Clifford Mae Henderson

The habits of Lesbian Readers: A Scientific Study

When I first tried to get published with a mainstream publisher, I was told “lesbians don’t read.” I had a brief moment of confusion, thinking, well what the hell have I been doing all these years? before realizing they were just plain wrong. There’s no way to gauge what lesbians read. I, for one, do not restrict my reading to lesfic. And I have never had a bookstore employee ask my sexual persuasion when buying books.

So here’s the thing, I like to read books with lesbian characters, but rarely read romance. The hitch? Most lesfic is romance. So how do I find the books that I like? Ha! I’ve decided to get pro-active. I’ve created a Facebook page for what I’m calling “Mainstream Lesbian Fiction.” I hope it will become a place where writers and readers of this unique genre will share recommendations, review links, book launches and stuff. I’m talking reaching across the aisle here—from publisher to publisher. Here’s the link: Click like if you can relate. I want to see how many of us are out there. (That’s where the scientific study comes in.)

Over and out, Cliffi

Published by Clifford Mae Henderson

Clifford Mae Henderson, also writing under the name Clifford Henderson, was named after her grandmother Clifford who once wore a nightgown to a formal event because she liked it better than any of the dresses she could find. Clifford Mae has attempted to follow in her renegade grandmother’s footsteps, spending as much time as possible trying to shake things up. Her previous novels have each garnered awards, including a Foreword Magazine Book of the Year award, an Independent Publishers Book award, and a Golden Crown Literary award. When not writing, Clifford Mae and her life-partner of twenty-six years run the Fun Institute, an improv school in Northern California where they teach the art of collective pretending. Contact Clifford Mae Henderson at http://www.cliffordhenderson.net

9 comments

  1. Oh, no, Cliffi. Facebook again! LOL. I quit Facebook and really don’t want to go back.

    I wish there was another way I could support this group. Well, we’ll see….

    Thank you for your pro-active attitude. That is all that is needed sometimes. Just a spark and someone with enough passion and strong beliefs to reach the goal.

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  2. This is an interesting question, what lesbians read. I think the issue isn’t that lesbians “don’t read” but that lesbians aren’t looking for a “gay & lesbian” section at the bookstore, anymore than black people are looking for an “African American” section, or Jews are looking for a “Jewish Literature” section. My favorite books are those that happen to have lesbians in them (i.e., Jeanette Winterson, Dorothy Allison) but are not deliberately “lesbian.” I don’t think you can say that lesbians do or don’t read any particular genre, just that we don’t want to be roped into a corner of the bookstore, labelled and confined to a particular style of writing. I like to read stories where I can empathize with the character, but I don’t want to have to sacrifice my other preferences just so that I can read about two women.

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    • Hey Grey Girl,
      Wow. You spoke my truth! And this Facebook page (while I’m not a lover of online social networks) is a way for me to connect with readers and writers like myself. My novels, just recently, got pulled out of the “Queer Studies” aisle at our local bookstore here in SC. I felt that was a huge leap in the right direction.

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  3. Great idea, Clifford. I saw the FB page last night and latched onto it.

    We do have to educate our readers to look for us outside the Queer shelves, though, if we manage to get other placement. (I say “we”, but mine, being erotica anthologies, are still going to be in niches-within-ghettoes no matter what. Still, I have hopes of publishing other things.)

    Off-topic note–today is the last chance to comment on my previous post and be in the drawing for a copy of L-J Baker’s Promises, Promises, which should definitley not be sequestered with the romances.)

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  4. Good grief, I read, and what’s more I write!

    I’m middle aged and I didn’t start writing until I was in my forties. I cut my teeth on writing erotica, which was read mainly by my lesbian peer group and by men with a search engine. Discovering that I could actually write I moved into the mainstream – short stories, novels, poetry (it is the latter for which I am now more widely known, but that was never my plan) for the general readership.

    In a bookshop or a library I don’t go looking for the pink shelf any more than I go looking for the ‘tartan shelf’. I go looking for what I want to read. Currently I’m re-reading Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and short stories by Isabel Allende but so what – I could as easily be reading a manual on car maintenance.

    But everybody’s saying this anyhow, so that was just my two-pennyworth of rant.

    M
    __________
    Marie Marshall
    writer/poet/editor/blogger
    Scotland
    http://mairibheag.com
    http://kvennarad.wordpress.com

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  7. It’s always been a source of profound angst for me–I really do write more mainstream, even though my bestseller was of course in the lesbian romance genre. Most of my books straddle the line. They have lesbian characters (except two of them, Baggage and Achilles Forjan) but are not ABOUT the romance. They’re about the whole person of the character and the plot and the story itself. For instance, one of my newest books, Another Justice, has lesbian characters, but the story is not about their orientation.It’s about the justice system, revenge, the gray areas between right and wrong, etc. I am much more than my sexual orientation, and like many of you, I grew up reading mainstream fiction, and i still mostly read that. My fondest desire is to just write whatever i want and know that it will resonate with lesbians and straight people alike. It might be awhile before the book market integrates in this way, but I’ll still be writing what I want to write.

    SO glad to know there is some interest in this. I wish Amazon had a category for MAINSTREAM lesbian fiction. Hell, i wish Amazon had more categories for lesbian fiction in general. Anyway, hello to all mainstream lesbian fiction fans and writers.

    You can visit my author site at http://kellijaebaeli.com/

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