Diane Anderson-Minshall
Encyclopedia
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
lifestyle magazines.
Born in Southern California she moved to Payette, Idaho
Payette, Idaho
Payette is a city in and the county seat of Payette County, Idaho, United States. The population was 7,054 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Ontario, OR–ID Micropolitan Statistical Area....
at an early age. It was there that she began her journalism career at 13, covering the school beat for the Independent Enterprise. In high school, she worked for the Gate City Journal (Nyssa, Oregon
Nyssa, Oregon
Nyssa is a city in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. The population was 3,163 at the 2000 census. The city is located along the Snake River on the Idaho border, in the region of far eastern Oregon known as the "Treasure Valley"...
) and the Daily Argus Observer
Argus Observer
The Argus Observer is the daily newspaper of Ontario, Oregon, United States.The paper was established on January 6, 1897, and went through several names and owners before becoming the Argus Observer, which is a reference to Argus Panoptes, a creature from Greek mythology that had 100 eyes...
(Ontario, Oregon
Ontario, Oregon
Ontario is the largest city in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. It lies along the Snake River at the Idaho border. The population was 10,985 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 11,245 in 2006...
). She attended Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
and Xavier University, both schools in New Orleans, UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, Chaffey College
Chaffey College
Chaffey College is a public community college in the San Bernardino County city of Rancho Cucamonga, California, in the northern part of the community of Alta Loma. Chaffey provides students with different classes and programs, including business, science, the arts, history, philosophy,...
, and Idaho State University
Idaho State University
Idaho State University is a public university located in Pocatello, Idaho. It has outreach programs in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Falls, Boise, and Twin Falls....
before graduating from San Francisco's New College of California
New College of California
New College of California was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President, Father John Leary. After 37 years, it ceased operations in early 2008....
.
In 1990, she became the editor of the Crescent City Star, a weekly LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
newspaper in New Orleans. In 1993, she became an editor at On Our Backs
On Our Backs
On Our Backs was the first women-run erotica magazine and the first magazine to feature lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience in the United States....
, the lesbian erotic magazine founded by Nan Kinney and Debbie Sundahl and formerly edited by sexpert Susie Bright
Susie Bright
Susannah "Susie" Bright is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality....
. A year later, she and fellow On Our Backs employees, including Heather Findlay, left the magazine and founded their own publication, the lesbian entertainment magazine Girlfriends.
During her tenure at Girlfriends and later at other publications including Curve Magazine
Curve (magazine)
Curve is a lesbian magazine in the United States. It covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, travel, and a website that hosts an internet forum focusing on lesbian issues, active since 2000.The magazine was first...
, Anderson-Minshall became known for her celebrity interviews, which were occasionally referenced and quoted by mainstream publications like People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, US Weekly
Us Weekly
Us Weekly is a celebrity gossip magazine, founded in 1977 by The New York Times Company, who sold it in 1980. It was acquired by Wenner Media in 1986. The publication covers topics ranging from celebrity relationships to the latest trends in fashion, beauty, and entertainment...
, New York Times, and The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
. Several actresses including Dana Plato
Dana Plato
Dana Michelle Plato was an American actress notable for playing the role of Kimberly Drummond in the U.S. television sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.Plato appeared in over 100 television commercials as a young girl...
, Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
and singer Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
"came out" as lesbian or bisexual women in interviews with Anderson-Minshall, although O'Connor later retracted her statements.
In 1999 Anderson-Minshall founded the short-lived women's lifestyle magazine, Alice. As a freelance writer, she has been published in dozens of magazines including Passport, Bust, Bitch, Venus, Utne and Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
. She became an editor at the lesbian publication, Curve, in 2004 and is currently that magazine's editor-in-chief.
She has received a handful of honors for her work including a 1998 Visa Versa award for her celebrity journalism and Power Up
Power Up
POWER UP is an American non-profit organization and film production company with the stated mission "to promote the visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment, the arts, and all forms of media". It was founded in 2000 by film producers Stacy Codikow and Amy Shomer...
’s Ten Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz Award in 2006. In 2000, Anderson-Minshall was a finalist for the Exceptional Women in Publishing (EWIP)'s Woman of the Year Award.
Anderson-Minshall co-edited of the anthology of LGBT youth writing, Becoming: Young Ideas on Gender, Race and Sexuality, and her often autobiographical essays have appeared in numerous anthologies.
Anderson-Minshall writes the Blind Eye Mystery Series (Blind Curves, Blind Leap and the Lambda Literary Award finalist Blind Faith)through Bold Strokes Books
Bold Strokes Books
Bold Strokes Books is a United States publisher headquartered in Johnsonville, New York that specializes in lesbian-themed fiction, covering a variety of genres including action/adventure, erotica, mystery, romance and science fiction/horror, as well as general fiction...
with her transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
husband Jacob Anderson-Minshall. Her first solo fiction, Punishment with Kisses was published in 2009 by Bold Strokes Books
Bold Strokes Books
Bold Strokes Books is a United States publisher headquartered in Johnsonville, New York that specializes in lesbian-themed fiction, covering a variety of genres including action/adventure, erotica, mystery, romance and science fiction/horror, as well as general fiction...
.
Diane and her husband, Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Jacob Anderson-Minshall is a transgender American author. Born female, Anderson-Minshall was raised as Susannah "Suzy" Minshall on a farm outside Inkom, Idaho. In high school, Anderson-Minshall spent a year in Germany as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program. He later received a B.A...
, who penned the nationally syndicated column "TransNation", have been together since 1990. They were legally married March 19, 2006 after Jacob changed sex from female to male. They previously were domestic partners registered in the state of California.
Anthologies
- Reading The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television
- Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
- Body Outlaws
- Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism
- Young Wives Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership
- 50 Ways to Support Lesbian and Gay Equality: The Complete Guide to Supporting Family, Friends, Neighbors or Yourself
- Tough Girls