Questions for The Woman Who Owned the Shadows

Some questions to ponder as you read:

1. What moral/ethical choices did the characters make? What did you think of those choices?
2. Why do you think the author wrote this? What is her most important message?
3. How did you feel about the characters? Who did you like or not like and why?
4. What did you think of the ending?
5. How does the setting figure as a character in the story?

Will have more questions soon!

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2022 Reading List!!!

2022 Edmonton Lesbian+ Book Club Reading Line Up January: Iron Goddess of Mercy by Larissa Lai (American-born Chinese Canadian lesbian writer); 2021 epic poem February: The Gospel of Breaking by Jillian Christmas (Black Canadian lesbian writer); 2020 poetry collection March: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat (LGBTQ Palestinian American writer); 2020 novel April: Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto (queer Japanese Canadian writer), illustrated by Ann Xu (Asian American artist); 2021 graphic novel May: Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen (asexual Asian American writer); 2020 non-fiction June: Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai (American queer disabled WOC writer); 2021 non-fiction July: Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante (White Canadian queer trans writer); 2019 novel August: 47,000 Beads by Koja Adeyoha (Indigenous-Oglala Lakota, two-spirit lesbian writer) and...

reading ideas...

Just tossing around some ideas for our reading list. We haven't read any classics lately - Radclyffe Hall's tragic novel of lesbian love called The Well of Loneliness was suggested. HD's HERmione might be another esoteric choice... In 2002, classicist and poet Anne Carson produced If Not, Winter, an exhaustive translation of Sappho's poetry fragments. Her line-by-line translations, complete with brackets where the ancient papyrus sources break off, are meant to capture both the original's lyricism and its present fragmentary nature. Biography/autobiography was also suggested - there are a few choices I've found. All You Get is Me, a bio of k.d. lang by Victoria Starr or k.d.lang Carrying The Torch by William Robertson. Eight Bullets: One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence by Claudia Brenner. The End of Innocence by Chastity Bono. Love, Ellen by Betty Degeneres. Michelle Cliff might be a good choice with Claiming an Identity They Taught Me...

future thoughts?

Some items for future consideration... Torchlight to Valhalla, a 1938 novel by American author Gale Wilhelm - considered a classic of lesbian fiction, and published only 10 years later than The Well of Loneliness, but (quite rare for lesbian fiction in this time) the ending is actually satisfactory for the lesbian characters. It was also reissued in 1953 by Lion Publishers, but titled The Strange Path . It was re-issued once more in 1985 by Naiad Press under its original title. The Group is a classic from American author Mary McCarthy. Sounds like this 1962 novel is the reason for all those rumours about Vassar! This one is exciting - lesbian fiction from a young Muslim woman from Indonesia. Herlina Tien Suhesti's novel Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian (The Margin of a Lesbian) was a massive (and unexpected) bestseller in Indonesia. Does anyone know if it's available in English? Y o-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi looks fascinating, although apparently it is written in Englis...

Edmonton Lesbian+ Book Club

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