“If you scan my bookshelves you can pick out the books I gobbled up coming out in the ’80sâthe green-spined Virago re-issues of lost womenâs classics, the zebra-striped spines of The Womenâs Press with the little clothes-iron colophon (so clever! so ironic!) and ‘Steaming ahead!’ motto, the Press Gang books, the balloon-lettered Firebrand books. Sigh. Womenâs presses.
“The Womenâs Pressâand letâs not leave out the Toronto Womenâs Bookstoreâwas how I came to The Conversations of Cow by Suniti Namjoshi, a wonderfully offbeat little volume in which a fictionalized Suniti, then living in Toronto, meets Cow of a Thousand Wishes, the goddess, and invites her to become her travelling companion. The two of them contort through a comic series of Cowâs manifestationsâgorgeous Bhadravati, gruff Budâand Sunitiâs figuring out who to be in relation to her until they pretty much live happily ever after.
“It delighted me then for its sauciness, its lightness, its boldness and verve, its visit to a commune of lesbian cows. If the delight is the slightest bit rubbed off now, the book compensates with an added ting of historical interest. Iâm sure there are still communal lesbian farms out there, but I havenât been to one since summer solstice, 1985.”
Anne Flemingâs three books, Gay Dwarves of America, Anomaly, and Pool-Hopping and Other Stories, have been shortlisted for some nice prizes, including the Governor Generalâs Award. A book of poems will be out next year, and maybe also, fingers crossed, a childrenâs book about a mountain goat in New York City.