Women On The Verge by Susan Fox Rogers

A woman's desire for another woman, or for women in general, may offer a pretty clear definition of lesbianism, but in her introduction to Women on the Verge, Susan Fox Rogers explains that she began to feel confined by these terms. 'I wanted complexity,' she argues, 'more of 'life'--more of those experiences, not overtly sexual, that make us emotionally and physically excited, that make us sweat, that define us.' In her anthology, writers explore the less familiar lesbian terrain of the racquetball court, the Hawaiian volcano, the river rapids, and the prank phone call. Su Penn describes her successful skydiving adventure, after having been discouraged by her instructors to jump because she weighed 213 pounds. BK Loren recounts how the stillness she had learned through years of martial arts training helped her avoid a rape. These end up being stories of female bravery, of chances taken or moments seized. While not specifically lesbian in content, they tend to be lesbian in tone--written from the margins, with an awareness of how easy it is to accept limitations, how thrilling to cast them off. --Regina Marler