The road to
self-fulfillment
b y Lee L yn ch
I m o ved to O reg o n for a m yriad of reasons.
T h e S o uth ern O regon W om en W riters’
G ro up, G o u rm et E ating Society and Chorus
was o ne o f th em .
T h e lesbian and gay w orld is filled, perhaps
disproportionately, w ith ta le n t Is it the isola­
tion w hich arises from our gayness that
prom pts us to reach out by developing our
T H E
AMAZON
TRAIL
natural powers? O r is there som ething m ore
positive in gay culture w hich creates a fertile
d im a te fo r artistic grow th? W hatever we ulti­
m ately fin d to b e th e reason, th e O regon hills
are no d ifferent fro m the rest o f this earth: full
o f talen ted dykes. A nd though it isn’t specifi­
cally lesbian, a host o f us flock to W riters'
G roup.
Last w eek I received a note from G roup
m e m b e r Ruth M ountaingrove. photographer
and fo rm e r co-pub lisher o f W om anspirit
m agazine. Reading her w ords I realized, once
again, how really blessed w e are. She c o m ­
m en ted abo ut a recent m eeting, ” . . . a real
good W riters’ G roup. W hen people com e all
the w ay fro m E u gene we m ust have som e­
thing — and we do.” W hat a dynam ic gather­
ing it was. W hat a w onderful creation, this
G roup. W hose vision had it been and w hat
had m ad e it successful?
I called Tangren A lexander to find o u t A
college professor w ho's built her own h o m e 1
on the side o f a m ountain, she is one o f the
founding m em bers and a faithful participant
O ften to m e she feels like the keel o f the
group.
“O h well,” she said in that bashful l-can’t-
take-credit-for-any-of-it way o f hers, “I just see
it as a w ay to be heard." That, in itself, is pretty
special: a place w e can be heard. “It’s the
supportiveness th at’s im p ortan t for me,” she
w ent on to say and I w ondered how that
support was consistently provided, given the
w ont o f w o m en ’s groups to evaporate like
clouds and blow away.
“T h e re ’s not a lot o f brass tacks or working
over a piece. W hen we check in' we say what
we w ant, w hether it’s to get criticism , to be
encouraged , suggestions w here and how to
publish — o r anything else." T h e G roup,
then, is w hat each participant needs from it
As she spoke, I recalled m y first exposure,
in 1982, to these spirited w om en. W e m et in
th at little w o m an -b u ilt m ountain hom e, per­
haps a dozen o f us stuffed into a room with a
w oodstove, a w ell-used rolltop desk, a long
row o f Tan grens’ journals, and an incredible
view o f a m ountainside before us. It was dow n­
right distracting fo r city-girl m e to see w hat
those clouds w ere doing out on that m oun­
tainside. F o rm in g . R eform ing. D rifting away
all w hole as if m anufactured and patented in
th e (JSA and assigned to beguile city folk
thousands o f m iles away.
T h e m iracle o f the clouds had com peti­
tion , th o u g h . Tw o w om en read poetry. O ne
sang h er ow n songs. A nother read a piece on
alcoho lism w hich left m e speechless and
changed m y perception of m yself forever. A
C o ttage G rove artist was there. Som eone
w riting abo ut a black w om an “cowboy." And
others, all o f w hom had som ething to give, if
o nly an ear. I’d found paradise. B ack in the
city I had n't stum bled on this kind o f sharing
ever.
A nd it is, as Tangren pointed o u t the sup­
portiveness that is so special. N o trashing or
beating a point to death. Just the sort of
positive reflection, with appropriate technical
pointers, that I feel should underlie all feminist
criticism . W e need to open doors for one
another, not close them . There is always
som ething good in a creative work. It m ay
take effort to identify it, but once acknow l­
edg ed the creator has a road before her never
before considered. Som etim es, it’s the road
to self-fu lfillm en t In the early seventies, when
I was still struggling to write poetry, Judy
G rahn suggested I try prose. W ithin the next
ten years I’d com pleted m y first novel and m y
short stories w ere being w ell-received. A
place to be heard. A door opened. A road
taken.
