The next issues of Heresies:
| 5 |
6 |
7 |
| The Great Goddess/Women's spirituality: Common bondings in the new
mythology; ritual and the collective woman; avoiding limitations in our
self-defining process; recipes and wisdom from country ''spirit women''; the
Goddess vs. the patriarchy; the Goddess movement abroad; hostility against
and fear of the goddess; original researches; locating the Goddess-temples,
museums, digs, bibliographies, maps; the new/old holydays; healing;
political implications of the goddess; psychological impact on women of
female-centered spirituality. Available May 1978. |
Women and Violence: Cultural: violence against women in mass media,
literature and art; women's self-usage... Family: wife beating; child
abuse; sex-violence among lovers and friends...Institutionalized:
incarceration in prisons and mental hospitals; repression in traditional
religions; racism; imperialism and economic deprivation; torture of
political prisoners; sterilization abuse; homophobia; rape... Rebellion:
feminism as an act of self-defense; revolutionary struggles; art which
explores violence; art-making as an aggressive act... Deadline: April 15,
1978. |
Working together: 'True Confessions': An issue to be edited by the
HERESIES Publishing Collective, with an emphasis on examining collectivity,
work and individuals; an examination of different collective, past and
present, white, Third World, lesbian, female/male; women working with women;
an explanation of feminist networks, structure and process; the development
of feminist criticism; the trial and tribulations of going public; our own
view of HERESIES' working process and substantive radical response to
the first four issues of HERESIES. Deadline: July 15, 1978. |
Guidelines for Prospective Contributors: Manuscripts should be typewritten,
double-spaced, on 8 1/2" x 11" paper and submitted in duplicate with footnotes and
illustrative material, if any, fully captioned. We welcome for consideration either
outlines or descriptions of proposed articles. These are due no later than one month
prior to the deadline for manuscripts. If you are submitting visual material, please
send a photograph, xerox or description—not the original. HERESIES will not take
responsibility for unsolicited original material. Only manuscripts and visual
material aecompanied by a stamped, self-addresed envelope will be returned. HERESIES
will pay a fee between $5 and $50, as our budget allows, for published material.
There will be no commissioned articles and we cannot guarantee acceptance of
submitted material. We will not include reviews or monographs on contemporary
women.
Dear Lesbian Issue Collective:
We appreciate all of the work the Lesbian Arts and Artists issue of HERESIES represents. We find it appalling, however, that a
hundred years from now it will be possible for women to conclude that in 1977 there
were no practicing Black and other Third World lesbian artists. It is not sufficient
to explain such grievous omissions merely by stating: "...yet biases which informed
our choices of material were certainly conditioned by the fact that we are all
lesbians, white, college-educated, and mostly middle-class women who live in New York and have a background in the arts." Feminist and lesbian politics and creativity are not the exclusive property of white women.
We would like to know if any of the hundreds of contributors you had to choose from
were Third World women and if so to know more specifically the basis on which their
work was rejected.
We look forward to your response.
THE <orgName key="Combahee River Collective" ref="http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q843054">COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE</orgName><lb/>
SECOND BLACK FEMINIST RETREAT<lb/>
November 4, 5, and 6, 1977
| Cessie Alfonso |
Somerset, N.J. |
| Lorraine Bethel |
Cambridge, Mass. |
| Gwendolyn Braxton |
Chicago, Ill. |
| Camille Bristow |
Bronxville, N.Y. |
| Margie Butler |
Plainfield, N.J. |
| Nivea Castro-Figueroa |
Dorchester, Mass. |
| Cheryl Clarke |
New Brunswick, N.J. |
| Charley B. Flint |
Edison, N.J. |
| Demita Frazier |
Dorchester, Mass. |
| Cecelia B. Homberg |
Sunderland, Mass. |
| Gloria T. Hull |
Newark, Del. |
| Bonnie Johnson |
New York, N.Y. |
| Audre Lorde |
Staten Island, N.Y. |
| Carroll Oliver |
New York, N.Y. |
| Linda C. Powell |
New York, N.Y. |
| Sharon Page Ritchie |
Chicago, Ill. |
| Barbara Smith |
Roxbury, Mass. |
| Beverly Smith |
Cambridge, Mass. |
Dear Combahee River Collective:
Although we did not systematically exclude Third world women from the Lesbian
issue of HERESIES, we did participate in a kind of passive exclusion. The editorial
collective that formed was all white. Our knowledge of the Third World artist or
lesbian community was limited. By not making a concerted effort to contact Third
World Lesbian artists we became an only too typical all-White group operating in a
racist society.
The inclusion of Third World contributions was based on the same criteria applied to
all work submitted to the issue. We don't know exactly how many Black and other
Third World women submitted work, but we received nothing that specifically dealt
with being a non-white lesbian artist or which spoke from an identifiably non-White
position. As far as we know, the work of only one Third World woman was included in
the issue. It is probable that we didn’t receive much work from Third World
women.
HERESIES has had a similar problem with every issue. Most of the editors and
contributors have been white women. As you may know, each issue of HERESIES is
edited by a different group of women. Each issue is thematic and any women with an
interest in that particular topic is welcome to work on the issue. We hope that,
increasingly, Third World women will want to participate in issues of their
choice.
Also, though we haven’t done this yet, if a group of women approaches us with a
proposal for an issue they want to put out themselves, we will consider giving an
entire issue to them to produce. A group of women who are already organized, such as
the Combahee Collective, might want to do an issue devoted to Black and other Third
World artists. In this way we can begin to extend our publication to speak for many
feminists who have not been well represented so far.
As you pointed out, however, it is HERESIES' responsibility to continue to print
work by and about minority women (including Third World women, lesbian women, etc.)
in each issue to avoid tokenism.
We hope this information and your letter will encourage a greater effort on the part
of both HERESIES editorial collectives and Third World women to enter into an
exchange.
HERESIES is planning to publish an issue on Black, Spanish-American, American Indian
and other Third World women to be edited by Third World women. As with all HERESIES
issues, the concept, content and design are to be decided solely by its editors. The
issue, No. 8, is to be published in January 1979. Any Third World woman in the New
York area who is interested in working on this should contact HERESIES immediately
so that the core editorial group can form. Write us or call (212) 431-9060.