Jeri Hilderley

Excerpts from a review by Roberta Arnold to appear in "Sinister Wisdom", April 2024:

"A compass for roads taken in the journey against injustice, this book describes the pivotal period of the 60s, spotlighted by the need to speak out and act. With the dexterity of a sculptor and the voice of a siren, Hilderley encircles the granular and the factual to reveal the provocative bloom of emergent political culture. It is a rare example of the artistic struggle of politics filled with lessons and insight. A gift given to us as an embrace, as the author's dedication reveals: "' I dedicate this book to everyone who understands that only through struggle, steadfast hope and tender revolutionary solidarity can we create the humane, just, compassionate, and non-violent world required to sustain our planet and all its living creatures—and to all the oppressed people who have found ways to express this unalterable truth with their own words.' "FIRE DRAGON STREET THEATER 1962-1967 is a shepherding guide for artists, dreamers, and political activists alike who wish to work together in creative, activist collaboration."

Jeri Hilderley was born in the middle of the country, Midland, Michigan, amid small, comfortable houses, gardens, back yards, birch and pine trees and mourning doves. Because she was born a twin, she has always needed to carve out an I-dentity and has never stopped pursuing what it means to be human and to work for the good of all. She studied liberal arts at Smith College to please her mother, at University of California, Berkeley to please herself and at the University of Michigan to get an MA in Sculpture and Hunter College, The City University of New York to get a Special Education Teaching License.

Her Sculpture Happenings were part of the 60s reawakening of women as power-figures. She founded several collective theater groups (NYSCA-funded), focusing on anti-war, ecology and women’s issues.

She taught memoire writing at The State University of New York at Purchase and Empire State College; her own grant-funded curriculums, Learning Language Arts through Music, to Special Education students in NY City public schools; and composition at CUNY Tech’s SEEK Program.

Founder of SeaWave Recordings in the 70s within the blooming Women’s Music Network, she performed solo and recorded her original soulful compositions for voice, marimba and guitar. Reclaiming Ourselves, A Few Loving Women, Jeritree’s House of Many Colors, 12 Meditations on Love and Talking Truth enjoy world-wide distribution. With publisher (WordSpace Publications) and bassist partner Janet Mayes, she recently produced the cd and booklet: Time Traveling with Sappho, a song-cycle of Sappho’s poem fragments set to her original music. When she released Talking Truth, Merry Gangemi interviewed her about her music and political activism in the radio series Woman-Stirred.

Her stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Chicago Review, Heresies, People’s Theater in America, Paid My Dues and Sinister Wisdom among others; reviews of her work were published in The Village Voice, Ms. Magazine and the Guardian.

New Victoria Press published her first novel, Mari in 1991. This 70s lesbian love story received praise from Isabel Miller, author of Patience and Sarah: “Admirers of Jeri Hilderley’s music will be happy to see that she brings the same creative boldness and energy to this novel. She’s taken huge themes–heroic women, blundered love, passion for justice, recovery of the Goddess, the need to separate and unite. Most of us wouldn’t dare so much. I’m glad she did.”

The Fire Dragon Street Theater is the first novel in the RUNE QUARTET. This whimsical yet deadly serious narrative follows in the tradition of other memoires and novels portraying artists-activists as shakers and movers in times of political unrest: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe; When we Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova; The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante; and The Gay Revolution by Lillian Faderman are some examples.

This first novel will be followed by Wheeling Across Amerika, Ruth & Lucina, and Rune Seekers. They were also inspired by her personal evolution to political consciousness during the tumultuous 60's and her inner struggle to define her own gender identity and sexuality over the span of decades. Now in her 80's, Jeri is driven by recent alarming national and international injustices, including the current backlash against anti-racism, feminism and the LGBTQ+ communities, to memorialize her struggles and affirmations in creative non-fiction, also called novelized memoire. Her goal is to inspire and validate those with conscience to raise their voices and put on their marching boots—again or for the first time.

These novelized re-creations of Jeri's experiences span the 60s: sculpture-happenings and anti-war street theater; the 70s: lesbian-feminist movements; the 80s: back-lash of Reaganism and the 90s: love in the time of AIDS and the Mid-East Israeli-Palestinian Crisis. They were written with the help of fellowships from Cummington Community of the Arts, Virginia Creative Center of the Arts and Blue Mountain Center. She continues to write inspiring short stories and songs dedicated to social justice.

WRITING PUBLICATIONS (PARTIAL LIST):

NOVEL

Hilderley, Jeri. Mari, Norwich, VT: New Victoria Publishers, 1990.

SHORT STORY

Hilderley, Jeri. “The Alphabet Wedding.” Sinister Wisdom: Pleasure 99 (Winter 2016): 104-108.

ARTICLES

Hilderley, Jeri. “To Be Extra-Ordinary, Opyrus, Corona Silver Linings Anthology, 2020.

Hilderley, Jeri. “I Was There and I Am Here.” Sinister Wisdom: In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 70s 82 (Spring 2011): 78-86.

Hilderley, Jeriann. “A Woman Remembers Her Music.” Heresies, no. 10 (1980): 16-17. Women and Music.

Hilderley, Jeriann. “How to Find the Music in You.” Paid My Dues III, no.1 (Fall 1978): 6,7, 38.

Hilderley, Jeriann. “Burning City Street Theater’s Ecology Play.” In People’s Theater in America, by K.M. Taylor. 317-320. New York: Drama Book Specialists Pub, 1972.

Badanes, Jeriann. "Burning City Street Theater: Analysis of a Theater Commune.” Chicago Review 23, no. 1 (Summer 1971): 40-92.

MUSIC RECORDINGS (PARTIAL LIST):

Hilderley, Jeri. “Jeritree’s House of Many Colours.” SeaWave Recordings LP (l978). Will be reissued as a vinyl and digitally in 2020.

Hilderley, Jeri. “Time Traveling with Sappho.” SeaWave Recordings CD (2016). CD and Libretto Booklet. Sappho’s poetry translated by Pulitzer Prize nominee K. Lardas, set to music by Jeri along with one of her original songs.