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Donna Allegra
Born
Donna Allegra Simms

December 8, 1953
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
DiedJanuary 13, 2020 (aged 66)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Writer, dancer, electrician

Donna Allegra Simms (December 8, 1953 – January 13, 2020)[1] was an American writer, dancer and electrician. She wrote poetry, short stories, and essays. Twelve of her stories were collected as Witness to the League of Blonde Hip Hop Dancers (2001).

Early life and education

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Allegra was born in Brooklyn, New York.[2] She graduated from Tilden High School in 1970.[3] She attended Bennington College and Hunter College, and graduated from New York University in 1977. Her undergraduate studies focused on dramatic literature, theatre history, and film studies.[4] "I needed them the way I needed food and shelter for survival," she wrote about the lesbian pulp novels she read as a girl.[5][6] She recalled her parents as dismissive of her sexual identity as a "phase".[7]

Career

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Allegra worked as an electrician[8] and was active in the tradeswomen movement and in IBEW Local 3. She produced radio programs The Lesbian Show and The Velvet Sledgehammer[9] for WBAI in the late 1970s.[4][10] She was a member of the Jemima Writers Collective, along with Chirlane McCray and Sapphire.[2] She wrote stories, poems, essays, and book reviews, and was a skilled dancer. Her writings were frequently anthologized,[4][11] usually alongside other Black women writers,[12] or other lesbian writers,[13][14] or other Black LGBT writers.[15] She won the Pat Parker Memorial Poetry Prize in 1992, and was a finalist for the Violet Quill Award in 2000.[4]

As Donna Allegra Simms, she appeared briefly in two films, Cool Hands, Warm Heart (1979, short), and Born in Flames (1983, directed by Lizzie Borden).

Publications

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  • "Butch on the Streets" (1992)[16]
  • "Carrot Juice" and "Top of the Morning" (1993, stories)[14]
  • "Fat Dancer" (1994, essay)[17]
  • "Buddies" (1994)[18]
  • "Comparing class notes" (1994, essay)[19]
  • "Between the Sheets: My Sex Life in Literature" (1995, essay)[20]
  • "She Tickles with a Hammer" (1996, essay)[21]
  • "Inconspicuous Assumptions" (1997, essay)[22]
  • "Lavender Sheep in the Fold" (1997)[23]
  • "Stilled Life" (poem)
  • "Strapped" (1997, story)[24]
  • "Dance of the Cranes" (1997, story)[15][25]
  • "Rhomboid Pegs for Oblong Hearts" (1999, essay)[26]
  • "Smoke Detectors" (2000, poem)[27]
  • "Navigating by Stars" (2000, story)[28]
  • Witness to the League of Blonde Hip Hop Dancers (2000, short stories)[29]
  • "The Dead Mothers Club" (2003, story)[30]
  • "God Lies in the Details" (2004, story)[31]

Personal life

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Allegra died in 2020, at the age of 66, at her home in Brooklyn. Her papers are in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.[2]