T h e Southern O regon W om en W riters’
G ro up, according to Caroline O verm an in
h er introduction to Tee C orinne’s Picture
B o o k * began when poet M artha C ourtot led
a w orkshop a t the G rants Pass Art M useum in
1980. At her suggestion Hannah Blue Heron,
a w ildly creative ex-nun, ex-hippie and vete­
ran o f the w o m en ’s land m o vem e n t and
Zarod, a frequent contributor to W om anspirit
organized the first W riters' G roup m eeting at
Ri verhouse o n the Applegate River in M urphy
th e follow ing February. T h e group decided to
m e e t every third w eek thereafter and has to
this day.
O riginally, the plan was fo r each participant
to bring her lunch. W hat has evolved is a
G o u rm et E ating Society w hich allows for
socializing around the potiuck table. There
have been all-bean days and all-dessert days,
b u t every lesbian has had her share o f those!
B efore and after the feast w om en from age
tw enty up through their sixties read from
journals, novels, autobiographies, cook­
books: read poem s, book reviews, short
stories, erotica, m antras; perform or teach
songs to the chorus; play taped interviews;
show their crafts, photography, artwork;
share ideas for projects like a non-violent
training handbook. This is the real feast this
cultural one. And the m ix of w om en is as
broad as our talents. At the last m eeting, in a
large living room on a circle of chairs,
couches, benches and pillows, sat: lesbian
separatists, straight w om en, farm ers, profes­
sors, kennel-ow ners, a therapist nuclear ac­
tivists, artists, writers, poets, a phone co m ­
pany workers, grandm others, publishers.
I've been gratefully part of this G roup for
over a year now. Having a platform for first
drafts has been valuable to m e. But personal
testim ony is not all I can offer. T he G roup
speaks for itself in this partial list of what has
been, or is scheduled to be, published: sub­
m issions to C om m on Lives/Lesbian Lives,
THE
T—SHIRT
PEOPLE
m usical, “T h e O ther Side of M adness" has
been perform ed all over western O regon.
T ee’s W omen W ho Loved Women. Tangren s
The A u tio b io g ra p h y o f D eborah C arr and
C aro line O verm an ’s The S ch o la r In H ot
P ursu it are all available in book form . And
th e re ’s m y own N aiad Press books, not a little
influenced by these w om en.
I am glad to be able to offer final proof,
here, th at O regon m anufactures m ore than
clouds. It m ay have even less m onetary value
than crop-nurturin g rain, but we grow Art
here, and nourish the artists form ing on
m ountainsides.
•C o rin n e , Tee. The S outhern O regon
W om en W riters ’ G roup G ourm et E ating
S o cie ty a n d C horus P icture B ook.
Pearlchild. O R. 1982. $8.0 0 p o s t pd.
to PO B 8 0 4 G rants Pass, O R 9 7 5 2 6 -0 0 6 9 .
co*op*er*a*tive/
la: itfe an adjective
b: ife a noun 2: it’s
something special
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people from T
coast to coast
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Open to A ll—
COOPERATIVE
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For:
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hat something special
means 40,000 member-
owned cooperatives through­
out the United States devoted
to serving their members and
communities in every way imag­
inable.
For example, there are coop­
eratives for electric and tele­
phone service, housing, food,
furniture, insurance, farm mar­
keting and farm supply, credit
unions and farm credit, health
and day care.
The cooperative way of con­
ducting business has proven over
and over again to be both a
highly efficient and extremely
economical way to provide ser­
vices and goods. That’s why co­
ops come in every size and kind
and are found in the city, the
suburbs and rural America.
No matter whether you think
of cooperative as a noun or an
adjective, it means the same
thing — people working together
to meet common needs to benefit
their entire communities.
COOPERATIVES
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October — Co-op Month
# —I
JM tO ut. October 1986
S in iste r W isdom, Pleasures — Women Write
E roticca, Just O ut, Lesbian N uns: B reaking
S ilence. Eugene W om en ’s Press. H annah’s