Persimmon Tree, an online magazine, is a showcase for the creativity and talent of women over sixty. Too often older women’s artistic work is ignored or disregarded, and only those few who are already established receive the attention they deserve. Yet many women are at the height of their creative abilities in their later decades and have a great deal to contribute. Persimmon Tree is committed to bringing this wealth of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to a broader audience, for the benefit of all.

Rosellen Brown’s novels, short stories, poetry, and essays capture the defining moments of our time, especially the lives of people who participated in the civil rights movement (Civil Wars and Half a Heart), the effect on his parents when a young man is accused of murder (Before and After), and what life is like for a profoundly injured woman and her family (Tender Mercies). Brown has received a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Bunting Institute, the Howard Foundation, and twice from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was selected one of Ms. Magazine’s 12 “Women of the Year” in 1984. Some Deaths in the Delta was a National Council on the Arts prize selection, and Civil Wars won the Janet Kafka Prize for the best novel by an American woman in 1984. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2016 and has recently retired after many years of teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo credit: Sigrid Estrada.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s novels and nonfiction grew out of and reflect on her cultural heritage, her feminism, and her anti-war activism. She has chronicled the experiences of Chinese Americans, and the racism they have experienced, both in novels, such as Tripmaster Monkey and China Men, and in nonfiction. Her seminal contributions to the feminist movement include such works as the memoir, The Woman Warrior, the book that first brought her to national attention. Her antiwar activism is highlighted in her book The Fifth Book of Peace. She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by then President Bill Clinton, and the 2013 National Medal of the Arts by President Barack Obama. In recognition for her contributions to Chinese-American literature, she has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction for The Woman Warrior, and the National Book Award for China Men. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Photo credit: Poetry Foundation.

Deena Metzger is a poet, novelist, essayist, storyteller, teacher, healer, and medicine woman who has written, taught and counseled for over fifty years. She conducts training groups on the spiritual, creative, political and ethical aspects of healing and peacemaking, and has developed therapies (healing stories) which creatively address life threatening diseases, spiritual and emotional crises, as well as community, political and environmental disintegration. Before knowing that she, herself, had breast cancer, she was writing a novel, The Book of Hags (1976), which asked why so many women had cancer, why then and why so young. She is the author of many books of poetry, essays and fiction, including the novels;  A Rain of Night Birds (2017), and La Negra y Blanca (2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature).

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American “second wave” feminist poet-critic. She was one of the first poets in America to publish poems exploring pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Her 1965 poetry collection, Once More Out of Darkness, drew from her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth; The Mother/Child Papers (1980), juxtaposing motherhood and the Vietnam War, led the Progressive to call her “America’s most fiercely honest poet.” Subsequent books of poetry have explored politics, marriage, illness, aging, city life, art, and Judaism from a feminist perspective.  Her nonfiction includes Writing Like a Woman (1983) and Stealing the Language: the Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America (1986). The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions (1994) and For the Love of God (2007) are feminist analyses of the Bible. Her most recent books of poetry are The Volcano and After: Selected and New Poems (2020) and The Holy and Broken Bliss: Poems in Plague Time (2024). In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018, she was named the New York State Poet Laureate. Photo credit: Miguel Pagliere.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is an author, activist, and public speaker. A founding editor of Ms. Magazine, she has also published twelve books, most recently, Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy (2022), as well as the feminist classic, Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America (1991), and was consulting editor on Free to Be, You and Me (1974), Marlo Thomas’ groundbreaking children’s book, recording, and television special. Pogrebin’s articles have appeared in Ms. Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Huffington Post, Moment, and The Nation, among many other publications. A leader in many social justice causes, she has been president of The Authors Guild, board chair of Americans for Peace Now, and was a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the UJA-Federation Task Force on Women; and the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. Her many honors include a Yale University Poynter Fellowship in Journalism an Emmy Award for Free to Be You and Me. She is a 2018 inductee into the Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame.

