Note: Elisa is a friend and an Italian – two of my favorite things.
Elisa Rolle is an historian who has done her homework. The openly lesbian writer and editor is authoring a series of books which document the history of Queer culture and the people who made that culture happen.
Her 2014 book “Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story At A Time,” chronicles the lives and loves of those who came before us. With that book, Rolle took us on a journey back in time, across the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries – and much further back – to revisit the lives of people who were known or believed to have been LGBT.
That book was a fascinating read which offered a few startling surprises, such as the inclusion of blind/deaf author/educator Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, the woman who taught Keller how to read braille and to communicate. Other than Sullivan’s short lived, failed marriage in 1905, she and Keller lived together exclusively for 49 years. Is it really a stretch to believe that they may have loved each other?
In Rolle’s latest book “Queer Places: Retracing the Steps of LGBTQ People Around the World,” Volume 1, Rolle serves as our travel agent, taking us on a trip to all fifty states. Rolle is our tour guide as we visit the homes, birthplaces and gravesites of many of the historical figures we learned about in her earlier book. Volume 1 covers the U.S. The yet to be published Volume II will trace the steps of LGBT people in the United Kingdom, while Volume III will journey across the rest of the world.
By Dacid-Elijah Nahmod – Full Story at SFGN
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