National Women's
Music Festival
by Lee Lynch
The m idw est was welcom e haven from
controversy. Perhaps it was all there, under
the surface, and I as a guest was spared it In
any case I found the wom en I m et — from
New York to Sheboygan Falls, w elcom ing
and appreciative o f all the National W om en’s
M usic Festival had to offer.
For me, m usic festivals have been dam p or
hot buggy treks into a wilderness w hich dis
tracts fro m the culture at hand. B ut NWMF is
held on the University o f Indiana cam pus at
B loom ington. Participants are housed in
T H E
AMAZON
TRAIL
dorm s, perform ers dance, sing, read, talk, in
classroom s, auditorium s, lounges. The main
stage is a huge balconied hall with excellent
acoustics. Across it went Ferron, Toshi
Reagon, Judy Sloan, Ronnie Gilbert, Adrienne
Torf, Linda Tillery and Band (especially that
dynam ic keyboard m usician Julie Hom i in
her short w hite dress and yellow sneakers),
Robin Tyler, June M illington, Alive, Beth York,
Casselberry and DuPree, and the W right
Dance Company. At the end of the last per
form ance the festival organizers and crew
dram atically ascended on a platform from
the orchestra pit fo r deserved accolades.
I was there fo r the W riter’s Conference, and
tho ug h w riters were not treated with as m uch
panache as the m usicians, the conference
was w ell-attended. Ruth Peters, who did an
im pressively efficient jo b o f organizing cultural
events, tells me the goal is to expand the
W riters’ Conference to the level o f the Music
Industry Conference w hich took place just
p rio r to the festival. Future plans include
b ringing together w om en authors, editors,
press, publishers, etc. for three to four days of
intense netw orking. This, plus a booking
period fo r authors to estalbish speaking en
gagem ents, is a sorely needed event and I am
anxious to support it and to see it happen.
Ju d y G rahn was a featured writer, along
w ith Kate C linton, who taught com edy w rit
ing, and m yself. Judy is always an inspiration
fo r me. Looking attractively older and healthier
than the thin, intense traveller I first saw read
in New Haven fourteen years ago, she still fills
an auditorium with a presence I can only call
lesbian divinity. Her C om m on W oman poems
have been published and republished, her
Am azon of Wands (C rossing) is another m a
jo r w ork that changed the course o f lesbian
literature. I am glad to see her reading public
grow ing as this w om an’s words are like proud
clo th in g we can don again and again to strut
and preen in, rem i nded o f our own w orth and
beauty. D escribing herself as the cerem onial
dyke she researched fo r Another Mother
Tongue; G ay Words, Gay Worlds (Beacon),
G rahan brought proof o f our gay and lesbian
history and culture to us. Her new poetry, like
her old, had me crying, so pow erfully m ov
ing, so deep inside m y lesbian psyche does
she touch.
I was part o f a panel featuring Tony A rm
strong, publisher o f Hot Wire*, the w om en’s
m usic industry magazine. She’s a hard-
WANTED!
driving professional whose publication
reflects that in quality and scope. Jeri E d
wards o f / Know You Know*, a four-color
glossy magazine o f lesbian views and news,
spoke too. I enjoyed som e tim e with Jeri,
heard her dream s, her am bitions for the
m agazine. IKYK is another needed lifeline be
ing cast to end lesbian isolation. A successful
businesswom an, Jeri knows what it takes to
bu ild and support an alternative publication.
She, w ith Nancy S ingleton and Mary Byrne
(Mary also organized NWMF), have more than
half th e ir goal o f 6000 subscribers. They’ve
accom plished this in less than year. Surely
th is is a record fo r a lesbian publicaton. Jeri,
once an art historian who taught at B loom
ington, has a nose fo r what appeals to the
greatest num ber o f wom en and IKYK
appeals w ith a wide and innovative range o f
features.
A t another w orkshop Tracy Bairn spoke.
Sm all, surprisingly young fo r her accom p
lishm ents, she’s associate ed itor o f
C hicago’s G ay Life. She created and edits
“ Sister S p irit" several pu llou t pages in each
issue o f G ay Life, designed so wom en can
choose not to wade through the “jo ck strap
ads." Tracy im pressed me as one o f a whole
new breed o f young w om en w illing to unite
w ith m en to create a strong gay culture. It
m akes m e wonder, have the older separatists
done som e healing fo r us, so the dykes com
ing up and o u t can live w ithout so m uch
rancor? Have som e gay m en achieved such a
m easure o f fem inism we can w ork together
w ith m ore ease?
The Fem inist W riters’ G uild* is very active
in the C hicago-lndianapolis area and there
were m any G uild m em bers at NWMF. One
w orkshop addressed the need fo r the group
to provide peer support, advice and program s
such as health insurance to those o f us trying
to survive by w riting. Once m ore, it was heart
ening to see w om en like Jo rje t Harper, the
G uild's new adm inistrative coordinator,
w orking tow ard professionalism on their own
*lite
ONE HUNDRED CARING MEN AND WOMEN
Community Health Support Services/PAL Project provides
peer counseling, practical support, and referral assistance to
persons facing life-threatening or life-changing illness, using
trained volunteers.
