Martha Shelley

Martha Shelley is a native of Brooklyn. After the Stonewall Riot in 1969, she organized the first gay protest march in New York and helped found the Gay Liberation Front. During that eventful year, she wrote Notes of a Radical Lesbian and Gay is Good, essays that shaped the ideology of the movement and have been anthologized and translated worldwide. She is a prolific writer, and has published three novels and four books of poetry. Her latest book is a memoir, We Set the Night on Fire. She and her wife Sylvia Allen maintain an urban farm in Portland OR where they keep chickens and produce most of their fruits and vegetables, “except oranges.” Ms. Shelley is also an enthusiastic hiker, and a member of Third Act Oregon, fighting climate change.