Elana Dykewomon is an author, teacher and activist, whose focus is in lesbian, dyke, fat and Jewish studies. Elana grew up in New York City until relocating at the age of eight, to Puerto Rico. After completing high school, Elana earned her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in creative writing from the California Institute of Arts. During this time she began to explore work in creating visibility for lesbians.
Elana began her first novel Riverfinger Women, as she traveled to the East Coast, settling in the Pioneer Valley. She remained active in women’s collectives and activism; some of which included Valley Women’s Center, Lesbian Garden & Feminist Speakers Bureau. In 1972, Elana moved to a women’s collective (in the town of Holyoke, MA) that distributed pamphlets & information protesting the Vietnam War, formed study groups, held film screening and continued to support lesbian activist efforts in the area.
By 1976 Elana had published her second book They Will Know Me By My Teeth. Elana has won the Lambda award for her novel Beyond the Pale, and the 2009 Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist’s prize. Elana now teaches at SFU, and offers private writing/editing classes in Oakland California. She has continued to critique and evolve her own understanding of what it means to be a white, fat, jewish, dyke, lesbian.
Her recent works focus more on taking a critical approach to understanding these identities and the ways they have evolved and function in a larger systemic structure. Much of her work is driven by her own experiences and identities which continue to drive her work, education and activism today.
Social Media:
Online Work:
- Milk and Honey: a Memoir (Lodestar Quarterly)
- Owning Our Bodies (Feminist Reprise)
- The Real Fat Women Poems (pdf via Sinister Wisdom)
- Selection of poems from What Can I Ask
- Interview at Women and Words
- Oral History at The Oakland Standard
- Elana Dykewomon – Open Lecture (at Vimeo)