Ruthann Robson: Writing Life and Fiction-Theory
![handle is hein.journals/nyclr8 and id is 409 raw text is: RUTHANN ROBSON: WRITING LIFE AND
FICTION-THEORY
Lynda Hall
i thought fiction was poetry
it is theory
i thought theory was a solution
it is practice'
Ruthann Robson's teaching, writing, research, and presenta-
tions at conferences and other venues encourage social change
through scholarly and literary endeavors. As a legal theorist and
Professor of Law, Robson understands the limits of the law as a tool
for social change and urges the lesbian and gay community to work
on a number of fronts-social and cultural, as well as legal ones.
Significantly, Robson writes about lesbian and gay issues in ways
that are insightful and understandable for those inside and outside
the legal profession. Her cross-genre writings cover a diversity of
subjects. Robson's writings are widely acclaimed. Robson's book
of short stories Eye of a Hurricane was the winner of the Ferro-
Grumley award for Fiction in 1990.2 Her 2003 piece Notes from a
Difficult Case, articulating her medical misdiagnosis, won a $10,000
Creative Nonfiction Best Essay Award from Creative Nonfiction.' In
the following, I focus on Robson's social and cultural writings from
three perspectives, which, due to her activism at the nexus of the
private and public, are inextricable. I discuss her writings in terms
of autobiography: writing the self, and the positive attributes and
the dangers of these writerly acts. I examine her many nonfiction
and fiction pieces that address her medical misdiagnosis, in addi-
tion to subjects such as motherhood, lesbian love, sexuality, and
self-identity. Often the same subject is presented from several dif-
ferent perspectives, in kaleidoscopic and poetically nuanced stories
and essays. I then examine her writings with relation to the com-
munity building she accomplishes, including a segment on same-
sex marriage. Finally, I present one example of how her legal writ-
ings and analyses are used by others. The most obvious case to
I RUTHANN ROBSON, authenticity, in MASKS 129, 131 (1999) [hereinafter ROBSON,
authenticity].
2 RUTHANN ROBSON, EYE OF A HURRICANE (1989).
3 Ruthann Robson, Notes from a Difficult Case, 21 CREATIVE NONFICTION 6 (2003)
[hereinafter Robson, Notes from a Dfficult Case].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nyclr8&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Ruthann Robson: Writing Life and Fiction-Theory
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