Vol 1.No. 1 Spring 1994 -
Vol 10 No 1 Spring 2003
8.5 x 11
Edition of 50
Founded by Jaime Robles;
co-founders Dale Going, Sari Broner, Denise Liddell Lawson
ROOMS was a quarterly “publication by contribution” created by Jaime Robles to provide a forum and a consistent means of communication among women writers and artists interested in formal and visual experimentation. With roots in zines, mail art, book arts, HOW(ever) – Kathleen Fraser’s important magazine of modernist and contemporary feminist innovative writing – and in Stein’s exhortation in “Rooms” (Tender Buttons) to “Act so that there is no use in a centre,” ROOMS began publishing in Spring of 1994, and continued for nearly 10 years. Founded by Jaime Robles along with Dale Going, Sari Broner and Denise Liddell Lawson (later joined by Margaret Butterfield and Erin Corrigan), the sole editorial procedure of these “non-editors” was an invitation to approximately 150 women writers to become “Roommates.” The contributors each sent 50 copies of their work on letter-size paper, which was then collated with front and back matter and cover art, spiral bound and mailed to them. A contributor received the issue she was in and the following one.
ROOMS published whatever the contributor chose to send, in her own presentation. The work included poetry, short fiction, a serialized novel, essays, responses to the work of other Roommates, and a variety of visual and visual/text art. The work was in a limited edition of 50, often original (as in a poem by Brenda Hillman contributed as fair copies handwritten with graphite on typewriter paper – her method of composition, or Marina LaPalma’s painted pages). Each issue contained 20-30 pieces.
ROOMS was a unique and important publication for both its method and its resultant content – a density of new work in its original presentation by a group of women writers whose contribution to writing at the cusp of the 20th-21st centuries was as challenging as that of Stein and the other Modernists at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Roommates
Etel Adnan
Beth Anderson
Greta Anderson
Alicia Askenase
Merle Bachman
Faith Barrett
Julie Becker
Sharron Egan Belson
Leda Black
Claire Blotter
Julia Blumenreich
Sari Broner
Wendy Jeanne Burch
Ronnie Burk
Cheryl Burket
Margaret Butterfield
Eileen Callahan
Robin Caton
Marie Carbone
Catalina Cariaga
Michelle Carter
Carol Cioavonne
Sas Colby
Norma Cole
Julia Connor
Gillian Conoley
Erin Corrigan
Sarah Anne Cox
Beverly Dahlen
Betsy Davids
Lucille Lang Day
Colette DeDonato
Kate Delos
Patricia Dienstfrey
Diane DiPrima
Maureen Kerl DiSavino
Sally Doyle
Johanna Drucker
Tali Ebin
Tanya Erzen
Renata Ewing
Tricia Fallon
Leslie Fitzgerald
Annie Fitzpatrick
Valerie Fox
Kathleen Fraser
Susan Gangel
Karen Ganz
Susan Gevirtz
Sheilah Glover
Dale Going
Alisa Golden
Ann Jencks Guy
Brenda Hillman
Jen Hofer
Hawley Hussey
Frances Jaffer
Judy Juanita
Liz Kalloch
Sherry Karver
Karen Kevorkian
Susan King
Marina LaPalma
Shari Lee
Sarah Lenoue
Ann Lewis
Denise Liddell Lawson
Jolie Lipsig
Colleen Lookingbill
Leza Lowitz
Deborah Meadows
Kathleen Meagher
Rusty Morrison
Laura Mullen
Sheila E. Murphy
Aife Murray
Denise Newman
Linda Norton
Kaya Oakes
Erica Soon Olsen
Frances Phillips
Rebecca J-M Pierre
Meredith Quartermain
Rebecca Radner
Eléna Rivera
Elizabeth Robinson
Jaime Robles
Carolyn M. Rodgers
Barbara Roether
Sarah Rohrs
Sarah Rosenthal
Rena Rosenwasser
Camille Roy
Jenny Saarloos
Pacia Sallomi
Jenny Della Santa
Valerie Savior
Jeanne Shannon
Kathy Lou Schultz
Ann Schwartzburg
Judith Serebin
Lisa Smith
Carol Snow
Maya Sonenburg
Lily Iona Soucie
Suzanne Marks Squires
Juliette Ward Sterner
Phyllis Stowell
Meredith Stricker
Cole Swensen
Pegi Taylor
Heather Thomas
Amy Trachtenberg
Elizabeth Treadwell
Robin Tremblay-McGaw
Denise Urdang
Liz Waldner
Jackie Weltman
Susan Wheeler
Karen Wiederholt
Suzanne Wise
C.D. Wright
Rene Yung
Rachel C. Zucker