Elana Dykewomon

Childhood

Dykewomon was born in New York City, to middle class Jewish parents. She and her family moved to Puerto Rico when she was eight.

Education

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.

Academic

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."

The book of poetry, 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

Selected publications

Books

Anthologies

Periodicals