An Intimate Wilderness: Lesbian Writers on Sexuality

by Judith Barrington (Editor)

Essays, stories, and poems explore questions of definition, vocabulary, history, possibility, and meaning, bringing together many of the best contemporary lesbian writers. "A refreshingly honest treatment of a complex subject."-- Library Journal ¶"A wide and useful collection."-- Booklist

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry, Queer, Lesbian, LGBT, Womens

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Maddi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a neat anthology! It was fascinating to read lesbian writers from the late 80s/early 90s - many themes and stories felt similar to queer stories today while others seemed more limited by conceptions of gender, (no one is trans) sexuality, (no one is bi) and heteropatriarchy. Stories about survival and being recognized at first felt distant but still resonated.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

fantastic writing from Becky Birtha, Gale Jackson, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Robin Becker, Dorthea Smartt, Beth Brant, Sarah Schulman-- authors i would love to read more of in the future. although i thought many of the essays within to be engaging i did not think they withstood academic rigor. many of the radfem writer's work seems reductive and obtuse at best.

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay selection. Even though it was published in the '90s, it includes essays/writing from radical lesbian feminists, which I appreciate, as around then the pro-BDSM, pro-porn, pro-postmodernism lesbians started getting prolific, and you don't always see anthologies from that time which don't discriminate. There was a lot more poetry than I thought there would be, even though the introduction seemed to indicate that most of the writing would be fiction prose. Same with nonfiction essays - there were many more than we were led to expect.