V (formerly Eve Ensler) is the Tony award-winning playwright, author, and activist whose Obie-award winning The Vagina Monologues has been translated into 48 languages and performed in 140 countries. She is the author of numerous books, including The Apology, In the Body of the World, I Am an Emotional Creature, and, most recently, Reckoning. Her film credits include The Vagina Monologues (HBO), What I Want My Words to Do to You (Executive Producer, Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Freedom of Expression Award, PBS), Mad Max: Fury Road (Consultant), and City of Joy (documentary, Netflix). She is the founder of V-Day, the global activist movement that has raised over $120 million to end violence against women and girls, gender-expansive people, and the planet—and founder of One Billion Rising, a global mass action to end gender-based violence, as well as a co-founder of the City of Joy, a sanctuary and revolutionary center for sexual assault survivors in the Congo. She writes regularly for The Guardian. Photo credit: Guardian.

Gloria Steinem is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, and As If Women Matter. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center in the United States, as well as the international organizations Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She is the subject of Julie Taymor’s biopic, The Glorias, released in Fall 2020. For her boundless commitment to feminism, and for including all voices in the name of equality, Gloria was the 2021 recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.

Margaret E. (Peggy) Wagner is Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree, and president of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Her 35 years with the Publishing Office of the Library of Congress, first as writer/editor, later as managing editor, afforded her broad experience in all phases of print and online publishing. She led the project teams that produced some of the Library’s major reference works, and is also a published author herself. Peggy’s passions include wide reading and a deep appreciation for the power and importance of fiction, poetry, music, and the visual arts.

Jean Zorn is publisher of Persimmon Tree and secretary/treasurer of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. She is a lawyer, and retired in March 2018 from the City University of New York School of Law, where she had worked for more than 30 years, primarily as a Professor of Law, and, most recently, as Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. In addition to her publishing duties, Jean edits Short Takes.

Co-director of the Romare Bearden Foundation, Johanne Bryant-Reid is a member of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc. Born and educated in West Virginia, she received a BA from West Virginia University. After serving for seven years as primary fundraiser of the Bearden Foundation, she was named it’s co-director. The foundation was created in 1990 as a non-profit, aimed at preserving and perpetuating the legacy of this pre-eminent African-American artist, as well as emerging and mid-career artists.

Nan Gefen founded Persimmon Tree in 2007 and is its Publisher/Editor Emerita. She previously was the founding publisher of Tikkun magazine. She has published three nonfiction books, most recently It Never Ends: Mothering Middle-aged Daughters. Her novel, Clear Lake, won the gold medal in general fiction in the IndieFab contest. She has recently agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc.

Elizabeth Zimmer writes, mostly about the arts; teaches writing wherever she is invited; and edits manuscripts of all sorts, including those on this site. She holds a B.A. from Bennington College, where she studied with Howard Nemerov, and an M.A. from Stony Brook University. She practices the Feldenkrais Method, and works as a standardized patient in hospitals and medical schools. Her ambition is to flourish as a stand-up comic. Elizabeth is a member of the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree, an editor and the magazine’s chief proofreader. Photo credit: Julia Lemberger.

Margaret E. (Peggy) Wagner is Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree. Her 35 years with the Publishing Office of the Library of Congress, first as writer/editor, later as managing editor, afforded her broad experience in all phases of print and online publishing. She led the project teams that produced some of the Library’s major reference works, and is also a published author herself. Peggy’s passions include wide reading and a deep appreciation for the power and importance of fiction, poetry, music, and the visual arts.

Greta Berman is Art Editor of Persimmon Tree. She received a B.A. from Antioch College, an M.A. from the University of Stockholm, and a Ph.D. from Columbia. She has recently retired from her position as Professor of Art History at Juilliard, where she taught for 46 years. In addition to writing a monthly column, “Focus on Art,” for the Juilliard Journal, she co-curated and co-edited Synesthesia: Art and the Mind with Carol Steen, at the McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario in 2008. She and Steen also published a chapter titled “Synesthesia and the Artistic Process” for the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia (Oxford University Press, 2013). She has published numerous articles, as well as lectured on synesthesia, and other subjects.

