Every Woman I've Ever Loved: Lesbian Writers on Their Mothers

"I have wanted to find my mother in every woman I've ever loved," writes Catherine Reid in the introduction to this refreshingly complex and original anthology. "I have ached to find traces of her smell, her touch, the way she would cradle the back of my head, her songs. I had to turn forty before I could admit that to myself or acknowledge how often a similar yearning shows up in the people around me. Relationships with mothers are complicated for everyone - men and women, heterosexual, gay and bisexual. But for lesbians, that core relationship is especially powerful, blessed (or burdened) with a multiplicity of emotions and desires. In Every Woman I've Ever Loved, an impressive line-up of lesbian authors examines the mother/daughter relationship .... in essays, poems and dramatic monoloogues, and even one photo essay. As women who love women, these writers bring passionate intensity and complicated depths to this fundamental, first love. Dorothy Allison, Gloria Anzalda, Claudia Bepko, Meg Daly, Jyl Lynn Felman , Marilyn Hacker, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Laura Markowitz, Jane Miller, Cherre Moraga, Joan Nestle, Linda Niemann, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Mattie Richardson , Maureen Seaton, Mab Segrest, Shay Youngblood and others.