Women in Independent Publishing
A History of Unsung Innovators, 1953-1989
“Book artists will find in this work fascinating details about the publishing process, but every reader will be moved by the personal energy that drove these women to become publishers and the powerful network of friends and community that they helped to create.”—Terence Diggory, author of Encyclopedia of New York School Poets
Women in Independent Publishing is a collection of interviews with and resources about women actively engaged in small-press publishing between the 1950s and the 1980s. The interviewees include Hettie Jones, Margaret Randall, Bernadette Mayer, and many others.
The scope and range of the interviews showcase a variety of types of publishing possible within the small press community. The book is arranged chronologically by publication for this purpose. Women in Independent Publishing is a timely and urgent documentation of literary history and reveals and celebrates the multifaceted roles of women editors and publishers and the communities they built.
The book includes a critical introduction, an afterword by contemporary small-press publisher M. C. Hyland and a robust resources section that provides further paths for reading and literary recovery.
Stephanie Anderson is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at Duke Kunshan University in China. She is the author of three books of poetry and the coeditor of All This Thinking: The Correspondence of Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge (UNM Press).