Reid, Catherine 1955-

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REID, Catherine 1955-

PERSONAL: Born 1955.

ADDRESSES: Home—MA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Houghton Mifflin, 222 Berkeley St., Boston, MA 02116. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Naturalist and writer. Board secretary for Deerfield River Watershed Association.

WRITINGS:

(Editor with Holly K. Iglesias) Every Woman I've Ever Loved: Lesbians Write on Their Mothers, Cleis Press (San Francisco, CA), 1997.

(Editor with Holly K. Iglesias) His Hands, His Tools, His Sex, His Dress: Lesbian Writers on Their Fathers, Alice Street Editions (New York, NY), 2001.

Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst, Houghton (Boston, MA), 2004.

Contributor of poems and stories to Massachusetts Review, Green Mountain Review, and Sojourner.

SIDELIGHTS: A naturalist and writer, Catherine Reid has served as editor, with Holly K. Iglesias, of several books compiling the work of lesbian writers on specific subjects. The first of these, Every Woman I've Ever Loved: Lesbian Writers on Their Mothers, contains essays by a variety of writers that focus on their relationships with their mothers. Julia Query, writing for the Women's Review of Books, commented that "the work is loving, angry, weary, sexual, confused, forgiving, and grateful," and went on to add that "Reid and Holy Iglesias tap into a powerful subject." Melodie Frances, in a review for Library Journal, wrote that "the complex … conflicting feelings have rarely been addressed with such unflinching honesty." Reid and Iglesias followed up with a second volume, His Hands, His Tools, His Sex, His Dress: Lesbian Writers on Their Fathers, which looks at the father/daughter relationship through the eyes of lesbian writers.

Reid takes a different turn with Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst, which looks at the changes coyotes have undergone in recent decades, including their migration toward the eastern parts of North America, and the overall growth in the animals' average size. Nancy Bent, in a review for Booklist, commented that Reid's effort is "written in a lyrical style that reveals her background in poetry," and deemed the book "a captivating read." A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that Reid makes "a heartfelt, often poetic case for coexistence between humans and the wild," while a contributor to Kirkus Reviews called the work "an appreciative piece of literary natural history chronicling the emergence of an eastern coyote population."