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Keep in touch with fellow classmates with California Monthly's Class Notes. Become a member of the California Alumni Association now to receive your own copy of the magazine. We'd love to hear from you. Why not submit your own Class Notes now? Making book Not every Cal student laments the anonymity of undergraduate life. After the starched-collar confines of a New England boarding school, the poet and writer Katy Lederer ’95 positively embraced Berkeley’s expansiveness. “I loved how huge the campus was,” says Lederer, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. “It was like no one was checking up on me. I felt my fate was in my own hands.” A purveyor of spare, erotic poetry who speaks at a triple-espresso pace Lederer is author of two collections, Winter Sex and Music, No Staves, she first discovered the joys of rhyme and reason in a Cal course with former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass. But it was English professor Lyn Hejinian who prompted the young undergrad to pursue her poetic potential. “She has a highly developed, aesthetic way of looking at poetry,” Lederer says of Hejinian. “She was so supportive and available. Working with her was an incredibly rich experience.” In addition to her own work, Lederer publishes fellow poets in a limited edition series of chapbooks for Brooklyn-based Spectacular Books; longtime friend and Cal comparative literature Ph.D. student Dave Larsen block-prints the covers by hand. She’s also editor of Explosive, a magazine of modern poetry. But Lederer’s most recent literary venture, the memoir Poker Face, hardly follows suit. The third child of a word-obsessed grammarian father and a Scotch-soaked, solitaire-playing mother, Lederer grew up in the midst of a troubled marriage, bad puns, and two siblings with a penchant for high-stakes poker. Lederer’s brother Howard now indulges his thirst for gambling in the casinos of Las Vegas, where he’s made a life--and millions--as a professional gambler. Her sister, Annie Duke, whom Lederer calls “preternaturally vicious,” plays a mean game of no-limit Texas Hold-’em, too, and has often reached the final table in the World Series of Poker. Though she’s not as nimble with numbers as her card-shark brother and sister, Katy Lederer shares their knack for sizing up human behavior. It’s a talent that serves her well in her day job, recruiting mathematicians at a New York-based proprietary trading firm that focuses on the economic implications of technological innovation. Rubbing elbows with the stocks-and-bonds crowd has led Lederer to observe: “It has a game-like atmosphere I find very interesting,” and has provided inspiration for her latest project, a non-fiction novel based in the New York financial world--a reality as cold and calculating as the realm of high-stakes poker. --Alison Block A matter of faith The college years are a time of growth and change for everyone, but for Claire Zellman ’01, the transformation was great. In 1999, while on leave from Berkeley, Claire transitioned into Reuben. Earlier this year, Zellman made headlines in the world of Judaism when he became the first transgendered person to be accepted to rabbinical school. Zellman had not been very involved in Jewish life on the Berkeley campus, but as a freshman was part of a Berkeley Hillel delegation that traveled to Alabama during spring break to rebuild an African-American church destroyed by arson. “As Jews, we are mandated to perform mitzvot (good deeds),” Zellman told the Daily Californian in 1997. “Furthermore, as a people who have historically been persecuted, Jews have an obligation to not let what happened to us happen to other people.” He began attending regular services at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a queer-identified San Francisco synagogue. “The people at Sha’ar Zahav saw something in me that I didn’t know was there,” he says. They began encouraging him to serve on committees and also to pursue his musical interests--support he had never received as a woman. Zellman began singing as a tenor during the High Holy days and fell in love with Jewish music; he even considered becoming a cantor. But, because of his interest in pastoral counseling, he decided to apply to rabbinical school. Although the school was part of the Jewish “Reform movement,” which has accepted gay and lesbian rabbis for over a decade, he was the first transgendered person to apply. “I thought it could be a problem,” said the Los Angeles native. “No one had done it before, so I had no idea what would happen.” He is now in his first year of studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. It is also Zellman’s first time in Israel, but he says he is coping well with the uncertainties of life there. “Trans people, like many other oppressed groups, are accustomed to living with a certain degree of danger. I learned a long time ago that life and safety can’t be taken for granted.” Although he recognizes that he could have problems being accepted by some in his future congregation, Zellman believes that his experience as a transgender person will make him a good rabbi. “I hope I’ve learned some things about living through big changes, making big decisions, and struggling against different kinds of prejudice,” he says. The rabbi-to-be also acknowledged that his trailblazing path will surely be a curiosity for many. “There’s a reason this topic is one of Jerry Springer’s favorites,” he said. “I think people are always a little disappointed to learn how boring I really am.” --Alexandra J. Wall
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