Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, writer, and social theorist. She grew up in a working-class home in New Mexico. Seeking options not available in her small-town community of origin, she broke away and joined the Air Force. She was given a "blue discharge" (named for the blue paper on which these letters were printed) from the Air Force because she was a lesbian. This experience galvanized Grahn into public ownership of her lesbianism, into the writing of poetry, into lesbian activism, and into the project of publishing lesbian literature. She co-founded the Women's Press Collective in Oakland, California, in 1969; using a barrel mimeograph machine, the WPC published the work of Grahn and other lesbians, including Pat Parker, Willyce Kim, and more. The WPC edition of Grahn's book Edward the Dyke and Other Poems appeared in 1971. Other poetry collections include The Common Woman (1969), A Woman Is Talking to Death (1974), The Queen of Swords (1987), and Love Belongs to Those Who Do the Feeling (2009). Aunt Lute published a collection of Grahn's work in 2009, THE JUDY GRAHN READER. In addition to her poetry, Grahn has written extensively of what it means to be a lesbian and a lesbian writer in books including Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (1984), Really Reading Gertrude Stein (1989), and Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (1993).