s perspective in high school. While it wasn’t until the last section that I really understood how they all tied together, I found that the focus on each character individually created a more balanced narrative about queer youth and the lasting impact of early relationships.
Art, short for Artemis, wants to become a person of her own design, rather than the housewife that her family (and society) believe lies in her future. Grace, on the other hand, begins discovering who she is through a variety of factors- a disastrous trip with a friend, a school project, and a chance encounter with Art. Although these two are only together for a short period of their lives, they both end up living through a particularly eventful period in the American gay liberation movement.
Throughout the book, academia and academic pursuits offer a window into the changing world, even as Art and Grace are caught up in the trials of their own lives. Passing references to Stonewall, Loving v. Virginia and Obergefell v. Hodges, Defense of Marriage Act, and other monumental events are discovered in classes and headlines, providing a contextual backdrop that is just as compelling, if not more so, than the protagonists journeys.
Everything and everyone- Art, Grace, their lives, and the movement for equality- come together at the beginning and end of the book at New York Pride. In the midst of a celebration and memorial of their struggles, resolution abounds. As much as I know that we are not, and likely will never be, finished with the fight for equality, Loving Artemis ends in a way that makes me believe that will be possible, if only for a short while.
To read my post first published by The Sapphic Book Club, click here.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
“This is the best food I ever had!” I overheard my partner say to a staff member at HipCityVeg, an all-vegan restaurant that we discovered in suburban Philadelphia. One of the exciting things about being vegan is discovering new restaurants — especially this one. But it’s exciting to be vegan for other reasons too. For one, we feel great (especially after going vegan for health reasons three years ago). (And our food bills are much lower.)
Another reason is our connection to the animals — including cows, pigs, lambs and chickens and well you name it. And our connection to the fish who are sentient beings. It is also exciting to be part of the solution, and to have the awareness about eating in a way that is kinder to the planet.
All of it. Basically, it’s very exciting to be part of change.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Janet Mason, author 