Nancy Manahan grew up in Minnesota. After two years at a Catholic women’s college, she spent a year in a convent, an experience which led to her co-editing (with Rosemary Keefe Curb) the 1985 groundbreaking anthology Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, published in seven languages and in eleven countries. A new edition of Lesbian Nuns was published by Spinsters Ink in 2013, with a Tantor audiobook in 2026.
Nancy holds a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. in English, and spent most of her professional life teaching college English and women’s studies.
She published On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience in 1997 (revised edition 2021). Nancy and her wife, author Becky Bohan, wrote the prize-winning book Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully: A Journey with Cancer and Beyond. She also co-edited and published At Sea on the Range: From Berkeley Radical to Arizona Homesteader, 1934-1948.
In 2026, Nancy was awarded the Alice B Reader’s Appreciation medal.
Nancy and Becky live in Florida where they continue write and edit.
