Diane Lefer is a playwright, author, and activist. In addition to her theatrical collaborations with Hector Aristizabal, her works for the stage have been produced in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and both Carolinas. Her most recent book, California Transit, was awarded the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. The Los Angeles Times review said, “It’s easy to see why a judge would want to honor these stories. They are smart, well written and have that most elusive of qualities: vitality. They take on difficult issues — immigration, racism, torture, animal suffering, environmental degradation. That makes her stories sound humorless; they aren’t. A vein of wry wit runs through them.”

In October 2006, Diane began riding buses and walking around Los Angeles and other cities dressed as a Guantanamo prisoner to be an unavoidable visual reminder of the criminal actions of the US government. Some people avoided her, some thanked her, blessed her, some cursed her. But everyone got the message until the day she was mistaken for a terrorist and found herself with both hands in the air and two guns pointed at her head. A few days later, she was apprehended by four Los Angeles police officers. Photographer Robin Lynn Gibson witnessed the incident and suggested it might be safer to take the protest off the streets and into the studio–resulting in the above image.

Diane has been a featured speaker on the subject of art and activism at colleges including Evergreen State College, Santa Monica College, Vermont College; at faith-based institutions including All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, CA and the Los Angeles Cathedral, not to mention non-faith-based groups such as the Jewish Secular Humanists of Los Angeles; and at special events including the Utah Humanities Book Festival in Salt Lake City.

She and Hector have completed The Blessing Next to the Wound: Stories of Imagination, Healing, and Change, a book manuscript that uses Hector’s tumultuous life as the framework for an exploration of how the creative imagination can advance healing in both individuals and societies. Publication update to come soon!

Photo by Robin Lynn Gibson