Overview

Berkeley, 1972: a hotbed of creativity where painters, filmmakers, musicians, and writers inspire a young poet. NYC Big Book Award: Winner in New Adult Non-fiction NYC Big Book Award: Distinguished Favorite in Women’s Issues International Book Award Winner in U.S. History Literary Titan Winner Finalist in the San Francisco Bookfest Runner Up in the New York City Bookfest Second-wave feminism, inspired by Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan is swelling into a tsunami. Women are joining together to change power dynamics in politics, the home, and the workplace. On election day, Joan Gelfand casts her vote for George McGovern and boards a plane from New York to California. With one introduction to a woman musician, Joan’s journey to become a writer is born. Embraced by a thriving women’s community of artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets, and writers, Joan is encouraged to find her voice. Mentored by paradigm-changing writers, Joan finds the courage to face her darkest fears through poetry and art, mining the trauma she experienced after losing her father and questioning her Jewish identity. Reminiscent of Paris in the twenties, Greenwich Village in the sixties, and Berlin in the eighties, Berkeley in the seventies was the “it” city of America. Outside Voices reports the ups and downs of finding one’s way as an artist, living with a women’s band, forging an independent Jewish identity, founding a women’s restaurant, and becoming a published writer and songwriter while exploring the limits of sexuality and spirituality. The story includes road trips to music festivals in the woods, beaches in Mexico, concerts in Southern California, and a retreat in the Pacific Northwest. A triumphant story of determination and will, Outside Voices is a backstage look at the women’s movement that sets the stage for decades of change. This book is a firsthand look at how the power of community emboldened innovation, social change, and self-discovery.

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Reviews

Joan Gelfand documents her thrilling coming-of-age ride through one of America's most explosive and exciting moments of history. The book travels between the trauma of her traditional Jewish immigrant New York City childhood to the daring experiments of Berkeley, California in the 1970s. It's not San Francisco's Summer of Love, it's the whirling aftermath. Gelfand's prose buzzes with the beats and pulses of a young woman finding and coming to terms with herself and her past as a poet amidst a vibrant community of musicians, anti-war and women's rights activists, and queers. It is a brave and joyous read, a timely reminder of how fragile free speech, democracy, the arts, and deliberate acts of love remain. Timely, delicious, and deeply honest, it reminds us how urgent the women's movement and Berkeley's imprint are in current-day conversations about democracy. --Elizabeth Block, Christopher Isherwood Foundation Award-Winning fiction writer, poet, and essayist Outside Voices is a mesmerizing, lyrical account of the heady days of the women's movement in Berkeley in the 1970s. It's a blast to follow Joan Gelfand, newly arrived from New York and still reeling from the untimely death of her father, as she visits communes, cooks vegetarian food, listens to musicians in coffee shops, and poses nude for a painter who seduces her--just one of many wild experiences during the days of sex, drugs and rock and roll. The heart of the book, however, is Gelfand's search for her poet's voice, something she discovers through the embrace of the women's community around her. --Frances Dinkelspiel, Co-founder, Berkeleyside and Cityside and Author of New York Times bestseller, Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of Califor Joan Gelfand has written a compelling book about coming of age in Berkeley in the second wave of feminism circa 1970s. Her depth of discovering herself and her world is intense and reveals all the passion and confusion of a sensitive soul grasping at life through politics, sex, and the long road to becoming a writer. --Geri Spieler, Author of Housewife Assassin: The Woman Who Tried to Kill Gerald Ford

“Joan Gelfand has written a compelling book about coming of age in Berkeley in the second wave of feminism circa 1970s. Her depth of discovering herself and her world is intense and reveals all the passion and confusion of a sensitive soul grasping at life through politics, sex, and the long road to becoming a writer.” -- Geri Spieler, Author of <I>Housewife Assassin: The Woman Who Tried to Kill Gerald Ford</I> “Outside Voices is a mesmerizing, lyrical account of the heady days of the women’s movement in Berkeley in the 1970s. It’s a blast to follow Joan Gelfand, newly arrived from New York and still reeling from the untimely death of her father, as she visits communes, cooks vegetarian food, listens to musicians in coffee shops, and poses nude for a painter who seduces her—just one of many wild experiences during the days of sex, drugs and rock and roll. The heart of the book, however, is Gelfand’s search for her poet’s voice, something she discovers through the embrace of the women's community around her.” -- Frances Dinkelspiel, Co-founder, Berkeleyside and Cityside and Author of <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, <i>Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California</i> “Joan Gelfand documents her thrilling coming-of-age ride through one of America’s most explosive and exciting moments of history. The book travels between the trauma of her traditional Jewish immigrant New York City childhood to the daring experiments of Berkeley, California in the 1970s. It’s not San Francisco’s Summer of Love, it’s the whirling aftermath. Gelfand’s prose buzzes with the beats and pulses of a young woman finding and coming to terms with herself and her past as a poet amidst a vibrant community of musicians, anti-war and women’s rights activists, and queers. It is a brave and joyous read, a timely reminder of how fragile free speech, democracy, the arts, and deliberate acts of love remain. Timely, delicious, and deeply honest, it reminds us how urgent the women’s movement and Berkeley’s imprint are in current-day conversations about democracy.” -- Elizabeth Block, Christopher Isherwood Foundation Award-Winning fiction writer, poet, and essayist “Joan Gelfand’s memoir, Outside Voices, is a trip down Memory Lane for anyone who lived in Berkeley in the mid-sixties through mid-seventies, at the dawn of the Women’s Movement, told from the as-yet-unexplored point of view of a young Jewish Lesbian from New York. Grieving the death of her father, trying to find herself as a poet, Gelfand takes the reader on a nostalgic through-the-looking-glass tour of the radical people and wild places in Berkeley that informed her career as a critic, teacher, and writer. ‘[I]n Berkeley,’ the poet enthuses, ‘spring is stretched out like a delicious piece of saltwater taffy, all sweetness and joy.’” -- Barbara Quick, Novelist, Poet & Journalist

Author Information

Joan Gelfand is an author, poet, and literary critic whose recent memoir, Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution, has won the New York City Big Book Award and the International Book Award. The book offers an intimate portrait of Berkeley in 1972 and the transformative power of the women's movement. Her novel Extreme, a finalist for the International Book Award, tells the story of a Silicon Valley startup. Gelfand has published three poetry collections: The Long Blue Room, A Dreamer's Guide to Cities and Streams, and Seeking Center, showcasing her range as a poet and writer. Her poetry has been featured internationally, with The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics—a poetry film based on her work—screening at twenty international film festivals including Cannes and London. The film also earned a Certificate of Merit from the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Joan has won twenty-five writing awards including the Effie Lee Morris Prize for Poetry, The Red Room Authors Award, The Chaffin Fiction Award, and others. Joan’s essays and reviews have been published widely including in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and Premonitions, the Huffington Post, LA Review of Books, San Francisco Chronicle, and the art magazine PANK! For the past decade, Gelfand has been a sought-after writing coach and instructor, teaching at book festivals and writers’ conferences. Her book and workshop, both titled You Can Be a Winning Writer, have helped countless writers develop their craft. A former President of the Women’s National Book Association, Gelfand founded and chaired its National Writing Contest. Gelfand is an active member of the National Book Critics Circle and is listed in Who’s Who in America. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Adam Hertz.

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