Cynthia Hogue’s tenth book of collected poetry, instead, it is dark, was published by Red Hen Press in June of 2023. Her other collections include Revenance, listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets, and In June the Labyrinth (2017). Her third book-length translation (with Sylvain Gallais) is Nicole Brossard’s Distantly (Omnidawn 2022). Her Covid chapbook is entitled Contain (Tram Editions 2022). Among her honors are a Fulbright Fellowship to Iceland, two NEA Fellowships, and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets (2013). She served as Guest Editor for Poem-a-Day for September (2022), sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Hogue was the inaugural Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. She lives in Tucson.

Gena Raps, Persimmon Tree Music Editor, has performed internationally and across the United States.  Her performances of Mozart, Brahms, and Dvorak have been recorded by the Musical Heritage Society, Arabesque and Naxos among others. She has taught at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Mannes College of Music and has received numerous prizes and honors. She has been on the jury for competitions at the Juilliard School and the Fulbright Fellowship.  

Elizabeth Zimmer writes, mostly about the arts; teaches writing wherever she is invited; and edits manuscripts of all sorts, including those on this site. She holds a B.A. from Bennington College, where she studied with Howard Nemerov, and an M.A. from Stony Brook University. She practices the Feldenkrais Method, and works as a standardized patient in hospitals and medical schools. Her ambition is to flourish as a stand-up comic. Elizabeth serves on Persimmon Tree‘s editorial committee and is the magazine’s chief proofreader. Photo credit: Julie Lemberger.

Jean Zorn is the publisher, with responsibility for Persimmon Tree‘s administrative, legal and financial matters. She is a lawyer, and retired in March 2018 from the City University of New York School of Law, where she had worked for more than 30 years, primarily as a Professor of Law, and, most recently, as Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. In addition to her publishing duties, Jean edits Short Takes.

Nancy H. Williard, who has recently joined Persimmon Tree’s volunteer staff, primarily as a proofreader, returned to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina after twenty years living outside Yosemite in California. After fifty years of work as an educator and librarian, she traded her Harley for an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. In 2021, her short story won an Honorable Mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize. (she/her) https://www.nhwilliard.com

Nan Gefen founded Persimmon Tree in 2007 and is its Publisher/Editor Emerita. She previously was the founding publisher of Tikkun magazine. She has published three nonfiction books, most recently It Never Ends: Mothering Middle-aged Daughters. Her novel, Clear Lake, won the gold medal in general fiction in the IndieFab contest. She has recently agreed to serve on the Board of Directors of Persimmon Tree Inc.

Sue Leonard served as Editor in Chief of Persimmon Tree from 2012 to 2022. She was the magazine’s second editor after its founder Nan Gefen. For 45 years, she taught every variety of history except American mostly at independent high schools for girls – with a brief stint in a poverty program school for pregnant teens in Bedford Stuyvesant. In the mid-nineties she and her late husband John Leonard were co-editors of the Books and Arts section of the Nation Magazine. Since retiring, Sue has filled up her days with reading, needlework, family, and friends.

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Unruly Tree

Poems by Leslie Ullman

  The cryptic prompts—fragments, really—of Brian Eno’s and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies unveiled themselves to Leslie Ullman as rough translations from an obscure language. As an experiment, Ullman used each one as a poem title, and in doing so she accessed a thrill of freedom, uncertainty, and propulsion beyond her own familiar patterns and landscapes. In the process, she found herself exploring the literary, visual, and musical arts from angles that had never occurred to her before. Unruly Tree showcases the most successful of Ullman’s play, and the result is an agile work takes itself by surprise again and again. At its heart this book is about the creative process itself—even when it applies to experiences outside the arts—and about reclaiming an inner freedom many of us lose in our lives as adults in these noisy, rancorous times. Available from University of New Mexico Press, Amazon, Bookshop, and and your local independent bookstore.

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