Game Changers: Women You Should Knnow

In the mid-1990s, I was editor and cofounder of the lesbian magazine Girlfriends, and my indefatigable art director, Robin Lowey, was a young lesbian with a wife, two very young sons, and a love of surfing. I remember many an early morning when Robin came in bleary-eyed from an all-nighter with a crying baby (who often only went to sleep after a ride in the car) but still kicked ass at her job. We haven't seen much of each other as her boys grew (they're grown men now) except for an Olivia Cruise we wound up on together unexpectedly a few years ago. But Robin -- who later founded and now edits and publishes the online lesbian site Epochalips -- flatteringly included me along with some of my idols (Jewelle Gomez) and friends (Frances Stevens) and other trailblazers (Cheryl Dunye) in her new interactive large-format book called Game Changers: Lesbians You Should Know About, Volume One. Each chapter includes pull-out game cards with "fun facts" on the woman profiled, making a deck of queer girl factoids. (You'll have to buy the book to find out mine!) Even better? Fifty percent of all profits are shared between four LGBT charities: Our Families Coalition, SAGE Services and Advocacy for Elders, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Horizons Foundation. And the book has been gifted to every public high school, community college, and library in Marin, San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, to help them fulfill the demands of California's new FAIR Act, which mandates inclusion of LGBT subjects in public school social studies and history curricula.(LesbianGameChangers.com)