From: alan@ninja.osf.org (Alan Hamilton)
Subject: Documentary on Bisexuality -- Call for Participants
Originator: alan@pluto.osf.org
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 00:59:43 GMT

[Sent to soc.bi, soc.motss, BiAct-L, Bisexu-l, BiFem-l.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE		PRESS RELEASE		FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

These articles were written by people who attended the East Coast
Bisexual Writers Retreat this Summer.  Permission is given to publish
them in newsletters of bisexual and bifriendly organizations and in
bifriendly electronic media.  A copy may be requested by Internet
electronic mail from alan@osf.org.  Please ensure that the editor
of your local bi newsletter gets a copy.


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			Notes and Bites on the Retreat
			   - Michael Montgomery -

  The Poetry Workshop included readings by each participant;
discussion of markets (where we'd gotten published, where we hadn't);
directories of poetry publishers (especially of lesbigay work);
discussion of how bisexuality affects the form and/or content of our
work; discussion of the distinction between bisexual poets and
bisexual poetry.
   The Fiction Workshop was mainly discussion of the process of
writing -- how we planned, composed, and revised.  I received some
potentially useful advice on how I might get a clearer sense of an
intractable character I'm trying work with.
   I got the chance to read several chapters of a work-in-progress
whose theme is analogous to one that I am working with, and to talk
over the work with the author to (I think) our common profit.
   I took the opportunity to read my verse before a group for the
first time and learned that it was possible to do so safely.  (I also
learned that I needed practice in reading my work aloud.)
   I found another man with whom I could compare notes on what it's
like to be in simultaneous, long-term relationships with both an
other-sex and a same-sex lover, and a woman with whom I conversed
about our experiences of being involved with heterosexually married bi
men.
   I live a very full, rich life with commitments to a woman, two
children, a man, and a dog; to a job that formally includes
responsibilities to the campus lesbigay communities; to my primary
support fellowship; and to my writing and scholarship: so I don't get
much chance to conspire or socialize with the local bi community,
whose nearest meeting place is over an hour from my home.  This
retreat was my first extended contact with the bi community, and I was
moved by a clear sense -- which I've experienced only three or four
times before -- of having "come home."
   Many tableaux in the living room and kitchen brought back vivid
recollections of similar scenes of communal negotiation, sharing, and
cooperation from my life of 1968-73.  This de'ja vu was attenuated
only by the invisibility at the retreat of drugs and alcohol (for
which, today, I was grateful).
   One thought for next time: there were assignments for cleanup after
each meal but none for the late-night activities.  The premises
downstairs were a mess Saturday morning and rather cluttered Sunday
morning.  It's not fair to the breakfast crew to expect them to clean
up the previous night's detritus as well.


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			- Ilta Adler -

   When this weekend was first mentioned to me, I though to myself
that it would be an interesting thing to do, but that since I was
going to be out of the country, there was no possibility that I was
going to make it.  Well, those plans were changed and I found myself
with plenty of free time in August.  So two days before the official
deadline, I called up the organizers and was on my way to the writers
weekend.
   I feel like I've been writing most of my life.  It started with
daydreams and verbal stories.  My dad used to sit at his typewriter
and type down my stories.  He also helped me along when I needed some
encouragement.  Once I entered school and learned to write on my own,
I would hand write my stories and send them off to my grandfather, who
would then tell me what was good or bad about them.  Suddenly in high
school, teachers stopped encouraging me to write fiction and only
write essay type writings.  I was never very good at essay writing and
didn't write for almost a year.
   In college, I took a creative writing course and started writing
seriously again.  After that course, I continued to write, although
soon I was down to writing short poems.
   In the past year, it has really started to bother me that I haven't
been able to write.  I had been writing one story for a few years and
very little else.
   So, here is my chance I figured.  Two days in the country with
twenty writers.  if this couldn't put me in a literary mood, what
could?
   While I didn't have as much time to write as I'd hoped for, I did
have some, and for the first time in a long time, I had something I
could put down as an image in my journal.  Image pieces are something
I used to do during and after my creative writing class.  They are
just simple one- and two-page descriptions of a happening or an actual
visual description.
   At the writing fiction workshop I went to, there was an open
discussion about how people go about writing.  I got to talk about my
problem with dialogue, and received helpful hints from people on
different ways to approach writing dialogue.  Also during this
workshop, we were talking about where we get our ideas from, and while
I was explaining some of the ways I tap into my subconscious, I had a
sudden insight into what I was doing wrong in one of my pieces, and
why I had been unable to write that piece into completion.  This may
well have been the best thing I got out of the workshop, as far as
writing is concerned.
   The other positive thing, as far as writing is concerned, is that
we have decided to start up some sort of writers group in Boston where
we would come together and maybe read aloud current pieces and do some
constructive criticisms for each other.  With something like this
around, I am much more likely to keep writing.  This also will help us
design a better writers retreat when we do this again, since we will
have had a years worth of practical experience.
   While I haven't necessarily put my bisexuality together with my
writer's side, it's good to see and talk to people that have.; The
more there is of us, the bigger we can make the market.  Besides, it
gave us all at least one starting point in common and put us in an
atmosphere where we weren't alone in certain aspects of our writings.
   On a more personal level, I received a certain amount of personal
strength and independence.  I'm not sure when or under which
circumstances, but something about connecting with so many other
bisexual writers did do something good for my soul.
   As to whether I would recommend this weekend to others, ...
definitely.  I think everyone who wnet got some good things from the
weekend.  We will have more of these.  Now that we've started, there
is no reason to stop and every reason to continue.
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				- Sharon -

