Labrys Lit: The Evolution of a Lesbian Book Group
By Claire L. Heuchan, Chair and Founder of Labrys Lit
“I felt more at home with this room full of new acquaintances than I did with people I’ve known my entire life. That is the power of community.”
Labrys Lit has been going for one year and two months. In that window of time we’ve had fourteen meetings and a Sapphic Solstice Party. We’ve welcomed some of the greatest living lesbian writers to our group, including Scotland’s former Poet Makar Jackie Kay, and grown an international membership of more than 250 women. And in Chairing this group, I have found a joy that’s impossible to quantify; a fulfilment and sense of purpose that cannot be measured. And I mean to keep doing this for as long as women want to attend.
There are three things that make Labrys Lit such a positive experience for me. The first is the women who make up this group – they’re fantastic. Insightful, kind, funny, and generous in their contributions to each discussion. A cooler group of women you could not hope to find.
In a way it makes me angry that we’re taught to see lesbians as a joke, an undesirable demographic. Growing up in an intensely Catholic environment, I couldn’t help but absorb the belief that lesbian was something to be ashamed of. We are not taught to think of lesbians as interesting or worthwhile because, in a patriarchal society, women are discouraged from prioritising each other. But prioritising lesbian women and our culture is among the most rewarding decisions I have ever made. It feels wonderful to be part of Labrys Lit, and the wider community.
One of our members, Amanda, shared something that resonated deeply. She said that it was such a privilege to listen to women’s perspectives on all of the books we read together. Our meetings are the highlight of every month for me.
Without going into too much detail, some of my family relationships are complicated. There was a Sunday last summer when some relatives visited my grandmother. They were sitting outside in the sunshine. I felt uncomfortable and out of place, inescapably aware of being the only brown face in the garden, so it was a relief to excuse myself when the Labrys Lit meeting was due to start. The group hadn’t even been going for that long, but I felt more at home with this room full of new acquaintances than I did with people I’ve known my entire life. That is the power of community. And I hope that Labrys Lit’s members find as much comfort in it as the group’s founder does.
When I first started Labrys Lit, I drew up a code of conduct. I did this to make this group sustainable over time. And, worst case scenario, to protect it. But I’ve never once had to enforce that code. Every one of our members is a credit to this group.
The second is thing I love about Labrys Lit is our authors. Every single woman we’ve featured so far has been enthusiastic and open-hearted. Jane Traies – one half of the Jay Taverner lesbian writing partnership – blew my mind with how much she knows about lesbian lives past and present. She also mentioned having run a lesbian history course with the Free University of Brighton. My enthusiasm for this was matched by several Labrys Lit members. And it was so lovely, during the first session when we were all doing introductions, to see so many familiar faces in the Zoom classroom and hear that Labrys Lit brought them there.
The third thing that makes Labrys Lit such a joy is that I get to read so many new lesbian books. For the first year I set books I’d read before, or work by authors I was familiar with. But having grown in confidence over time, and wanting to keep up with the amazing variety of current lesbian writing, I’ve been reading more widely in order to find our future texts. And this has been its own reward. Next month I’m planning on reading all potential books for 2023, with a view to announcing next year’s list in September. Reading a heap of lesbian books is the best responsibility I’ve had in 29 years of life!
People have been very generous in making donations, and I mainly use these funds to buy books I intend to set in the future. Nobody becomes a writer because they want to be rich – at least, nobody who has done their research – and the cost of those books was by far the biggest barrier to me continuing Labrys Lit in the long term. Your donations have helped me plan possible books through to 2025.
We’ve also used the funds to send women a variety of lesbian feminist texts that were gifted to FiLiA, And I’ll be drawing from them to cover postage for a fiction giveaway in the near future. It’s a huge help, and I’m immensely grateful to everyone who has donated so far. You have helped make Labrys Lit viable.
I’ve learned so much in my role as Chair. Things that would once have floored me now seem entirely manageable. When I first started Labrys Lit, I was terrified in case women didn’t like the books I set. But experience has taught me that our richest discussions happen when women have different opinions about the books we read. The variety of perspectives found within our membership is one of Labrys Lit’s greatest strengths.
I’ve also learned that I never want to grow complacent. It feels deeply important that I keep working to curate a wide mix of lesbian books that reflect the diversity of this community.
Equally, if I’m being totally honest, planning isn’t always straightforward. Literary fiction, young adult, memoir, sci-fi, fantasy, gothic, romance, crime, poetry, essays – there’s so much to read. Trying to avoid setting two books of the same genre consecutively whilst also making sure to showcase work by a wide range of demographics and nationalities, it’s a logistical challenge. A big one. And even though I try, I don’t always succeed. I consider it my biggest failure so far that none of the authors who joined us in 2021 were women of colour.
We consistently read books by Black women, Asian women, women from the global south, but – owing to childcare, language barriers, etc. – it worked out that they couldn’t come to our meetings. However, planning our reading list further in advance has enabled me to address this problem and reach out to authors months in advance.
To help get organised I made a list of potential future books and their genres. I then added colour-coded notes about the author’s ethnicity and class background, the country where the book is set, and whether the text has been translated into English. And I moved the books around until we had diversity in genre as well as background. Through trial and error, we learn and grow.
This system has brought to light a recurring issue. It’s quite hard to resist the Americentrism of the publishing industry. On an international scale, North America is hugely overrepresented in the number of books released every year. Of the lesbian books that are published, the majority are set in the USA.
That’s not to say these books aren’t brilliant – like our members, I’m extremely excited to read classics like Desert of the Heart and Stone Butch Blues, or contemporary novels such as Last Night at the Telegraph Club. But North America alone contains a limited range of lesbian experiences and voices. And I haven’t found a fully satisfactory way of combatting publishing’s Americentrism in the curation of our book lists.
Still, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of Labrys Lit. Ours was the first panel announced for the FiLiA 2022 conference in Cardiff – a huge honour. We’ll be having a meet up for members, and setting up a WhatsApp group beforehand so that women can easily get in touch. I know what it’s like to be anxious about going to a new place, and am happy to hang out with any of our members who are nervous about coming. That’s what community is; a place of safety and belonging.
Claire L. Heuchan is an author, commentator, and award-winning essayist. She is Chair and Founder of Labrys Lit, an international lesbian book group. Twitter: @ClaireShrugged/@LabrysLit