New Narratives in Gabrielle Daniels and Ishmael Houston-Jones

Originating as a private joke between Robert Glück and Bruce Boone (Jackson 26), the term ‘New Narrative’ is as capacious as it is specific: as concerned with coterie poetics as with movement-building, with gossip as with political discourse, with sex as with death. For Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian, New Narrative is more “sensibility” than “genre” (482). For Steve Abbott, meanwhile, New Narrative “ar[ose] out of specific social and political concerns of specific communities” (“Soup Intro” 1). Such communities refer, firstly, to the specific groupings of writers who socialized, shared intimate relationships, referenced each other in their work, and described themselves or were described by others as being practitioners of New Narrative. These writers were predominantly, though not exclusively, gay white men based in San Francisco. But Abbott’s definition extended beyond this group. Abbott conceived of New Narrative as a descriptor of what was already happening across as well as within multiple communities politicized by their variously marginalized experiences. New Narrative thus existed as both a writing practice and an organizational imperative: from the ambitious 1981 Left/Write conference organized by Abbott, Boone, and Glück, to the smaller-scale workshops held at Small Press Traffic bookstore, which in turn intersected with workshops held by Gloria Anzaldúa and the activities of the Women Writers Union (WWU).2 Boone’s important theoretical work of the period, including the pamphlet