References

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  1. ^ "VFA Pioneer Histories Project: Donna Allegra Simms". Veteran Feminists of America. Retrieved 2024-06-07.
  2. ^ a b c "Donna Allegra papers". chomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2024-06-07.
  3. ^ Tilden High School, Classic (1970 yearbook); via Ancestry.
  4. ^ a b c d Hawley, John Charles (2008-11-30). LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-313-08730-1.
  5. ^ Keller, Yvonne (2005). ""Was It Right to Love Her Brother's Wife so Passionately?": Lesbian Pulp Novels and U.S. Lesbian Identity, 1950-1965". American Quarterly. 57 (2): 385–410. ISSN 0003-0678. JSTOR 40068271.
  6. ^ Skenazy, Lenore (2000-05-31). "They called it pulpy love". Daily News. p. 39. Retrieved 2024-06-07 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Karaian, Lara; Rundle, Lisa Bryn; Mitchell, Allyson (2001). Turbo Chicks: Talking Young Feminisms. Canadian Scholars’ Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-894549-06-6.
  8. ^ Nelson, Emmanuel S. (2009-07-14). Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States: [2 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-313-34860-0.
  9. ^ Thorsson, Courtney (2023-11-07). The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-55567-8.
  10. ^ Hollenbach, Lisa (2023-05-12). Poetry FM: American Poetry and Radio Counterculture. University of Iowa Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-60938-891-1.
  11. ^ Stewart, Chuck (2014-12-16). Proud Heritage: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-61069-399-8.
  12. ^ Smith, Barbara, ed. (2000). Home girls: a Black feminist anthology. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-2753-6.
  13. ^ Donnelly, Nisa, ed. (1998). Mom: candid memoirs by lesbians about the first woman in their life. Los Angeles: Alyson Books. ISBN 978-1-55583-408-1.
  14. ^ a b Pratt, Pamela, ed. (1993). Woman in the window : tales of desire, passon and love. Internet Archive. Sarasota, FL : STARbooks Press. ISBN 978-1-877978-32-6.
  15. ^ a b Carbado, Devon (2011-11-01). Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction. Cleis Press Start. ISBN 978-1-57344-750-8.
  16. ^ Allegra, Donna. "Butch on the Streets, 1981." The persistent desire: A femme-butch reader (1992): 240-242.
  17. ^ Allegra, Donna. "Fat Dancer." Journeys to Self Acceptance: Fat Women Speak, edited by Carole Wiley (1994): 107-111.
  18. ^ Zahava, Irene (1994). "Lavender Mansions: 40 Contemporary Lesbian And Gay Short Stories". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2024-06-07.
  19. ^ Allegra, Donna. "Comparing class notes." Out of the Class Closet: Lesbians Speak (1994): 427.
  20. ^ Hall, Lynda (1996). "Lesbian Erotics. Edited by Karla Jay. New York University Press, New York, 1995, xvii, 283. $17.95". Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity. 1 (4): 323–327. doi:10.1007/BF03372246.
  21. ^ Jay, Karla (1995). Dyke life : from growing up to growing old, a celebration of the lesbian experience. Internet Archive. New York : Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03907-4.
  22. ^ Raffo, Susan (1997). Queerly Classed. South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-561-9.
  23. ^ Allegra, Donna. "Lavendar sheep in the fold." Does Your Mama Know (1997): 149-160.
  24. ^ Queer view mirror 2 : lesbian & gay short short fiction. Internet Archive. Vancouver, BC : Arsenal Pulp Press. 1997. ISBN 978-1-55152-039-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  25. ^ Wolverton, Terry; Drake, Robert (1997). Hers 2 : brilliant new fiction by lesbian writers. Internet Archive. Boston : Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-19909-9.
  26. ^ Allegra, Donna (January 1999). "Foreword: Rhomboid Pegs for Oblong Hearts". Journal of Lesbian Studies. 3 (1–2): xxi–xxiv. doi:10.1300/J155v03n01_a. ISSN 1089-4160.
  27. ^ Allegra, Donna (2000-08-16). "Smoke Detectors". Harrington Lesbian Fiction Quarterly. 1 (2): 5–35. doi:10.1300/J161v01n02_02. ISSN 1522-8894.
  28. ^ Allegra, Donna (October 2000). "Navigating by Stars". Out: 100–103, 132.
  29. ^ Allegra, Donna (2000). Witness to the league of blond hip hop dancers: a novella and short stories. Los Angeles: Alyson Books. ISBN 978-1-55583-550-7.
  30. ^ Hall, Lynda (2003-11-15). Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories. Terrace Books. pp. 75–88. ISBN 978-0-299-19113-9.
  31. ^ Summer, Jane (2004). Not the only one : lesbian and gay fiction for teens. Internet Archive. Los Angeles, Calif. : Alyson. ISBN 978-1-55583-834-8.
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