Please join us on February 5, 2024 from 2:00-3:30pm at the
USF Tampa Campus Marshall Center – MSC 3711 (Egret room) for an author talk by author Rose Norman and publisher Julie R. Enszer as they discuss Norman’s new book about the Pagoda, a lesbian-feminist residential community and cultural center that was active in St. Augustine, Florida, from 1977 to 1999. This event is free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored by USF Tampa Library Special Collections and Sinister Wisdom.
In The Pagoda: A Lesbian Community by the Sea, Rose Norman expertly synthesizes interviews and extensive archival research to tell the story of the women who made that community a place for lesbian culture to bloom and grow. During this talk, Rose will discuss The Pagoda and will answer audience questions.
Rose Norman is a retired professor who taught English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville for twenty-seven years. She directed the Business and Technical Writing Program, co-founded and was first Director of Women’s Studies, and for her last four years chaired the English Department. She taught graduate and undergraduate classes in women writers, women’s autobiography, and technical writing, and for four years was regional coordinator of a national high school poetry competition, Poetry Out Loud. Her work as general editor of the Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project led her to over ten years’ research on the Pagoda residential community and cultural center. During that time, she has interviewed over a hundred lesbian feminist activists and co-edited six special issues of Sinister Wisdom.
USF Tampa Library Special Collections will also be exhibiting local lesbian history objects from the LGBTQ+ Collection before and after the talk.