Valerie Taylor, 1913-

Born September 7, 1913, in Aurora, Illinois, Velma Nacella Young received a two-year scholarship to attend Blackburn College, in Carlinville, IL, in 1935. There, she met Ada Mayer and her husband Hank, a socialist labor organizer. They introduced her to grassroots activism and became lifelong friends.

Velma Young taught at various country schools in Illinois from 1937 to 1940. In 1939, she married William Jerry Tate and took the name Velma Tate. They had three sons, Marshall in 1940 and twins Jerry and Jim in 1942. In 1953, she divorced Jerry Tate and worked to support her sons. The same year, she published her first novel, Hired Girl. She published her first lesbian novel, Whisper Their Love, in 1957 using the pen name Valerie Taylor and came to be known widely by that name. Whisper Their Love was followed by numerous pulp fiction classics published during the 1950s and 1960s, including: The Girls in 3-B, Stranger on Lesbos, A World Without Men, Unlike Others, The Secret of the Bayou, Journey to Fulfillment, and Return to Lesbos.

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