Elsa Gidlow
Author · 5 books
Elsa Gidlow (29 December 1898 – 8 June 1986) was a poet, who in 1923 published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, On a Grey Thread. She promoted alternative spiritualities including Buddhism and Goddess Worship. In the 1940s she founded a rural retreat center, the Druid Heights Artists Retreat, in Marin County, California. She lived there until her death in 1986. Other residents at Druid Heights have included well-known figures such as her close friend Alan Watts and feminist theorist Catharine MacKinnon.
