Sapphire (Ramona Lofton)

   

She
became a visible presence in New York City's lesbian community. She
joined an organization named United Lesbians of Color for Change Inc.,
which met on West 4th Street. In 1977, Sapphire relocated to New York.
She supported herself by taking jobs ranging from housecleaning to
topless dancing. On occasion, she worked as a prostitute, but she never
lost sight of her goal, which was to become a writer.

This
is the seventy-fourth post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.


   

Sapphire (born Ramona Lofton on August 4, 1950) is an American author and performance poet.


Early life
Ramona
Lofton was born in Fort Ord, California,one of four children of an Army
couple who relocated within the United States and abroad. After a
disagreement concerning where the family would settle, her parents
separated, with Lofton’s mother "kind of abandon[ing] them".Lofton
dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco, where she
attained a GED and enrolled at the City College of San Francisco before
dropping out to become a "hippie". In the mid 70s Lofton attended City
College of New York in New York City, and obtained a MFA degree at
Brooklyn College. Lofton held various professions before starting her
writing career, working as a performance artist as well as a teacher of
reading and writing.

Career
Lofton moved to New York City in 1977 and immersed herself in poetry.
She wrote, performed and eventually published her poetry during the
height of the Slam Poetry movement in New York. Lofton took the name
"Sapphire" because of its one-time cultural association with the image
of a "belligerent black woman," and also because she said she could more
easily picture that name on a book cover than her birth name.

Sapphire self-published the collection of poems Meditations on
the Rainbow in 1987.As Cheryl Clarke notes, Sapphire's 1994 book of
poems, American Dreams is often erroneously referred to as her first
book. One critic referred to it as "one of the strongest debut
collections of the '90s".

Her first and only novel, Push, was unpublished before being discovered
by the feminist literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose interest created
demand and eventually led to a bidding war. Sapphire submitted the first
100 pages of Push to a publisher auction in 1995 and the highest bidder
offered her $500,000 to finish the novel. The book was published in
1996 by Vintage Publishing and has since sold hundreds of thousands of
copies. Sapphire noted in an interview with William Powers that "she
noticed Push for sale in one of the Penn Station bookstores, and that
moment it struck her she’s no longer a creature of the tiny world of art
magazines and homeless-shelters from which she came". The novel brought
Sapphire praise and much controversy for its graphic account of a young
woman growing up in a cycle of incest and abuse.

A film based on her novel premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in
January 2009; it was renamed Precious to avoid confusion with the 2009
action film Push.[8] The cast includes Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, who
won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Precious' mother Mary, Mariah
Carey, and Lenny Kravitz.[ Sapphire herself appears briefly in the film
as a daycare worker.

Sapphire's writing was the subject of an academic symposium at Arizona
State University in 2007.[ In 2009 she was the recipient of a Fellow
Award in Literature from United States Artists.
Sapphire currently lives and works in New York City.
Bibliography
Novels
Push (1996)
Poetry
Meditations on the Rainbow: Poetry (1987)
American Dreams (1994)
Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems (1999)