#Amelia Possanza

[gatheringbones]

[“After I had learned enough about lesbians to hold my own, I reached out to Joan Nestle for an interview. We made our own oral history video, one that I hope will live on in her archive as well as mine.

“Is this helping?” she asked early on in our conversation. “You have to put up with me because I’m eighty-one.”

I thought I would be intimidated by her, but I was charmed. She asked about my cat, asleep in my video background. She brought her partner on screen, the woman who had led her to leave New York for Australia decades ago.

Because the Lesbian Herstory Archives was a project of the 1970s, I feared that Joan would share her contemporaries’ narrow definition of lesbian. She dispelled my fear before I could even come up with the courage to ask. “To me, lesbian incorporates queer, it incorporates trans, it incorporates bi, it incorporates intersex, because lesbians occupied all those positions.”

I had planned to just ask her about the details of Mabel’s life. “The loss to me personally,” she said, “is too huge to even talk about, even after all these years.” Instead, we had a conversation full of digressions. She took us from Eleanor Roosevelt (lesbian) to sex workers (also lesbian) to her own reasons for becoming a lesbian archivist. “The archives was created to break the concept of fame,” she told me. “If you have the courage to touch another woman and to claim that touch . . . that, for us, was fame enough.” ]

amelia possanza, from lesbian love story: a memoir in archives, 2023

[lgbtqreads]

New Releases: May 28, 2024

Middle Grade Noah Frye Gets Crushed by Maggie Horne Noah Frye just had the Best Summer Ever. Not only did she have an epic time at science camp, but her new camp friend Jessa is going to Noah’s school in the fall. Noah can’t wait to introduce Jessa to her best friends Zoey and Luna when classes start. But when the friend group is reunited after their summer apart, something seems to have changed:…

[onebluebookworm]

30 Days of Literary Pride - June 9

Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives - Amelia Possanza

[queerliblib]

any nonfic book recs by lesbian authors? want to get into more feminist readings. whatever ya got :)

Hi! we don’t actively track down every author’s sexuality when we purchase their books so I don’t want to 100% guarantee when it’s possible some of these folks may be bi or some other flavor of queer, but I do imagine a lot of our non-fiction that’s about lesbians is also by lesbians, here are a few;

The Lesbian South by Jamie Harker

Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza

No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami

Boots of Leather Slippers of Gold by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy & Madeline D. Davis

Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought by Briona Simone Jones

A Burst of Light (and anything else really) by Audre Lorde

Moby Dyke by Krista Burton

Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie

We Walk Alone by Ann Aldrich

& tons more!

[contracat25]

May Booooks! Another absurd month in which there are way too many good books coming out! I'm really excited for a lot of these though Dragonfall and The Scandalous Letters of V and J might be the ones I'm most excited about. I've read a bit of V and J and it is such a good use of the formate and I'm always here for a well done queer historical fiction. I've heard amazing things about Yellowface soooo I'm stoked to read it (also the only book on the list that I don't think has queer rep, but I could be wrong). Oh also in the UK Bitterthorn is coming out, but I can't find a US release date so I'll just. wait for it (if anyone knows a way to get it in the US let me know). Oh and assaians, vampires, multiple dragons, magic and romance. Yeah it looks like a good month.

Any books that you are really excited about that I might have missed?

Dragonfall by L.R. Lam (2nd)

To Shape Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (9th)

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko (May 30th)

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (16th)

Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic Edited by Haron Davis (16th)

The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin (16th)

Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza (May 30th)

Witch King by Martha Wells (30th)

Venom & Vow by Anna-marie Mclemore and Elliott McLemore (16th)

A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger (May 16th)

[rootsmachine]

@deankarolina tagged me to do TWO of these and then i promptly forgot. anyways here they are i love talking abt myself <3

5 songs -> i'll shuffle my current playlist & my driving playlist playlist and give u: casual, chapell roan; expert in a dying field, the beths; good scare, torres; fast car, tracy chapman; AND bridge over troubled water, simon & garfunkel

&&& then last/current/future books!

last book i read (and literally Just finished) was deep as the sky, red as the sea by rita chang-eppig which i enjoyed a lot! currently reading a darker wilderness: black nature writing from soil to stars edited by erin sharkey (tho "current" here means i havent Actually started it and need to go dig it out of my bag) ... future, i have a couple of books on hold at the library that i'm hoping to get soon which include killingly, by katharine beutner And lesbian love story, by amelia possanza And the changeling, by victor lavelle and then a few that are coming out in the next few months incl land of milk and honey, by c pam zhang and nadia, by christine evans

i tag anyone who wants to do either both any of these!!! tag me i love seeing what ppl are reading !!!!

