Elana Dykewomon

Elana Dykewomon (born Elana Nachman, October 11, 1949) is a lesbian activist, author, editor and teacher. She is a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Personal life.
Dykewomon was born in New York City, to middle class Jewish parents. She and her family moved to Puerto Rico when she was eight.
She studied fine art at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, received a B.F.A. in creative writing from the California Institute of Arts, later and her M.F.A. from San Francisco State University.
Dykewomon lives in Oakland, California, and taught at her alma mater San Francisco State.
Books.
In 1974, Dykewomon published her first novel, "Riverfinger Women", under her name of birth, Elana Nachman.
Her second book, "They Will Know Me By My Teeth", released in 1976, was published under the name "Elana Dykewoman", "at once an expression of her strong commitment to the lesbian community and a way to keep herself 'honest,' since anyone reading the book would know the author was a lesbian."
"Fragments From Lesbos", printed in 1981 "for lesbians only," was published under the author's current last name, "Dykewomon," in order "to avoid etymological connection with men."
In the 1989 anthology of writing by Jewish women, "The Tribe of Dina", Dykewomon describes herself as "a Lesbian Separatist, descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, typesetter, ...poet"
Periodicals.
From 1987–1995, Dykewomon edited "Sinister Wisdom", an international lesbian feminist journal of literature, art and politics, as well as contributing regularly to several other lesbian periodicals, including "Common Lives/Lesbian Lives". She has also been a regular contributor to "Bridges," a magazine of writing by Jewish women.
Awards and achievements.
In 1998, "Beyond the Pale" won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the Ferro-Grumley Award for lesbian fiction.
In 2004, "Riverfinger Women" was selected as #87 in The Publishing Triangle's list of 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Novels, by a panel of judges that included Dorothy Allison, Samuel R. Delany, Lillian Faderman, M.E. Kerr, Sarah Schulman, and Barbara Smith. In 2018, the Golden Crown Literary Society awarded "Riverfinger Women" with the Lee Lynch Classic Award because it is an "essential part of American literary history, LGBT literature, politics, and popular culture."
Dykewomon was awarded the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize by the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in 2009.
Works.
Other writings.
Prose
Poetry