DESCRIPTION : Compassionate persons willing to donate up to eight
hours per week for six months in any of the following areas:
Personal Active Listeners (PALs) —
Forty people with a natural
ability to listen and reflect what they hear without judging. Next
training is tentatively scheduled for the middle two weekends in
September.
Practical Support Volunteers — Forty people able to provide cook
ing, cleaning, and transportation assistance. Good casserole or
chicken soup recipes a plus . . .
Office Volunteers — Fifteen people able to work a few hours per
week in daytime phone and office support.
Public Relations and Marketing Volunteers — Five people with
strong writing skills or marketing background to assist PAL Project
and Cascade AIDS Project with media exposure and fundraising.
FOR MORE INFORMATION contact our office at 223-5907, write PAL
Project, 408 SW 2nd Avenue — Room 403, Portland OR 97204, or
call Steve Fulmer at 236-2429.
UNLIMITED REW ARDS OFFERED
Your short-term investment in time will contribute to the
lives of many suffering people and their loved ones for
years to come. Volunteer today. Ignoring the problem
won't make it go away ...
16
term s, creating their own structures, m eeting
th e ir own needs.
Videotaping Judy G rahn and every other
perform er they could, was JO /E D Vide*'*, a
team o f tw o w om en w ho drive endless niles
each year to preserve w om en’s/lesbian her-
story. They’re building a visual archive they’re
eager to share and thus far have tapes of,
am ong others, Robin Tyler, Rita Mae Brown,
G inny C lem ons, Barbara Grier.
U nderlying the success o f this festival for
m e was the Sober S upport Series, a twenty-
four hour w om en-only space where meetings
o f A lcoholics, N arcotics, Overeaters and
E m otions A nonym ous and A dult C hildren o f
A lcoholics were held. Organized by Cindy
M cC am m ack, SS was a place with an AA
structure where any w om an could go fo r talk,
sharing, crying, festival stress syndrom e or
addiction problem s. I spent hours there,
w orking to keep m y sanity in a setting where
even non-perform ers were coping w ith over
load. O ne o f the m ost im portant hours fo r me
was ju st p rio r to m y first appearance in a
great big lecture hall all by m yself in fro n t o f a
huge num ber o f strangers w ith a MICRO
P H O N E I arrived at the Sober Support lounge
paralyzed w ith fear, m ute, and left calm ed,
reassured, less sick to m y stom ach, on a
carpet o f good wishes and understanding.
The festival brought together an enor
m ous and eclectic variety o f w om en’s energy.
A t a reception, the W riters’ Conference
m erged m om entarily w ith the concurrent
S piritua lity Conference. A utographing books
were Z B udapest striking in her flow ing clo
th in g ; Diane M ariechild, soft, likeable author
o f Mother Wit, and M erlin Stone, another art
herstorian as well as author o f Ancient Mir
rors of Womanhood.
We m ingled w ith autograph seekers in a
ro om w hich also held the visual arts e x h ib it
It was dizzying to talk to Yvonne Zipter, p o e t
novelist and organizer o f the W riters’ C onfer
ence; look up to see all that m oving visual a rt
buy books by Judy, Diane, M erlin, from In
dianapolis’ Dream s and Swords Bookstore
ow ner H arriet Clare (w ho really knows how to
sell books); and move on to a perform ance
by P ortland’s own Dyketones — th a t’s the
kind o f vision, m aturity and respect fo r one
another’s efforts, as well as allowance fo r one
another’s m istakes (see Letters to the E ditor),
th a t’s creating room fo r us to grow to o strong
to be put down. Too strong to be silenced
ever again.
N ational W om en’s M usic Festival, PO Box
5217, B loom ington, IN 47402
Hot
1321 Rosedale, Chicago, IL 60660
I Know You Know, 5199 N. Keystone Ave., S.
104, Indianapolis, IN 46205
5023 N. Clark, Chicago, IL 60640
Fem inist W riters’ G uild, PO Box 9396,
Berkeley, CA 94709
J o /E d Video, PO Box 41773, M em phis, TN
38174-1773
Wire,
Gay Life,
RUPERT £ K INN ARO
¡422443
Thanks to Tee Corinne fo r editing this
m o n th ’s colum n.
m e n in t h e w o o d s
A Laid B ack G a y M e n ’s
Retreat at Breitenbush
H o t S p rin g s
N ovem ber 8 - 1 1
F o r Information, C o n ta c t
P h o e n ix Rising, 2 2 3 -8 2 9 9 .
Or, if you’re really laid back,
just hang loose. The information
will get to you somehow.
Just Out. August. 1985