O, apologies aplenty for my long silence! But the herstorian has won a book contract at last, after quite a few years since the last one came out, and a book contract means joy, rapture, recognition, and a bellyful of sudden extra work. I’ve spent the weeks since January 1 bent over two hundred pages of manuscript, editing out anything that might be inaccurate, adding in references to all my pals while I have the opportunity, and getting permissions to use photos, artwork, quotes, oy vay. The book will be out from Indiana University Press next year.

So what’s it about? Entitled Revenge of the Women’s Studies Professor, it’s based on my one-woman play of the same name, which I’ve toured with for years at college campuses and women’s conferences/music festivals. Revenge is an entertaining look at my life as a women’s studies teacher: how the backlash against the field draws on stereotypes and homophobia, and how my students and I handle those incidents of name-calling or outright ignorance. Originally, I wrote the play in a two-day burst of rage back in 1993, when I was teaching at an isolated college chockablock with anti-woman graffiti and attitude. Dyke-hating sentiment pervaded those icy halls, and I was fed up. It was a small town with nothing to do, though I was earning a good salary—no bookstore, no other lesbians; the highlight of my week was buying an apple turnover from the Amish farmwife driving her buggy down my block. So I had plenty of writing time, and it was then that I elected to write about what so many women’s studies faculty put up with: students whose very advisors discourage them from taking a simple women’s history class, whose parents or boyfriends mock them for being a women’s studies major.

Because I had so many beloved friends in the women’s music scene, I saw exceptional comedy and theatre all summer long, and knew there was a potential audience for a “show” about homophobia in higher ed, so I began doing scenes from my play at the National Women’s Music Festival, the East Coast Lesbian Festival and the Gulf Coast Festival at Camp Sister Spirit. Then, later in the late 90s, I began going global, bringing the play to women’s audiences wherever I traveled: New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Iceland, and most recently, Ireland. It was a great way to meet local activists [and did I ever have a wee international romance? Yes. ] But most importantly, I found that no matter the country or culture, women’s studies students and faculty were experiencing the exact same bullshit!  During audience Q & A [which frequently ran longer than the actual sixty-minute play], I heard woman after woman complain about having to defend her choice of women’s history. Then I’d go out to dinner with the rowdy professors and eat something unpronounceable but zesty while they opened their hearts about getting funding, sexual violence, racism. I was there to educate, but I always received an education.

It’s been a sheer pleasure to type up all these stories into a book. But forgive me for also whining about how far we haven’t come. I still have students whose families originally forbid them from enrolling in one of my classes, whose roommates snicker “Oh, are you going to become one of them?!” just for reading eight paragraphs on how we got the vote. Sheesh.