Tammy Stoner

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Tammy Lynne Stoner
Headshot of Tammy Lynne Stoner taken in 2016
Stoner in 2016
Education
Occupation
  • Writer
  • artist
Websitetammylynnestoner.com

Tammy Lynne Stoner (October 26, 1968) is an American writer and artist. She created the first children's program for kids in gay families, Dottie's Magic Pockets. She is the publisher of Gertrude Press and GERTIE and is the author of Sugar Land.[1] She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her wife and three children.

Personal life[]

Stoner was born in Midland, Texas, and lived in El Paso, Texas, and Gulfport, Mississippi, before her family settled in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. After attending twelve years of Catholic school, she left for West Chester University, where she met the woman she would marry 20 years later.[citation needed]

Stoner put herself through college at Temple University by working as an artists’ model, a paid medical experimentee, a waitress at a Greek diner, a house cleaner, a biscuit maker, and a book store manager. While in Philadelphia, she started Shrink-Wrap literary and art journal with her boyfriend, was published several times, and played in a band who practiced secretly at the Mummers Museum. After graduation, she moved from Philadelphia to Austin, Texas, where she worked as a gas station attendant and in print production.[citation needed]

In 1995, Stoner moved to South Korea. She taught English in Busan for a year before resettling in the Tenderloin in San Francisco in 1996. The following year she moved to Southern California where she lived for ten years, working as a print production manager at Liberation Publications, parent company of The Advocate, Out, HIV+, and Alyson Books until she left to have a baby with her girlfriend. Her pregnancy led to the final break with her religious parents.[citation needed]

In 2007, Stoner earned her M.F.A from Antioch University. That same year, Stoner split amicably from her girlfriend. They then moved to Portland, Oregon, with their son. In 2008, Stoner reunited with her college girlfriend, Karena Meehan, who was living in Paris. Meehan moved to Portland to be with Stoner. Three years later they were married, and had twin girls in 2014.[citation needed]

Creative work[]

In 2006, Stoner's son asked her why no families on kids' TV had two mommies, inspiring Stoner to create Dottie's Magic Pockets. Dottie was directed by her friend from Sony Pictures, , and stars .[2] It was released in 2007 to much media buzz and played at numerous gay and lesbian film festivals including London, Melbourne, Toronto, Outfest, and Frameline. Now, Dottie is in 100+ libraries in the United States and Canada.[citation needed]

From 2011-2014, Stoner was the Fiction Editor for , a queer literary and arts journal based in Portland, Oregon, and took over as Publisher in 2017.[3] Shortly after, she launched GERTIE.[4] Stoner also wrote several short films, and in 2013 she was on the writing staff for Second Shot, starring Jill Bennett.

Stoner's shorter literary writing has appeared in two dozen journals and anthologies. She's been nominated for a Million Writers Award and a Pushcart. In 2012 she was offered a fellowship to the in Kenya. She was an Artist-in-Resident with Sou'Wester[5] and a writing fellow with the VCCA.[6] In 2018, her first novel, Sugar Land, was released by Red Hen Press and went on to win an IPPY Award[7] and be a finalist in the Forewords Book of the Year Award 2018.[8]

Sugar Land has been called a "ravishing debut" in a starred Kirkus Review,[9] "writing at its finest" by the New York Journal of Books,[10] and "surprising and exhilarating" by Booklist.[11] wrote, "a novel of exploration, bravery and redemption, with keen insight into race, class, gender identity and social norms, Sugar Land is the story of a woman learning to come home to herself."[12]

In 2019, Stoner appeared on an episode of Storytellers Telling Stories, reading an excerpt from Sugar Land, accompanied by Americana duo Pretty Gritty.[13]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Red Hen Press Signs Tammy Lynne Stoner". Pasadena Now. February 2, 2016. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  2. ^ "Putting lesbian parents on the radar". American Public Media. September 26, 2007. Archived from the original on May 20, 2011.
  3. ^ "Longest-running queer literary journal, Gertrude, names Tammy Lynne Stoner new Managing Editor". onlineprnews.com. January 31, 2017. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  4. ^ Gertrude Press
  5. ^ Sou'Wester
  6. ^ VCCA
  7. ^ "2019 Medalists Cat 1-35". IPPY Awards. Retrieved April 4, 2021.
  8. ^ "2018 Foreword INDIES Finalists in LGBT (Adult Fiction)". Foreword Reviews.
  9. ^ "SUGAR LAND by Tammy Lynne Stoner". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  10. ^ Henry, Declan. "A book review by Declan Henry: Sugar Land". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  11. ^ Sugar Land, by Tammy Lynne Stoner. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019 – via www.booklistonline.com.
  12. ^ Bates, Jessica (November 2018). "Sugar Land by tammy lynne stoner - Review". BookPage. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  13. ^ Brewer, Jude (February 26, 2019). "(S2: Ep12) 'The Oscar Wilde Way'". Storytellers Telling Stories.

External links[]

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