The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast

10th Anniversary Special: Interview with Linda Garber
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 348 with Heather Rose Jones
An interview with Professor Linda Garber about her research into lesbian historical fiction.

Books and Media Mentioned

Garber, Linda. 2022. Novel Approaches to Lesbian History. Palgrave. ISBN 978-3030854164

Cruikshank, M. (ed) 1982. Lesbian Studies: Present and Future. The Feminist Press at CUNY. ISBN 978-0935312072

Garber, Linda. 2001. Identity Poetics: Race, Class and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory. Columbia University Press.

Schwartz, Selby Wynn. After Sappho. (novel)

Keen, Suzanne. 2003 Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0802086846 (credit for the phrase “romance of the archives” which I’ve been misattributing)

Martinac, Paula. Out of Time. (novel)

Davies, Stevie. Impassioned Clay. (novel)

Friend, Catherine. The Spanish Pearl. (novel)

Dickinson (tv series)

Gentleman Jack (tv series)

Arnold, June Davis. The Cook and the Carpenter. (novel)

Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. William Morrow and Company, Inc. ISBN 0-688-00396-6

Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. (novel)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (movie)

The Favourite (movie)

Ammonite (movie)

Saturday Night Live “Lesbian Period Drama” (sketch on YouTube)

Desert of the Heart (movie) based on Jane Rule’s Desert Hearts

A Knight’s Tale (movie)

Giffney, Noreen, Michelle M. Sauer & Diane Watt (eds). 2011. The Lesbian Premodern. Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-61676-9

The Belle of Amherst (movie)

Gomez, Jewelle. The Gilda Stories. (novel)

Giddings, Megan. The Women Could Fly (novel)

Korn, Gabrielle. Yours for the Taking (novel)

Pérez, Emma. Forgetting the Alamo, or, Blood Memory (novel

McCollum, Hilary. As a Lover (novel)

McCollum, Hilary. Golddigger (novel)

Gagehabib, LaVerne. The Blacksmith and the Doctor (novel)

Winterson, Jeanette. The Passion (novel)

A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog

RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/

Twitter: @LesbianMotif

Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com

Email: Heather Rose Jones

Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop

Bluesky: @heatherrosejones

Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Linda Garber Online

Website: academic website

On the Shelf for June & July 2026
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 347 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
Moore, Lisa L. 2005. “Queer Gardens: Mary Delany's Flowers and Friendships” in Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 39, No. 1 (Fall, 2005), pp. 49-70

O’Driscoll, Sally. 2003. “The Lesbian and the Passionless Woman: Femininity and Sexuality in 18th century England” in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 44.2-3. p.103-31

Peakman, Julie. 2004. Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century. Atlantic Books, London. Chapter 8 “Tribadism: ‘A New Sort of Sin’”

Anonymous. 1697. The history of the intrigues & gallantries of Christina, Queen of Sweden, and of her court whilst she was at Rome faithfully render’d into English from the French original. London: Richard Baldwin.

Abbott, Carmeta. 1993. “The Portrait as Text: Two Depictions of Madame de Saint-Balmon (1607-1660)” in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice vol. 19, No. 1.

Bell, Rudolph M. 1987. “Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange” in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3: pp. 485-511

Reynolds, Nicole. 2010. “Cottage Industry: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Symbolic Capital of the "Cottage Ornée"” in The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 51, No. 1/2: 211-227

Vicinus, Martha. “Lesbian Perversity and Victorian Marriage: The 1864 Codrington Divorce Trial” pp.92-94 in Journal of British Studies 36, no. 1 (1997).

Liddington, Jill. 1993. “Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax (1791-1840): Her Diaries and the Historians” in History Workshop, 35: 45-77.

