Name: Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line: Queer history & lesbian culture with Elizabeth Lovatt
Start: 2025-03-26T19:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-03-26T20:00:00+00:00
Location: 43-45 West Nicolson Street, EH8 9DB Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line: Queer history & lesbian culture with Elizabeth Lovatt

Featured Speakers:
Elizabeth Lovatt & Sasha de Buyl
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"Hello...is this the local lesbian?"
In Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line, Lovatt uncovers the lesbian history hidden in the pages of the Lesbian Line logbook, which captured calls from 1993 to 1998. With warmth and humor, she reimagines the voices of those who called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line, where a few stolen moments at a pay phone could turn into the courage to come out, find support, and imagine a happier future. In this mash-up of history, pop culture, and queer feminist theory, Lovatt boldly asks: What do we owe to our lesbian forebears? What informs lesbian identity? And how do we create a future for our community free from bias and division?
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Elizabeth Lovatt is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction currently living in London. Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line is her first book. In 2019 she was a writer-in-residence for Islington Pride and the ruckus! archive. In November 2020 she was accepted onto Penguin Books’ #WriteNow mentorship scheme and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Birkbeck. Her dissertation was awarded the Lynne Segal BiGS Prize in Gender and Sexuality.
She also runs the tiny narrative — a monthly newsletter of personal despatches for narrative obsessives and is the creator of the fanzine LOVE TOVE celebrating writer and artist Tove Jansson.
Sasha de Buyl is a writer and programmer from Cork. Their writing has been published in The Stinging Fly, Belfield Literary Review and Gutter, among others, and they are currently undertaking a DFA in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Prior to this, they were Programme Director for International Literature Festival Dublin and in 2023 acted as Guest Curator for StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival. From 2019 - 2022, they were the Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway, Ireland.