Jill Johnston

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Jill Johnston (born May 17, 1929) is a feminist author who wrote the seminal Lesbian Nation in 1973.

For many years beginning in 1959 and during the 1960s Jill Johnston was the dance critic for the Village Voice, the popular weekly downtown newspaper for New York City. She was friendly with many performers, performance artists, composers, poets and artists in New York City especially during the 1960s and 1970s. During the late 1960s Deborah Jowitt joined the paper and wrote a regular dance column, while Jill Johnston's dance column became a kind of weekly diary, chronicling her adventures in the New York Art World. As a literary critic and as an art critic Johnston authored several articles and reviews for Art in America during the 1980s.

Johnston was a member of a 1971 New York City panel produced by Shirley Broughton as part of the "Theater for Ideas" series. The event was a vigorous debate on feminism with Norman Mailer, author; Germaine Greer, author; Diana Trilling, literary critic; and Jacqueline Ceballos, National Organization for Women president. The event was a showdown of intellect and personality. While Johnston read a poem culminating in on-stage lesbian sex (simulated and fully dressed) followed by a quick exit, Greer and Mailer continued to exchange verbal blows with each other and the audience for the rest of the 3 1/2 hour event.

[edit] Bibliography

Marmalade Me (1971; revised 1998) - an anthology of short pieces on dance reprinted from Village Voice
Lesbian Nation: the feminist solution (1973)
Gullibles Travels (1974)
Mother Bound (1983) - autobiographical
Paper Daughter (1985) - autobiographical
Secret Lives in Art (1994) - selected essays on literature, visual and performing arts
Jasper Johns (1996) - critical biography of the artist
Admission Accomplished: the Lesbian Nation years (1970-75) (1998) - anthology of earlier writing
At Sea On Land: Extreme Politics (2005) Travel and with political commentary (againts governmental policies since 9/11.
England's Child: The Carillon and the Casting of Big Bells (2008)A biography of the author’s father, Cyril F. Johnston. a foremost English bellfounder (Carillons) in the earlier half of the 20th century.