Orr, Dannielle. 2006. A Sojourn in Paris 1824-25: Sex and Sociability in the Manuscript Writings of Anne Lister (1791-1840). (Doctoral Dissertation, Murdoch University)

Roulston, Chris & Caroline Gonda, eds. 2023. Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723

Book Shopping
Norton, Rictor. 1997. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33892-3

Mansel, Philip. 2001. Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852. St. Martin's Press, New York. ISBN 0-312-30857-4

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
Dreaming of Jerusalem by Susie Helme

Silk Road Runaways by Christine Inserra

Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg

With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho by Ashley Douglas

Bound By Silk & Salt Water by Caren Cross

Tempest: A Novel of Anne Bonny, the Pirate Queen Who Disappeared by K. Knight

The Ruby Reaper (The Ruby Reaper #1) by Eline Evans

The Emerald Eclipse (The Ruby Reaper #2) by Eline Evans

Mr. Moore by Giny Morales

The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley by Lindz McLeod

Caroline's Courtesan (The Comerford Courtesans #4) by Jess Michaels

Pretence & Pretentiousness by Lynn Kear

A Season of Teeth and Silk by Henriette Twinne

The Art of Longing by Michael David

The Green Seal (Blackthorn Hall Romances # 3) by E. L. Vale

What the Willow Kept (The Women of Sapphire #1.5) by L. Creeke

When Embers Find Her (The Women of Sapphire #1) by L. Creeke

The Wrong Widow (Cielo Seco # 1) by D. S. Briar

Gold Rush 1860 by Randa Hink

Two Whoops and a Holler by Carmilla Deane

Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden

Disfigured (New York's Gilded Age #4) by Joseph P. Garland

Becoming Legends Elsie-Bessie: A Love Story (book #1) by Barbara Barna Abel & Shannon McMahon Lichte

Lena and Miss Cawkwell by Julie Bozza

Murder by Degrees by Rachel Ford

A Blue Note by Katrina Jackson

Little Wild by Laura Evans

The Malign Ghosts of Summer by Ann McMan

Cold Water by C. R. Ellery

The Rude Bird (New Orleans Noir # 1) by M. R. Dimond

What I’ve been consuming
Platform Decay by Martha Wells

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorofor

A Change of Pace by J.A. Stevens

Call for submissions for the 2027 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.

A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog

RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/

Twitter: @LesbianMotif

Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com

Email: Heather Rose Jones

Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop

Bluesky: @heatherrosejones

Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Women and Same-Sex Marriage in Western History (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 346 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about strategies for getting your historical protagonists hitched across the centuries.

How the concepts of “women”, “same-sex”, and “marriage” are being defined for the purpose of this discussion

Cultures that may have supported marriage between women as an equal option

Cases of same-sex marriage enabled by presenting as an opposite sex couple

The permeability of the “opposite sex” requirement in actual practice

Using the forms and rituals of marriage, even when the legal status was not available

This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
Marriage between women

Female husbands

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog

RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/

Twitter: @LesbianMotif

Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com

Email: Heather Rose Jones

Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop

Bluesky: @heatherrosejones

Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

So You’re Writing a Sapphic Historical Romance: Questions to Consider (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 345 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about the questions to ask about sapphic relationships and how they are perceived in your story’s setting:

How easy is it to live outside of the heterosexual marriage paradigm?

What are the economic, legal, and religious constraints on your characters?

What is the ordinary “background noise” of non-sexual displays of affection?

How does the culture of the setting understand privacy and how does that affect your characters’ behavior?

What are the realities and perceptions around sex between women in this setting?

How does the culture of the setting understand gender and sexuality?

How are female couples depicted in popular culture of the time?

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog

RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/

Twitter: @LesbianMotif

Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com

Email: Heather Rose Jones

Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop

Bluesky: @heatherrosejones

Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

When Did We Become Lesbians? (Reprise)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 344 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:

The history of words for women who loved women throughout recorded European history.

What words were used?

Where did they come from?

What shades of meaning did they have?

How did those meanings change over time?

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog

RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/

Twitter: @LesbianMotif

Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com

Email: Heather Rose Jones

Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop

Bluesky: @heatherrosejones

Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)