Here's a few of the messages we've received recently from our celebrity lesbian friends. Get us!

Now we are five:Stella Duffy and Val McDermid (courtesy of YLAF)

We are partnered but not married,

we are school-age but not yet shining in the universities,

we are writing yet hardly ever starring,

we are stagemanaging but rarely directing,

we are L-Worded but not yet British screen,

we are here and there but not everywhere,

we are out - but not all of us.

Velvet patron, Stella Duffy, marking our fifth birthday, 2009

Yey, we're both 5 years old. I'm seeing a party with balloons and sweeties and fairy cakes and pin the tail/tale on the donkey and stuff. May we all keep growing and getting stronger.

Chroma Literary Journal, marking our joint fifth birthday, 2009

Sarah Waters (courtesy of www.sarahwaters.com)Happy Birthday Velvet! It's been five glorious years. Here's to the next five - and beyond! Sarah xxx

Sarah Waters

 With a literary bug we have been bittenClare Summerskill (courtesy of www.claresummerskill.co.uk)

And when you think of all the lesbians who've written

Such amazing works, we need

A place to publish and to read

And so with Velvet Magazine

we all are smitten.

Happy 5th Birthday!

Clare Summerskill

Shelley Silas (courtesy of David Higham Associates)Lovely piece in Velvet. Thank you! Hugely delighted. Shelley

Shelley Silas, author of I am Emma Humphreys to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 25th September 2009 at 9pm