TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism

Online Archives

Issue 11: "Are Lesbians Going Extinct?" Part 2

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In an essay written in 1983, Nicole Brossard wrote: "Une lesbienne qui ne reinvente pas le monde est une lesbienne en voie de disparition." (A lesbian who does not reinvent the world is a lesbian going extinct.) At that time, the phrase made very good sense. As writers, thinkers, activists, and in our day-to-day lives, we felt (many of us) compelled to reinvent a world in which we were for the most part invisible if not unthinkable, a world whose values we largely rejected. Today, over 20 years later, we are accepted, even embraced, by mainstream culture—as co-workers, wives, mothers, as TV talk show hosts and anchorwomen!—in ways we could not have imagined then. But how have we gained this inclusion? Have we gone quiet as lesbians (not denying our lesbianism but seldom foregrounding it)? Are we still reinventing the world? As writers, are we inventing new forms? Is there still a radical edge to the word "lesbian"? Or are we now, by Brossard's definition, a disappearing species? 

Lise Weil and Betsy Warland Editorials 


Conversation I 

Conversation II 

Conversation III 
Conversation IV 

TRIVIAL LIVES 


Issue 10: "Are Lesbians Going Extinct?" Part 1, February 2009

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The longest and possibly most thought-provoking issue we've published to date features seventeen writers responding to the question "Are Lesbians Going Extinct?" Edited by Lise Weil and Betsy Warland.







Issue 9: Thinking about Goddesses, September 2009

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A canoe trip in New England opens out suddenly into the sacred terrain of the Taíno goddesses of the Dominican Republic; a trip to Kerala India to study menarche rites leads to a profound appreciation of everyday objects; Inanna's appearance in a dream shapes the course of a life and literary career; a dream helps a young wife and mother escape the influence of the Roman Catholic and Black Methodist Church and find her way to the Yoruban goddesses; a devoted midwife finds goddess in birthgiving and comes to see women's bodies as "portals of the divine." In the articles collected in this issue, the scholarly is seamlessly woven with the intensely personal; rigorous thought and deep emotion are indissoluble. To orient oneself to goddess is to liberate oneself from oppressive strictures, to learn from rivers and mountains, to listen attentively to birds, to revel in female sensuality, to honor pots and bowls and candles, to celebrate community, to live more consciously and joyfully. Edited by Lise Weil and Hye Sook Hwang.

Issue 7/8: unabashed Knowing, September 2008

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This is unabashed Knowing climbing into bed with you,
  putting its hands around your throat and squeezing
  until your heart bursts open and its pieces
  scatter over the world like petals.
  Martina Newberry, “Bad Manners”   In this long-awaited double issue you will find thundering outrage, piercing cries from the heart, and a courageous facing-off against the insidious forces of Unknowing. You will also find powerful and diverse voices of healing. Taken together, the material in this issue suggests that unabashed Knowing is itself the beginning of all true healing.

Issue 6: The Art of the Possible, September 2007   

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A solo aerialist with feminist circuses in Australia takes us with her as she defies gravity and social expectations; a lesbian poet leads us downward into a hell of childhood sexual torture and back out again, transformed; a novelist shares with us her journey to Sardegna, where landscape and ruins evoke ancient memories; a Korean feminist takes us along on the extraordinary life journey that led her to discover the anciently originated gynocentric matrix of the Far East which she has named Magoism; a poet turns an old story into a moment of comic relief; a scholar and practitioner in the women’s spirituality movement explores hidden aspects of feminist history and urges us to breach the taboo on the occult; and a poet explores her childhood friendship with the girl she felt she had always known. Come with us as Trivia contributors practice the art of the possible by leaping across time and space, refusing false choices, and expanding the limits of the real.

Issue 5: The Resurrection issue, February 2007

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In fantastical story, ballad, essays, poetry, visual art, brief reflections, and memorial pieces, contributors honor the work of those who are no longer with us, while interweaving the lives of the departed with those of the living. In the process, they demonstrate that the feminist continuum knows no bounds. (We should point out that not every writer who appears in these pages has departed; in some pieces the dead cavort with the living.)


Issue 4: The Wonderful and the Terrible, September 2006

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From a naming of female potency to a questioning of the notion of two sexes, from poems in the voice of a young woman kidnapped into sex slavery to reflections on lesbian desire, from a science-fiction nightmare to a personal meditation on the search for gentleness amidst cruelty, from a most unusual “Trivial Lives” to a review of Mary Daly’s latest, Trivia 4 walks the knife-edge of paradox, balancing between the wonder and terror of our times.




Issue 3: Love & Lust, February 2006

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"The Meaning of Our Love for Women is What We Have Constantly to Expand" read the title of an essay by Adrienne Rich written in the '70s. Have we expanded the meaning of this love in the years since, and if so, how? Given cultural phenomena like "The L Word" and "Queer as Folk" is it still possible to argue that love between women is a powerful force for healing and political change? That lesbian desire is qualitatively different from heterosexual or homosexual desire? This issue contains essays, poems, and narrative accounts.



Issue 2: Memory, October 2005

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This issue dedicated to the memory of Andrea Dworkin
writer, activist, warrior, visionary
September 26, 1946 - April 9, 2005

"My eyes work. I see. It is not a mystery. If it's in front of you you can see how it works itself out. It's not prophecy; it's simple seeing; what is there; now; naked from the lies." - Mercy

Issue 1: The Body, December 2004

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This issue dedicated to the memory of Monique Wittig. Wittig was born in 1935 and died January 2003. She was a pioneer in feminist literature. Some of her well known texts include: Les Guérillères, The Lesbian Body, Across the Acheron, and The Straight Mind and Other Essays. The theme of this issue is "the body" and was, in part, inspired by Wittig and the effect she has had on us.



                               What's Left?
                               Preferably Knot