With 1,000 Women on a Caribbean Beach

Club Med, Dominican Republic
Yes, a few of those women are topless

Another 2013 highlight took place in the Dominican Republic with San Francisco-based Olivia, a lesbian travel company. Founded 40 years ago by 3 visionaries to produce music by Chris Williamson, Meg Christian, Holly Near and other pioneers of the women's music movement, Olivia now     offers dozens of yearly resort vacations and cruises, from
Alsaka and Africa to Turkey and Tierra del Fuego.

My ex, Barbara Evans, and her partner Patricia -- for their picture, see "Friendly
Connections" below -- told us about their plan to go on the Olivia 40-year anniversary cruise in March. Becky and I were still in Mexico then, but we signed up for the anniversary resort week in May. Olivia generously offered me a mid-afternoon workshop slot and announced a publication party for the newly revised Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence.

Passing the microphone at Lesbian Nuns event

But who would tear themselves away from a Caribbean beach or a poolside mojito to attend a workshop? I told the organizers to remove half of the 40 chairs they'd circled under a large palapa roof. It would be embarrassing and difficult to facilitate a conversation with 5 or 6 participants sprinkled over so many seats.

But I was wrong. Within minutes of the starting time, all the removed chairs were back in the circle. Latecomers sat on a stone wall or leaned against pillars.

Empty chair next to me belongs to Becky, who took this picture

I asked people about their connection to the book. Poignant stories emerged from lesbian ex-nuns or their partners, who had read LNBS when it was published in 1985. Others had simply heard the title and were intrigued. A few women were struggling to reconcile their sexuality with their religion. A Minneapolis couple we had met the day before simply came to support us.

We felt safe to express affection all week

As I answered questions and showed the differences between the 1985 Naiad Press edition and the new Bella Books edition, I was grateful that what began as a journey of personal healing has ended up touching so many lives. For that story, see my blogpost New Lesbian Nuns below.

The workshop was one of many highlights of a remarkable week. As Becky and I relaxed into the safety and freedom of a women's community, we felt more expansive, more loving. By mid-week, it seemed that most of the 1,000 Olivia women were experiencing something similar, as if a current of trusting, open-hearted energy embraced and connected us all. My only other experience of this phenomenon was at the week-long Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

White night dance, for Olivia's 40th anniversary

Actually, this was a week-long music festival. The daytime dance classes and evening dancing had Becky and me out on the floor for 2 to 3 hours a day. The nightly concerts with comedians and musicians exploded with energy. A powerful documentary about Chris Williamson's ground-breaking 1975 album Changer and the Changed made us weep. Chris herself, now white-haired and with a voice that still moves us deeply, performed a whole concert of her funny, tender, mystical music.

NanBec with Chris Williamson the day after her Olivia concert

The next day, Chris sold and signed copies of the twenty-some albums she has released since Changer and the Changed and took a few moments to chat with Becky and me.

The all-inclusive resort, a first for us, was expensive. But Olvia does things other travel companies don't. Olivia reserves an entire resort or cruise ship, whether 500 or 1000 women sign up. Prominent feminists like Edie Windsor, Maya Angelou, Lily Tomlin, Melissa Etheridge, and Martina Navratilova offer workshops. Olivia bring their own staff, who facilitate excursions and other activities as well as handle any challenges that arise. Resort and ship employees are given sensitivity training. Guests can relax, knowing that for at least a week, they won't have to deal with homophobic attitudes and behaviors. For some, it's the first time they have ever held hands or kissed in public.

Olivia is a change-agent, confronting anti-gay attitudes in ports from Turkey to the Bahamas and giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to community organizations. Olivia's dynamic founder and president, Judy Dlugacz, has even organized three round-table discussions with Michelle Obama, who apparently enjoys having breakfast with a group of politically astute lesbians.

Becky and I hope to join the "LADIES OF OLIVIA" again someday.

A pina colada on a Caribbean beach with Becky and
a thousand other lesbians. Life doesn't get much better.

.

New Lesbian Nuns

New Bella/Spinsters Ink cover

In May 2013 Bella Books, in Florida, brought my 1985 collection Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence back into print and, for the first time, made it available as an ebook. This edition is even better than the original, featuring an excellent foreword by historian Joanne Passet describing the controvesies that raged around the book and analyzing its impact on the LGBT and mainstream culture.

