KLEINDIENST, Kris 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born March 25, 1953; companion of Jay Steele (a poet). Education: Degree in women's studies.

ADDRESSES:

Office—3631 Bellerive Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63116; fax: 314-367-3256. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO, co-owner, 1977—; writer; political activist. Booksellers advisory board member for Paris Review.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Hedgebook residency, 1997; Lambda Literary Award for nonfiction, 1999, for This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the Twenty-first Century.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the Twenty-first Century, Firebrand (Ithaca, NY), 1999.

Also columnist for newspaper Vital Voice.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kris Kleindienst is a writer and co-owner of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the editor of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the Twenty-first Century, a collection of essays by more than twenty activists who voice a wide range of viewpoints about the lesbian movement. Represented by such writers as Dorothy Allison, Victoria Brownworth, Leslie Feinberg, Jewell Gomez, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Mattie Richardson, and many others, This Is What Lesbian Looks Like covers many aspects of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender movement.

Subjects included in the essays are racism, homophobia, ageism, transgendered individuals trying to fit into the lesbian community, parenting, and sexuality. "Among the appealing new voices is Surina Kahn's, as she recalls how, as a Pakistani teenager, she thought the best way to assimilate herself in America was to vote Republican," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer. In the Berkeley Women's Law Journal, Jennifer V. Stroffe commented, "From beginning to end, This Is What Lesbian Looks Like takes the reader on a journey through both the triumphant and trying experiences of individuals that helped to shape the queer community into what it is today.… Kris Kleindienst has put together a remarkable collection of works that is sure to inspire the activist in us all."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Berkeley Women's Law Journal, 2000, Jennifer V. Stroffe, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the Twenty-first Century, p. 357.

Booklist, December 15, 1999, Whitney Scott, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like, p. 743.

Lambda Book Report, January, 2000, Kerry Lobel, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like, p. 16.

Library Journal, January, 2000, Debra Moore, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like, p. 140.

Publishers Weekly, December 13, 1999, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like, p. 75.

Women's Review of Books, July, 2000, Sherri Paris, review of This Is What Lesbian Looks Like, p. 12.*