Elana Dykewomon Parents: Meet Elana Dykewomon’s Mother and Father

Elana Dykewomon was an American lesbian activist, author, editor, and teacher. She was born on October 11, 1949 and died on August 7, 2022, aged 72. She was a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction ans she died about a month shy of her 73rd birthday.

Dykewomon was born in New York City, to middle class Jewish parents. However, she moved together with her family to Puerto Rico when she was eight. There’s no further information regarding her parents.

She studied fine art at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, received a B.F.A. in creative writing from the California Institute of Arts, later and her M.F.A. from San Francisco State University. Dykewomon lived in Oakland, California, and taught at her alma mater San Francisco State.

Dykewomon’s first novel, Riverfinger Women, came out in 1974 when she was 24 – it was recently given the Lee Lynch Trailblazer award by the Golden Crown Literary Society.

Dykewomon went on to publish eight award-winning books foregrounding lesbian heroism, including her Lambda Award-winning novel, Beyond the Pale, which is still available in audio and eBook formats; her novel Risk is in print from Bywater Books.

Dykewomon’s most recent book, What Can I Ask – Collected Poems 1975-2014, is a Sapphic Classic release from Sinister Wisdom and Midsummer Night’s Press.

From 1987-94, she was the publisher and an editor of the international lesbian-feminist journal, Sinister Wisdom.