This edition also includes new afterwords with my co-editor's and my personal stories. Why did we ever undertake a project that would disrupt our lives as college English teachers, propelling us into international media limelight, making us targets of so much hostility?

Portuguese edition, from Brazil

Lesbian Nuns was published in 7 languages in 11 countries. Rosemary and I were interviewed by Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and hundreds of other domestic and international publications, radio programs, and television shows. Callers, audiences, and letters to editors (and to us) called us immoral, sensationalistic, depraved. We were thrown out of a hotel in Dublin and guarded by Irish police during a live television show that had received threats. We were even denounced in print by some lesbian feminists for exploiting the nuns and ex-nuns whose stories were in the book.

Despite our fear and chronic exhaustion, Rosemary and I accepted every invitation to speak or be interviewed for over 2 years.  We hoped that by simply being the first open lesbians many people had ever seen or heard, we could support the early lesbian and gay rights movement's efforts to educated people, reduce ignorance and fear, and increase understanding and acceptance.

Over the years, Rosemary and I heard from many hundreds of people who were helped by the book. Just this summer, almost 3 decades after its initial publication, I received a Facebook message from a closeted ex-nun school teacher who had just discovered a used copy of the original LNBS. She said she "found pieces of [her]self in each story," which lessened her feelings of isolation. She wrote that is inspired to follow the examples in those stories to live more open and to risk being more authentically herself.

Rosemary Keefe Curb and Nancy Manahan, 2005, Duluth, MN

Although Rosemary died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2012 and didn't know our book would be back in print, I compiled her afterword based on the memoirs she was writing. Her vibrant, witty personality and her deeply feminist intelligence shine from very paragraph. Rosemary's Chicago newspaper obituary, also included in the new book, documents what an extraordinary woman she was. Working with Rosemary Keefe Curb to create and publicize a book that made a difference in the world is one of the greatest blessing of my life.

The new Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence is available at Amazon and Bella Books. For an autographed copy, contact me directly or go to nanbec.com.

For pictures from the University of Minnesota book launch, the book event in the Dominican Republic, foreign covers, and quotes from the Bella edition, click here.

Nancy

Paris Revisited

The summer after I graduated from the University of Minnesota, I was an au pair (live-in-nanny) for a French family who lived near the Eiffel Tower. Each morning, after our pitite dejeuner of fresh crusty bread, creamy Montrachet goat cheese, and a bowlful of café au lait, I would walk the children to the Eiffel Tower playground. I felt flooded with awe at the fulfillment of my dream of living in France.

 

This spring Becky and I spent a week in Paris. One afternoon, after a picnic near the Eiffel Tower, we discovered that the playground with its little carousel is still there.  My little ones who loved that carousel would be in their forties now and probably have no memory of the American who spoke French badly but loved playing with them in the sand.

Being in Paris reminded of my second visit for the 1986 publication of Ma Soeur, Mon Amour, the French translation of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence. My co-editor Rosemary (Curb) Keefe and I spoke at a women’s bookstore (no longer in existence) and discovered that Parisian women-loving-women regarded our lesbian-feminist zeal as rather quaint, unsophisticated, and somewhat embarrassing. Having achieved equality with men, they were past such narrow concerns. And why were we still using that old term? Lesbian was so militant! They preferred to be “discrete” about their private lives. It sounded to us as if they were still in the closet.

This time Becky and I found the GLBT Center of Paris, thanks to a delightful Lesbian Connection contact dyke. This young Portuguese woman who has lived in several countries told us that the Paris Gay Pride parade draws thousands of revelers, mostly straight people. It’s more party than political. Sonia says that French lesbians are still very . . . discrete.

Being in Paris also reminded me of two months my partner Barbara and I spent there in 1988. The Gare D’Orsay had recently been converted into the glorious Musée d'Orsay, full of light, huge open spaces, and beautiful French art. Barb and I went on the free day each week and enjoyed the sumptuous salad buffet in the chandeliered restaurant. Since the buffet is no longer offered, Becky and I split an order of soup and salmon. We felt like royalty lunching at Versailles, surrounded by mirrors and full-breasted women frolicking amidst clouds on the ceiling.

After this fourth visit, much as I love Paris, I don’t long for my magical city any more. My French dreams have been fulfilled by stolling hand-in-hand along the Seine with my beloved wife, exploring Notre Dame together, and walking the magical labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral with her.