Women on Women 3: A New Anthology of American Lesbian Fiction

Women on Women

by Joan Nestle (Editor), Naomi Holoch (Editor), Leslie Feinberg (Contributor)

The third volume of the Women on Women series features brilliant writing from a generation of women writers, including Kate Millett, Michelle Cliff, and Barbara Smith. From the traditional to the transgressive, this award-winning series presents the best short work by the best writers of the lesbian community.

Genres: Anthologies, Lesbian, Queer, Fiction, Short Stories, Feminism, LGBT

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Joan Nestle writes and edits essays, erotic fiction, poetry, and short stories. She is an activist, and among many actions has co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives to preserve records of lesbian lives and communities and currently coordinates the Women in Black protests against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

Reviews

[Killian MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Where are you, Troy? Your touch works on me like a respirator... or the sun without boredom or one final glass of beer. Speaking love the same way to the same girl night after day.’

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

My exposure to lesbian literature in a small town was, well, nothing. Even as an adult, I have read very little about lesbians, which has led to me feeling unseen and forgotten. I feel too often in literature and film lesbians are used as erotic figures. This book, written by women, stories of lesbians, healed something in me. The stories were not my own, and many situations I could not relate to, but I still felt a strong connection to many of them. I enjoy short stories very much, and an entire collection of lesbian ones? The thing that struck me was that some of the stories didn’t necessarily have to do with lesbians or a lover, it was just the normalcy of life, while being a lesbian. And that was something beautiful to me.

[Lyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, this book for me has been quite the slog and I think its because I just don't much care for short stories. That and that about half of the stories I managed to slog myself through really weren't worth the good ones that I had enjoyed. I got about halfway through the book in total. Of course, I don't think that the book is bad, far from it. I think its valuable that the collection of lesbian short stories exists. However, I simply cannot get into it, and I think most of the stories are in a collection for a reason in being extremely boring to get through. After two months of barely getting through half of the book I think I just need to let it hang on my shelf and maybe some other time I will pick it up again.

[Yolie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overall. So many different voices and ideas. Every story was so vivid and real. Some of the most notable stories in this book are: Salisbury Joe, Why I'm here, What We Do In Bed and my favorite, Home. A line from Home: "But I wonder how someone can know me if they can't know my family, if there's no current information to tell. Never to say to a friend, a lover, "I talked to my mother yesterday and she said..." Nothing to tell. Just a blank where all that is supposed to be." The stories range from heartbreak, happiness, longing, love and death. I will be seeking out volumes one and two. A must read that belongs in everyone's collection.

[Freyja Vanadis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few of the stories in this collection were quite good, such as Jenifer Levin's "A Room, In A Stone House, In Spain". Some were okay, and some were unreadable. I think I skipped over a quarter of the stories in this book.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another collection of short stories about lesbian themes, that I found entertaining, but not hot or sexy.