"I seldom cry over a book but the wonderful Virginia’s Apple has moved me in many ways.” — Judy Grahn

CHECK OUT

"Judith Barrington: Literary force and feminist pioneer" OREGON ARTSWATCH, August, 2021

“The Wound,” a poem that came out of that experience was featured with an audio recording and an interview on the PBS Newshour’s poetry page.

A short movie about Long Love: New and Selected Poems, Salmon Press, 2018. https://youtu.be/W_5r5Y8fjkE

My short (under 2-minute) movie "Love" based on one poem, selected by Cinema Poetica for the Ashland Film Festival, 2017.

Oregon Cultural Heritge Commission: The 100 Oregon Books

The Oregon State Library: 150 Oregon Books for the Sesquicentennial

Oregon ArtBeat, Poetry in Motion, Oregon Public Broadcasting click here

Soapstone: Celebrating Women Writers

WHAT'S NEW

VIRGINIA'S APPLE: COLLECTED MEMOIRS, published by Oregon State University Press, won the 2026 Oregon Book Award.

Compassionate, candid, sometimes evocative, yet never self-pitying, Barrington provides the long view in Virginia’s Apple, weaving personal and historic threads to chronicle an era of lesbian activism and community building during the second wave of feminism. These essays jog our memory regarding the civil rights movement in the U.S. and England, even as they radiate humility and wisdom. Never pretentious in style, Barrington reflects on her youth, the ways she sometimes acted against her own self-interest, yet she does so with self-forgiveness and wonder. Whether meditating on delayed grief, immigration struggles, physical disabilities, intimate affairs, or lesbian literary history, her descriptions paint the portrait of a world gone by, an era of struggle that we would all be well-served to remember.
— Deborah Taffa, for the judges of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction  

To get on the email list for notification about readings or to schedule me to come to your book group (either in person if local or via Zoom) contact me at Judith.Barrington@icloud.com.

To see photographs connected to Virginia's Apple, follow me on Instagram, @jbarrington77.

"When we are able to move fluidly through the past, present and future by looking back on a life I believe we become new creatures in our own lives. Judith Barrington's brilliant collection of linked life stories Virginia's Apple: Collected Memoirs is a thrilling book that pulls memories through creative visionary transmography. I felt like I was swimming inside the imagination of all the brilliant women who came before me who have kept me alive, and all the women who are coming after us. With poetic and erotic power, this book helped me remember to keep going as long as it takes for change to emerge. What a triumph. I feel gratitude.” — Lidia Yuknavitch


"I seldom cry over a book but Virginia’s Apple has moved me in many ways. The elegant, metaphor-rich language, the exquisite memory of detail, and the poignancy of Judith Barrington’s story—all very gripping—make this a powerful read. Then, her pursuit of lesbian activism and community building in both England and the US, as well as her sleuthing of lesbian literary history is so valuable, and all the more so because of the personal way she interacts with the writers, living and dead. This is more than a memoir, it is a history of an era and of the characters who set out to change society and in many ways, dare we say, succeeded.”
                                                                                              —Judy Grahn 

Review, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Winter, 2025

Review, LIBER: A Feminist Review, Winter, 2025

Feature Story, The Oregonian, January 5, 2025

Interview with Anne Charles on All Things LGBTQ December 17, 2024

Online Reading and conversation with Tricia Snell, YouTube, December 7, 2024

Review, Hippocampus Magazine, December 11, 2024

Review, Oregon ArtsWatch, October 3, 2024

Review, Calyx, September 23, 2024

Review, Willamette Week, September 18 2024

Interview, Sinister Wisdom, September 5 2024

Interview, Slate Podcast "Working" August 18, 2024

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