[libraryleopard]

December reads

asterisk = reread

Blood to Poison by Mary Watson

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

The Mossheart’s Promise by Rebecca Mix

The Body’s Question by Tracy K. Smith

Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV et al 

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan

Something More by Jackie Khalilieh

The Tent Generations: Poems edited by Mohammad Sawaie

Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey

Hijabi Butch Blues by Lamya H

Old Enough by Haley Jakobson

Prom and Other Hazards by Jamie Sullivan

Poems on Friendship by various authors

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Palestine, Ferguson, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

Before the Next Bomb Drops by Remi Kanazi

A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee

Rosewater by Liv Little

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Unraveller by Frances Harding

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

OKPsyche by Anya Johanna DeNiro

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

Lesbian Love Story: A Memoir in Archives by Amelia Possanza

The Narrow by Kate Alice Marshall

Arden Grey by Ray Stoeve

The Best American Poetry edited by Matthew Zapruder and David Lehman

The House in Poplar Wood by K.E. Ormsbee

How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill edited by Jericho Brown

The Adam of Two Edens by Mahmoud Darwish

The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

Gay Club! by Simon James Green

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min

The King’s Assassin: the Secret Plot to Murder King James I by Benjamin Woolley

All Systems Red by Martha Wells*

Judas & Suicide by Maya Williams

You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

Currently reading

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju

The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle by Matt Cain

[whatisthiswitchcraft]

6

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

oh yeah, I returned a lot of library books simply because I ran out of time/didn't have the energy/it didn't feel right in the moment... some titles include Lesbian Love Story by Amelia Possanza, VenCo by Cherie Dimaline, The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr... all books I still plan to read eventually!

[abovecontrol1212]

" He hardly remembers a time when she wasn't sick. 'I hate being sad. There's so much further for me to fall. Losing her carved out a new bottom.' - Amelia Possanza

[wolfreader]

september 2024 wrap-up - nonfiction

this month i read one (1) non-fiction book.

lesbian love story: a memoir in archives by amelia possanza 📖 🌟🌟🌟🌟

i greatly enjoyed this. i loved the small biographical accounts of historical lesbians that the author presents, i loved the narratives surrounding how she came across each historical figure and what research she did on them and how, and i loved the little bits of amelia possanza's own life story that the reader gets and how they're intertwined with the historical accounts.

it's a really nice read if you're interested in queer history, particuarly lesbian history, but aren't in the mood for a more textbook-esque history book like odd girls and twilight lovers.

[gatheringbones]

[“By the time Mabel arrived in 1924, Bedford was no longer the site of the tortures and abuses laid bare in a March 19, 1920, New York Tribune exposé: “Bedford Cruelty Charges Against Officials Upheld.” Not so long ago, women, Black and white alike, had been tied to their cots or handcuffed to their cell bars with their feet dangling inches above the ground. Even if Bedford had reformed, I doubt it was the good time Mabel tells Joan it was. We made whiskey. We made wine . . . We had parties there. Each night you slept with a different woman if you wanted to. Me, I was havin’ a ball. Superintendent Barker saw Bedford Hills not as a center of surveillance, the panopticon of prison we know today, but as a benevolent institution of moral reform, a safe haven away from the dangers and carnal pleasures of the city that might lead any young woman astray.

After serving seven months, Mabel was paroled with a foster family in Jersey City and worked as a domestic nearby. Bedford’s hold did not end here, though. The prison was a pipeline feeding domestic labor to well-off white ladies who lived outside the pull of New York City’s whirlwind hedonism. Mabel’s foster family reported her movements to Dr. Barker, and when she strayed into the City of Pleasure, she had to return to Bedford to continue serving her sentence. Then there was yet another domestic labor parole placement before Mabel’s discharge papers arrived in October 1926. “I do not want you to feel that our interest in you ends with the mailing of these papers,” Superintendent Barker wrote. “It is always my hope that should you at any time experience difficulties, there would be no hesitation on your part in getting in touch with the Institution.”

To Bedford Hills, Mabel was always “wild and wayward,” in need of reform. Their records are concerned only with the timeline—the dates of her incarceration and release—and the irrelevant facts they were asked to collect—a description of her nose, her IQ. An administrative accumulation we are told comprises a history.

To Joan, Mabel was an “icon,” always Ms. Hampton, an address of respect never afforded in her prison records or by the wealthy white families, much better off than Joan’s, that employed her. Joan tries to pin down the order of her hero’s journey—“And what year is this, about? We always try and do the year so people know.”—but that’s not what Mabel wants us to remember. She can hardly remember it herself. The oral history is the kind of record I crave not for its attention to dates or names or accuracy but for the dialogue. Joan asks the direct questions I wish I could have posed to Mary.

Joan’s interview style was shaped by a series of 1970s oral history workshops aimed at empowering people to record queer stories. She spent hours with friends drafting “questions that we thought would elicit the kind of history we wanted. What did you call yourself in the twenties? How did you and your friends dress in the forties? What bars did you go to?” These are not the questions of a doctor intent on diagnosis, or a sociologist intent on reform. If, for instance, W. E. B. Du Bois had drifted from 1890s Philadelphia to Mabel’s doorstep while undertaking his 2,500-household survey, he simply would have asked if she was married, single, or widowed. Joan asks instead how Mabel liked to have sex, and Mabel responds with a series of gestures, lost to us now. “They can’t see your hands,” Joan says. I imagine the middle and pointer fingers of both hands spread wide like legs, meeting at the vertices, the international symbol for scissoring. Or the same V held against her mouth, tongue poking through. But I’m getting lost in my own inventions. The Mabel I have come to know would never have been so lewd.

