In
1965 Valerie met Pearl Hart, another founder of Mattachine Midwest.
They were together until 1975 when Hart died. Not being an immediate
family member, Taylor was not allowed to visit Hart in the hospital as
she was dying and missed being able to tell her goodbye. She had to
appeal to a friend of Hart's but by the time she was able to see her,
Hart was in a coma.

This is the forty-sixth 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.

Valerie
Taylor (September 7, 1913 - October 22, 1997) was an American author of
books published in the lesbian pulp fiction genre, as well as poetry
and novels after the "golden age" of lesbian pulp fiction. She was born
Velma Nacella Young and also published as Nacella Young, Francine
Davenport, and Velma Tate. Her publishers included Naiad Press, Banned
Books, Universal, Gold Medal Books, Womanpress, Ace and Midwood-Tower.

Early life
Velma
Nacella Young was born in rural Illinois and attended Blackburn College
during the Great Depression. She was a member of the American Socialist
Party[1], which she joined at the age of 22. Feeling that social norms
compelled her to find a husband, she married William Jerry Tate in 1939,
and they had a son, Marshall, in 1940, and twins Jerry and James in
1942.
Velma Tate worked as a schoolteacher and a secretary until the
1950s while also selling poems, articles, and short stories to magazines
that included Canadian Poetry Magazine, Good Housekeeping, True Love
and True Story.

Writing and activism career

Beacon
Books published Valerie Taylor's first novel, Hired Girl (also
published as The Lusty Land), in 1953. Set on a poor Midwestern farm,
Hired Girl has no lesbian subject matter, but it does explore other
controversial sexual and political themes. Its publication earned Taylor
$500, which she used to pay for a divorce.

Taylor, who described
herself as both bisexual and a lesbian, has claimed that she only
realized the full extent of her attraction to women when in her
thirties. Though married at the time, she did not attribute the failure
of her marriage to her sexuality; her husband William was alcoholic,
abusive, and financially unstable. Taylor had relationships with both
men and women after her divorce.

From 1957 to 1967, living in
Chicago, Taylor wrote novels in the genre of lesbian pulp fiction, in
which she became well-known. She explained her reasons for choosing the
genre: "I began writing gay novels around 1957. There was suddenly a
plethora of them on sale in drugstores and bookstores... many written by
men who had never knowingly spoken to a lesbian. Wish fulfillment
stuff, pure erotic daydreaming. I wanted to make some money, of course,
but I also thought that we should have some stories about real
people."Taylor worked as a proofreader for Henry Regnery Company in
Chicago until 1961. She attempted to sustain her income with her writing
after leaving Regnery.
Cornell University, which houses her literary
estate, calls her novels "pulp fiction classics." She was prominent in
activist causes from the 1950s through the 1980s, including LGBT rights,
feminism, and the rights of the aged. She belonged to the Daughters of
Bilitis, contributing her work to their magazine The Ladder, the first
nationally distributed lesbian publication. Taylor was instrumental in
starting Mattachine Midwest in 1965 and lent her services to its
newsletter as editor for several years. She protested at the 1968
Democratic Convention with other members of Mattachine Midwest, and she
worked with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.



Naiad Press published several of Taylor's books in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
She
became a Quaker in 1979 after relocating to Tucson, Arizona, and a
member of the Gray Panthers, a social justice activist group.

In 1992, she was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.[4] She died on October 22, 1997 at the age of 84.
Novels
The Lusty Land (originally published as Hired Girl) 1953, Universal
Whisper Their Love 1957, Gold Medal
The Girls in 3-B 1959, Gold Medal
Stranger on Lesbos 1960, Gold Medal
A World Without Men 1963, Midwood Tower
Unlike Others 1963, Midwood Tower
Return to Lesbos 1963
Journey to Fulfillment 1964, Midwood Tower
The Secret of the Bayou 1967, Ace (as Francine Davenport)
Love Image 1977, Naiad
Prism 1981, Naiad
Ripening 1988, Banned Books
Rice and Beans 1989
Poetry
Two Women: The Poetry of Jeannette Foster and Valerie Taylor 1976, Womanpress