Hello and welcome everyone! How wonderful that so many have gathered here on the Twin Cities Campus of the University of Minnesota at the impressive Andersen Library to celebrate Dianna Hunter’s latest publication, her very first foray into lesbian fiction–CLOUDED WATERS. I want to thank Aiden Bettine the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection’s brave new curator for collaborating with Dianna, The L Spot Shop (me), and the Quatrefoil Library. My name is Nicole Olila and I am the founder and curator of the L Spot Shop which is an ongoing and iterative effort seeking to engage, platform, and archive queer creatives and projects. I have had the great privilege of helping Dianna promote both Clouded Waters and in 2018—Wild Mares—her painstakingly detailed writing down of what happened–the memoir of her lesbian back-to-the-land-life.

If you want to learn more about my work with Dianna and other queer creatives, please visit my website. I am also the Quatrefoil Library’s very first Library Manager and a member of the BoD. We are one of only two LGBTQ lending libraries in the US, and have been in existence since 1986. We are currently located at 1220 Lake St in Minneapolis and would love for you to come and visit us, volunteer or support us in any way you are able.

I am truly appreciative of how our respective organizational histories have been intertwined for over 2 decades.  Did you know that the Tretter Collection actually grew out of the Quatrefoil Library in the mid 1980s? It did! The late Jean Nikolaus Tretter was a close friend of the Quatrefoil Library’s founders– Dick Hewetson and David Irwin. Jean was instrumental in the early formation of the library, and was one of the first volunteers when it opened in 1986. In the late 1990’s a difference of opinion arose regarding how much archival material the library should collect which resulted in a parting of ways: Jean set off to establish the fantastic LGBTQ repository—the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection–which opened in 2000 and is where we are gathered together today. We have been running alongside each other ever since. Historically, we worked closely with former curators–Jean and Lisa Vicoli–and intend to be fully supportive of Aiden’s passion for increasing the accessibility of the collection  —bringing the collection to the people — which was part of the inspiration for tonight’s event.

Dianna Hunter’s papers and So’s Your Old Lady, an early lesbian publication Dianna contributed to, and the Lesbian Resource Center–another organization Dianna was a part of –all have papers housed herein this magnificent repository tucked into the bluffs of the great and mighty Mississippi. After the reading –Aiden has prepared a pop up display of these papers for you to peruse. Many have also signed up to take a tour into the caverns hollowed out of these geological wondrous limestone and sandstone river bluffs caverns where all of the University’s Collections are stored.

Before I introduce Dianna—I would like to situate this night, this event, in relation to the devastating violence happening now in the Israel-Gaza region, in Russia and Ukraine, and here in our own country where we are still struggling to end the relentless violence against brown and black bodies, LGBTQIA bodies, our planet—and the perennial war against intellectual freedom and democracy. We are here together today and dealing the best we can with compounded trauma and grief. This is where we are and this is where Diana’s lifelong commitment to greater human rights endeavors is found: Her oeuvre calls us to work together, to advocate, platform and rally for freedom for all. If we have any privilege, we must be wholly committed to leveraging our privilege for the oppressed, the marginalized, the abused, the vulnerable–which requires us to be self aware—to know well our respective privilege. As it is said, first –know thyself.

Dianna’s book Clouded Waters is the story a lesbian woman’s decision to be in the fight—-to understand the political is always personal, to ask the age old question which side are you on? And yet, as much as we must be self-reflective, we are not islands—–SB the protagonist does not aim to be a Lone Ranger, rather she, like Dianna herself, recognizes the value—the power of working communally— to effect change.The great thing about fiction is that it affords us the opportunity to engage our imagination and envision a different world or to situate ourselves in place we may not have been able to go and yet we can effect the state of things, participate,  and regenerate ourselves–show how it can be, can be done.

I am always struck by Dianna’s measured, authentic thoughtfulness, her cultural humility, and abiding sense of community. I also admire her persistent sense of wonder! In an interview I did with her in 2018 regarding Wild Mares, I remember her responding to some of my questions by saying very gently —now isn’t that funny, or I wonder why?  Dianna never stops hoping, never stops fighting for a better world–for everyone. Clouded Waters, Wild Mares and Breaking Hard Ground are all works of great imagination, that blend a soft sadness, a sense of consternation, of frustration that always gives way to her perennial idealism.

Dianna Hunter is the author of three books. Her novel, Clouded Waters (published by Holy Cow! Press). Her nonfiction books Wild Mares: My Lesbian Back-to-the-Land Life (published by University of Minnesota Press) and Breaking Hard Ground: Stories of the Minnesota Farm Advocates (published by Holy Cow! Press) and available here tonight—were both finalists for the Minnesota Book Awards. She was a farmer and farm advocate before beginning a career in writing and college teaching. She directed programs in writing and gender equity, taught writing and women’s and gender studies at four universities, including the University of Wisconsin-Superior, from which she retired in 2012. She has published, read, and performed short stories, poetry, journalism, and creative nonfiction in many regional and national venues and now writes, gardens, and forages urban green spaces in Duluth, Minnesota. And now without further delay would you please give a warm welcome for my mentor, my comrade in all things wise and wonderful, an already imagined sage-like character in my own future sapphic novel, and my dear friend—Dianna Hunter.