Hers 3: Brilliant New Fiction by Lesbian Writers

This third in an ongoing series matches the admirable range and stylistic variety of its predecessors. Wolverton (Bailey's Beads) and Drake include the works of 21 authors, among them Irish novelist Emma Donoghue (Kissing the Witch), poet Judith Barrington (History and Geography) and visual artist Catherine Lord. Most of their stories (as Wolverton notes) dwell either on childhood or on romantic love. In Ellen Hawley's ""What We Forgot to Tell Tina About Boys,"" a sympathetic lesbian narrator wants to save her teenage niece from an abusive boyfriend: ""A single drop of this child should be enough to save a world, although it isn't, somehow."" Jane Thurmond's compassionate ""Beauty of Blood"" depicts an isolated lab technician who discovers love in her 30s. Pat Schmatz's funny, erotic leadoff tale, ""Tokyo Trains,"" explains the joys of masturbating on crowded subways. Lord's ""The Art of Losing"" follows a romance through its sweet intensities, its 28 short segments almost prose poems. Decidedly stories about lesbian life, these are not only stories for lesbian readers. A few, like Carolyn Clark's ""kays and exes"" (set in ""Club grrrl"") even read like reportage, designed to explain a certain scene to outsiders. Those who follow gay/lesbian/queer fiction anthologies will find this one more varied, and better, than most. Other readers remote from Wolverton's target audience will nevertheless appreciate the manifold emotional truths, and modes of experience, offered here. (June)