Joan brings to the tapes an awareness of her own bias, and a reminder of my own. She knows her presence in the room, the framing of her questions alone, shapes what comes out of Mabel’s mouth. Joan was raised by a single mother, Regina, who worked as a bookkeeper, who was let out on parole after embezzling money to provide for her daughter, and who remained poor and overworked until the day she died. “I know what it was to be marginal,” Joan says into the tape recorder, evidence that she shares some of Mabel’s working-class background. “From every eviction notice that was tacked on the door, every time the men came with flashlights to reclaim the beds or the furniture.” Still, Joan was first introduced to Mabel as the family housekeeper after Regina first met the “small black Christian woman” not at the Bronx Slave Market, street corners and intersections where Black women hoped to find a day’s work cleaning the homes of the wealthy, but at a luncheonette in Bayside, Queens. When Regina couldn’t afford the help anymore, the two women became friends and would go to the racetrack together. It was to Mabel that Regina turned when she suspected her own daughter might be a lesbian. “I’m gonna kill myself. My daughter is a lesbian,” she said. “Regina,” Mabel calmly replied. “What are you talking about? So am I. So am I.”

When Joan grew up, she developed a friendship with Mabel all her own. It was a friendship marked by question and answer, call and response, Joan’s attempts to understand the lesbians who came before and Mabel’s insistence that Joan gets her story right. “Mabel, I want to ask you a question.”

You already asked me seventy eleven! How many more you gonna ask me?“]

amelia possanza, from lesbian love story: a memoir in archives, 2023

[rockislandadultreads]

Nonfiction Thursday: New Memoirs

By All Means Available by Michael G. Vickers

In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA’s secret campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on Russia, Vickers transformed the campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghans win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to the end of the Cold War.

In By All Means Available, Vickers recounts his remarkable career, from his days as a Green Beret to his vision for victory in Afghanistan to his role in waging America’s war on terror at the highest levels in government. In captivating detail, he depicts his years in Special Forces, revealing how those experiences directly influenced his approach to shaping policy, and offers a deeply informed analysis of the greatest challenges facing America today.

This is a riveting and illuminating insider’s account of the military and intelligence worlds at every level.

Lesbian Love Story by Amelia Possanza

When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world’s largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. But these stories rarely featured lesbians who could become her role models, in romance as in life.

This is the story of Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the stories of lesbians in the 20th Century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on. Centered around seven love stories for the ages, Possanza’s hunt takes readers from a Drag King show in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem and then across the ocean to Hadrian’s Library, where she searches for traces of Sappho in the ruins. Along the way, she discovers her own love—for swimming, for community, for New York City—and adds her own record to the archive.

At the heart of this riveting, inventive history, Possanza asks: How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?

What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher

Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous – she loved it.

Butcher (yes, that is her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.

This is the fascinating and stunning real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put it down.

When the World Didn't End by Guinevere Turner

On January 5, 1975, the world was supposed to end. Under strict instructions from her Family Leader, seven-year-old Guinevere Turner put on her best dress, grabbed her favorite toy, and waited for her salvation--a spaceship that would take her and her peers to live on Venus. But the spaceship never came.

Guinevere did not understand her family was a cult. She spent most of her days on a compound in Kansas, living with dozens of other children who worked in the sorghum fields and roved freely through the surrounding pastures, eating mulberries and tending to farm animals. But there was a dark side to this bucolic existence: When selected girls in her community turned twelve or thirteen, they were "given" to older men on the compound as wives in training.

Then, at age eleven, Guinevere's world as she had known it ended. Her mother, from whom she had been separated since age three, left the Family with a disgraced member, and Guinevere and her four-year-old sister were forced to go with her. Traveling outside the bounds of her cloistered existence, Guinevere was thrust into public school for the first time, a stranger in a strange world with homemade clothes, clueless to social codes. Now, in the World she'd been raised to believe was evil, she faced challenges and horrors she couldn't have imagined.

Drawing from the diaries that she kept throughout her youth, Guinevere Turner's memoir is an intimate and heart-wrenching chronicle of a childhood touched with extraordinary beauty and unfathomable ugliness, the ache of yearning to return to a lost home--and the slow realization of how harmful that place really was.

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Personal Reflections on Parenting, Lesbian History and Autism by Fran Hoepfner

By Fran Hoepfner New books by Heidi Julavits, Amelia Possanza and Fern Brady explore a future of self-discovery by mining the past. Published: July 11, 2023 at 01:48PM from NYT Books https://ift.tt/d7wjJv6 via IFTTT

[scvpubliclib]

New story on NPR: 'Lesbian Love Story' unearths a century of queer romance https://ift.tt/WSaF1sU

[nerdlifeisbetterthanreallife]

#30DaysofPride: Day 4- Mabel Hampton

Today’s icon is special. I promise we’ll go back to people who are living tomorrow but I am currently reading/listening to “Lesbian Love Story: A memoir in archives” by Amelia Possanza and so I’m thinking about Mabel Hampton. You may know this face from history, you may not. But this is Mabel Hampton, her story was one that stuck out to me. Her story starts when she was 8 years old. She ran…