Tune into Out-FM on Tues., July, 11, 2023 from 8:00-9:00pm, on 99.5 FM WBAI/NY or listen live at https://www.wbai.org/listen-live/
Press Play button to stream, or green download buttons below - to download the sound file of the promo, or the program sound file.
Tuesday on Out FM we offer a recorded interview with the renowned black lesbian writer, playwright /dramatist Sharon Bridgforth.
If you aren’t familiar with Sharon’s work you are in for a joyful experience as she discusses her past and current work with Mary Anne Adams founder and Executive Director of ZAMI NOBLA Organization. (Zami named for Audre Lorde and is the name she chose for herself……. and NOBLA is the acronym which stands for the National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging).
Mary Anne Adams (L) and Sharon Bridgforth (R) author
If you are familiar with Sharon’s work you know her seminal work “the bull - jean stories” and you’ll love catching up with her as she discusses what Bull Jean has been up to over the past 20 some odd years….
The book “bull-jean & dem/dey back” collects two performance/novels centering Sharon Bridgforth’s southern-Black-butch-sheroe, bull-jean. First published by RedBone Press in 1998, the Lambda Literary Award-winning the bull-jean stories chronicles the course of lovve returning in the Life-times of bull-dog-jean. Set in the rural 1920s south, the bull-jean stories is an act of griot-anthropology, remembering the ancestor we never knew but always knew we needed--the raucous, sweet-talking, heart-aching wo’mn-lovvn-wo’mn bull-dog-jean and the fierce and beautiful community that surrounds her. Twenty-two years later, bull-dog-jean returns in bull-jean/we wake. Grieving the loss of their elders, seeking healing, the Narrator calls forward bull-jean. Through a series of dreams, porch prayers, and visitations from cussing conjurers, Black Mermaids, children that fly, and shape-shifting ole folk, bull-jean and dem guide the Narrator towards a realization of the sustaining power of love, memory, community, ritual and spiritual binding. . to in her current work “Bull Jean and Dem/ De Back”.
~53rd State Press
This work has been adapted for the stage and is being presented at the Main Stage Presentations at Pillsbury House + Theater in Minneapolis Minnesota.
In addition Bridgforth’s stories and essays have appeared in many anthologies including the recently published “This Bridge called My Back, Fortieth Anniversary Edition: Writings by Women of Color.