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Bored With The Mainstream?
Seven niche feminist publishers each describe their unique focus. Browse their on-line catalogues and find many a great read. Check out their guidelines to find a home for your own story about being woman.
Aunt Lute Books
The Aunt Lute Foundation is an educational non-profit that was founded on the premise that literature -- primarily short stories, novels and plays -- is an important cultural vehicle for all communities. Aunt Lute Books is the foundation's major work -- a multicultural women's press that has published diverse women's voices for over twenty years. Each of our books emerges out of and reflects contemporary issues for minority and/or immigrant women as these issues manifest in women's own lives and communities -- from the 1987 groundbreaking Chicana text Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa (included in Library Journal's "25 Most Influential Books," Hungry Mind's "Best 100 Books of the Century" and Utne Reader's "Ten Most Important Books") to last year's novel Shell Shaker by Choctaw author LeAnne Howe, which won a 2002 American Book Award. In addition Aunt Lute has published the first U.S. collection of Filipina/Filipina American women writers, the first collection of Southeast Asian women writers, and has brought numerous translated texts -- including writing by Bosnian women refugees -- to U.S. audiences.
Our staff is knowledgeable and committed, with little turnover and, like the Aunt Lute Board, reflects the diversity of the communities we serve. Respect for our work is evidenced in the awards we've received and the variety of granting bodies that have funded us. But our major reward is hearing from the women whose lives have been changed -- literally -- by the books we publish.
Chicory Blue Press
Chicory Blue Press is a small, feminist, literary press, now focusing on the strong voices of women over sixty. Founded in 1987, Chicory Blue Press has published six trade paperbacks and twelve chapbooks.
I publish older women writers because I need company. I have always believed that how we imagine our lives, how we make meaning of living, comes largely from literature. The older I get -- I'm 68 -- the more I find myself seeking older women writers to tell me about myself. I am still acutely aware of how skewed my understanding of myself was in the years of growing up, entering womanhood, married life, motherhood, when there were not many writers in whose work the texture of my life, my feelings, my side of the story as a woman had been transformed by the imagination. At this stage of my journey through life, I feel alone, again in a largely unimagined world. I need to read what is written from the perspective of older women so I can imagine myself part of a varied, vital community, not as an anonymous, marginalized, stereotyped "senior." But there are not enough of us. From the point of view of age and gender, we are the most underrepresented among published writers; older women writers from minority cultures are even scarcer. I publish older women writers because we are in short supply.
New Moon Publishing
Celebrating our 10-year anniversary, New Moon Publishing produces media for every girl who wants her voice heard and her dreams taken seriously and for every adult who cares about girls.
What started as a publishing house for New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams has since developed into a multi-faceted company which produces a series of books, a tv show, Daughters' Newsletter for Parents of Girls, and a full on-line store that specializes in providing empowering , multi-cultural gifts for girls and women.
New Moon is also very proud of the resources we have made available to the community including workshops on a variety of girls and women's issues as well as free curriculum for teachers and others who work with girls.
The New Moon® book series was released by Crown Publishing in 1999. The first four titles are Friendship; Sports; Money, Power and Independence; and Writing. The Girls Book Editorial Board communicated through e-mail across the U.S. to create this series of nonfiction books. Girl editor Caitlin Stern says, "Every girl will find something in them that applies to her life." The books include writing by girls, problems and solutions, resources, and ideas for a wide range of activities.
Odd Girls Press
We publish feminist and lesbian books in all genres: fiction, science fiction, mystery, historical fiction, poetry, and drama. We publish nonfiction books such as bibliographies and biographies and we are currently accepting other types of nonfiction as submissions.
Persephone Books
Persephone Books was founded by Nicola Beauman, the author of A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39 (1983, 1989, 1995, now out of print but a few copies are available from Persephone Books).
Persephone prints mainly forgotten fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. The titles are chosen to appeal to busy women who rarely have time to spend in ever-larger bookshops and who would like to have access to a list of books designed to be neither too literary nor too commercial. The books are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget.
Our titles include novels, short stories, diaries and cookery books. They are all carefully designed with a clear typeface, a 'fabric' endpaper and bookmark, and a preface by writers such as PD James and Jacqueline Wilson. Each one in our collection of 38 books is 'intelligent and beautifully written', and most are ideal presents or a good choice for reading groups.
Spinsters Ink
"I'm no longer afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my own ship." ~ Louisa May Alcott
Spinsters Ink books are about and by women who are learning how to sail their own ships, discover new seas, design new systems, and forge new ways of living. They may even seek new worlds! See our recent release, Nin, by Cass Dalglish
We publish the stories of women's lives. The women don't have to be famous, perfect, or conform to society. Our stories challenge the imagination, touch the senses, pique the curiosity and push the envelope, delving into the lives of women, their past, present and future. We wish to encompass all women's voices, at all ages, from many perspectives and experiences.
Our logo, the spinning wheel, represents the act of producing yarns. Yarns are also stories. Spinsters Ink shares women's "yarns" with our readers. Read our books, the personal stories, the mysteries, the adventure, the history and the fantasy. Share them with your friends, daughters, neighbors, co-workers, etc. and keep coming back for more! Let us hear from you -- what you like, dislike, want to read more of, and about how our books affect your life.
Spinsters Ink is primarily interested in full-length novels and nonfiction works that deal with significant issues in women's lives from a feminist prospective: books that not only name crucial issues in women's lives, but_more importantly_encourage change and growth. We are particularly interested in creative works by women writing from the periphery: fat women, Jewish women, lesbians, old women, women examining classism, women of color, women with disabilities, women who are writing books that help make the best in our lives possible. We want well-told stories that exhibit fine writing, are lively and engaging, and treat our lives with the honesty and complexity they deserve. The main characters and/or narrators must be women.
Sumach Press
Sumach Press, a women-owned and -operated Canadian publisher, looks forward to our fourth year of bringing readers exciting new titles. With fresh direction and a creative publishing vision, our aim is to promote collaborative relationships with authors, readers and all those we deal with in the world of books.
Building on the success of the Women's Issues Publishing Program, we will continue to publish dynamic feminist titles that explore the role of women and the social and political issues affecting them. Sumach Press titles document women's redefinitions of a more humane and equitable society on questions of race, gender and class. We aim to publish writing that shakes us out of our complacencies, writing that explores current scholarship as well as grassroots activism on subjects as diverse as health, history, politics and sexuality. We are eager to promote a diversity of voices and opinion.
Literary fiction is another genre we intend to expand at Sumach Press. The contemporary Canadian writing scene is flourishing, with many exciting and critical writers emerging. We hope to set our experience and abilities to the task of bringing their words to readers, both adult and young adult. As publishers, we are committed to producing beautifully designed and well-written books. At a time when the publishing world and booksellers are facing unprecedented changes, we also intend to meet the challenge of reaching our audience through active and innovative marketing.
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