Ariel Gore (born June 25, 1970) is a journalist, memoirist, novelist, nonfiction author, and teacher. Gore has authored more than 13 books. Gore's fiction and nonfiction work also explores creativity, spirituality, queer culture, and positive psychology. She is the founding editor/publisher of ''

Hip Mama ''Hip Mama: The Parenting Zine'' is an American Alternative Press Award-winning quarterly periodical covering the culture and politics of parenting. The magazine is widely credited with launching the contemporary mothers' movement. The first iss ...

'', an Alternative Press Award-winning publication covering the culture and politics of motherhood. Through her work on ''

'', Gore is widely credited with launching

maternal feminism Maternal feminism is the belief of many early feminists that women as mothers and caregivers had an important but distinctive role to play in society and in politics. It incorporates reform ideas from social feminism, and combines the concepts ...

and the contemporary mothers' movement. Her anthology ''Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City'' won the best "LGBT anthology" at the 22nd annual

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary Foundation, Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literatur ...

in 2010.

Early life and education

Ariel Gore was born June 25, 1970, in

Carmel Carmel may refer to: * Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea * Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea * Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order Carmel may also ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Her mother, Eve de Bona, was the subject of her book ''The End of Eve'' (2014). Her stepfather, John Duryea, was a priest who had been excommunicated in 1976 by the Catholic Church when he confessed in a sermon that he had fallen in love with Gore's mother. Gore was raised in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, California and attended Addison Elementary School, Jordan Middle School (renamed to Greene Middle School) and two years at

Palo Alto High School Palo Alto Senior High School (commonly referred to locally as "Paly") is a comprehensive public high school in Palo Alto, California. Operated by the Palo Alto Unified School District, the school is one of two high schools in the district, the ...

. She left high school at age 15 by taking the California High School Proficiency Test. In her book ''Atlas of the Human Heart'' (2003), Gore recounts the period in her life just after leaving high school, when she traveled the world, working odd jobs and squatting in abandoned buildings. She is a graduate of

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

and the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

Graduate School of Journalism. While attending Mills College in the 1990s, Gore was a young, single mom raising her daughter.

Work

Hip Mama

The first issue of ''Hip Mama'' was published in December, 1993, in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

as part of Gore's senior project while attending Mills College. Published quarterly, the magazine relocated to Portland, Oregon in the 1990s. It was created as a forum for single, urban, and feminist mothers. Each issue had a broad theme which the content would explore via various types of writing and graphics. In 2014, Gore moved back to Oakland and relaunched ''Hip Mama'' with expanded food, arts, and political coverage. "It's the quality of the writing that sets ''Hip Mama'' apart," noted ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''.

''Atlas of the Human Heart'' (1998)

Her lyrical memoir, ''Atlas of the Human Heart'', recounts Gore's teenage years and her travels. This book was a 2004 finalist for the

Oregon Book Award The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by the Portland, Oregon, United States–based organization Literary Arts, Inc. to honor the "state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literatur ...

Teaching

She has taught as a faculty fellow at The Attic Institute of Arts and Letters in Portland, Oregon,

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

in Albuquerque, and at the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed ...

(IAIA) in Santa Fe. She currently teaches at Ariel Gore's School for Wayward Writers (or The Literary Kitchen).

Personal life

Gore is openly

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

and has two children, a daughter and a son. After living in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

for many years, Gore and her family moved to Oakland, California in approximately 2014 and lived there for 3 years before moving to New Mexico. The family moved back to Oakland in 2024. Gore's daughter, Maia Swift, has worked as an

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

for her mother's

magazine and helped her co-author ''Whatever, Mom: Hip Mama's Guide to Raising a Teenager'' (2004). Gore was married to chef Deena Chafetz from 2013 until Chafetz's death from metastatic breast cancer in 2023.

Bibliography

Nonfiction

*Gore, Ariel (1998). ''The Hip Mama Survival Guide: Advice from the Trenches''. Hyperion. *Gore, Ariel (2000). ''The Mother Trip''. Seal Press. *Gore, Ariel (2003). ''Atlas of the Human Heart''. Seal Press. *Gore, Ariel with Swift, Maia (2004). ''Whatever, Mom: Hip Mama's Guide to Raising a Teenager''. Seal Press. *Gore, Ariel (2007). ''How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights''. Three Rivers Press. *Gore, Ariel (2010). ''Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. * *Gore, Ariel (2019). ''Hexing the Patriarchy: 26 Potions, Spells, and Magical Elixirs to Embolden the Resistance''. Seal Press. *Gore, Ariel (2020). ''F*ck Happiness''. Microcosm Publishing. *Gore, Ariel (2022). ''The Wayward Writer: Summon Your Power to Take Back Your Story, Liberate Yourself from Capitalism, and Publish Like a Superstar''. Microcosm Publishing. *Gore, Ariel (2025). ''Rehearsals for Dying: Digressions on Love and Cancer''. Feminist Press.

Novels

*Gore, Ariel (2006). ''The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show.'' HarperSanFrancisco. *Gore, Ariel (2017). '' We Were Witches.'' The Feminist Press.

Anthologies

*Gore, Ariel (2004). ''The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting''. Seal Press. *Gore, Ariel, with Lavender, Bee (2001). ''Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers''. Seal Press *Gore, Ariel (2009). ''Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City''. Lit Star Press/Microcosm Publishing

References

External links

Gore's websiteAriel Gore's Bluebird: Women & Happiness
interview, February 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gore, Ariel 1970 births Living people 21st-century American novelists American magazine editors American women novelists Journalists from Portland, Oregon Lambda Literary Award winners Writers from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California University of California, Berkeley alumni Mills College alumni 21st-century American women writers Journalists from California Novelists from California Novelists from Oregon American women non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women magazine editors Palo Alto High School alumni Writers from Palo Alto, California