*Two* women to know: Liza Cowan and Penny House
We are not interested in telling the straight world what we are doing. In fact, we hope they never even see the magazine. — Liza Cowan and Penny House
(image via Dyke Quarterly)
In the 1970s, lifelong friends Liza and Penny launched their own magazine, for women like them: Dyke.
Liza and Penny launched Dyke as a lesbian separatist pub, promoting articles, poems and other original work that advocated other queer women like them should create their own no-dudes-allowed society. Only in this real-life Themyscira, they argued, could women like them live freely. (Fun fact: they also popularized today's must-have "The Future is Female" T-shirt ... in the 1970s)
Add to your library list:
Dyke: A Quarterly, Vol. 1, Issue 1 (Liza Cowan and Penny House)
Write on, woman! A writers' and artists' guide to women's alternate press periodicals (Lynne D. Shapiro)
Read more:
Dyke, A Quarterly: Blogging an Online Archive (Bryn Mawr College)
Casting spells for a female future with lesbian separatist Liza Cowan (i-D)
Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York (The Advocate)
Six lesbian magazines that changed the world (Autostraddle)
Gay Gotham Reveals How a City's Queer Underground Culture Changed New York (Slate)
Watch more:
Leap of Faith, produced by Liza Cowan and Penny House (Pacifica Radio Archives)
** Send your own recommendations for women to know! Reply to this newsletter with your lady and she could be featured in an upcoming edition. You can browse the archive here. **