   It was great to be around so many creative people.  I was really
impressed with the readings.  Some very good writers here.
   We got along well, processed well.  Good group of people.
   Food excellent, especially the chocolate.
   Met some really interesting people and reconnected with a few I
haven't seen in a long time.
   Random memories: family style eating, house parents, rangers,
lactose intolerance, broiled brownies, quote: "Excuse me, could
someone get this tick off me, please?", pieces: "Embrace me, America",
"Jail Is..."  Invitation to a piercing, writing about sex, call for
submissions, the women's room, sleep sacks, "where'd all these
vegetables come from?", bunk beds, Bi Girl World, the Concise
Encyclopaedia of Homosexuality, multiculturalism, deer, bunnies,
horses, beautiful bodies, gentle people, sense of home, comfort, the
individuals, the group, aardvark.

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			Bisexual Writers Retreat
			   - Alan Hamilton -

   This summer, the East Coast Bisexual Network sponsored a
weekend-long Bisexual Writers Retreat at a youth hostel on the edge of
a beautiful state park about an hour outside of Philadelphia.
   Eighteen bisexual-identified writers, ages 23 to mid-40s, men and
women, and of various backgrounds gathered for fellowship, for reading
and discussing one another's works (both in print and aloud), and for
workshops such as Writing Fiction, Writing Poetry, Writing About Sex,
Writing Non-Fiction, and the Business of Writing (e.g. publishers and
getting published).
   There were also discussions of what the writers at this retreat
wanted to see changed in relationship to bisexuality in the world at
large, and how they might accomplish that through their writing,
advertising the next writers retreat to more people in the communities
of color (it is uncomfortable to be the only Black man or the only
Peruvian women in a crowd of white people at one of these events), a
little bit of how members of different communities of color construct
sexual identity, rape in jail (one is active in publicizing the fact
of and results of jail rape), and bisexual history.
   The sleeping quarters were dorm-style, meals were family-style, and
the bathrooms were co-ed with individual stalls for toilets and
showers.
   We hung out between workshops, renewing old friendships and
building new ones, discussing our fears, joys, hopes and plans.  We
took solitary walks and companionable walks.  We read, sang, and slept
around one another for three days and two nights.  For many of us, it
was one of the few chances we had ever had to hang out with other
writers.  For others of us, it was one of the few chances we had ever
had to hang out with other bisexuals.  Each of us came away with a
something that we cherish.


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		A Piece of Pre-Stonewall Bisexual History
			- Michael Montgomery -

In October 1966, Steven Donaldson (Donny) founded the Student
Homophile League of Columbia University, which was the first lesbigay
student organization officially recognized by a university in the
United States.  He was at that time a protege of Frank Kameny, a
longtime gay activist against discrimination in U.S. government
employment.  I joined the Student Homophile League in early 1968, and
on April 23 of that year we marched outside the College of Physicians
& Surgeons at Columbia University to protest our exclusion from a
panel discussion on homosexuality, on which both Dr.  Paul Gebhard of
the Kinsey Institute (a "good guy") and Dr. Irving Bieber (a notorious
"disease theory" psychiatrist) were speaking.  Our effort was
successful, we were admitted into the audience of the panel
discussion, and several of our members asked the panelists pointed
questions.  Donny believes that this was the first gay demonstration
to target the psychiatric establishment.
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