Women in Independent Publishing
Women in Independent Publishing
A History of Unsung Innovators, 1953-1989
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. These interviews illuminate the unifying and diverging elements between multiple publishing “scenes” and reveal their particularities and commonalities. 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.
“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
Acknowledgements
A Note on Interview Format and Transcription
Introduction. “It’s Only Vanity if It’s Not Good”: Daisy Aldan and Women Midcentury Small Press Publishers
The Interviews
Hettie Jones on Yugen
Rosmarie Waldrop on Burning Deck and Burning Deck Press
Margaret Randall on El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn
Lindy Hough on Io and North Atlantic Books, Interviewed by Zainab Farooqui and Tess Redman
Bernadette Mayer on 0 TO 9, United Artists, andUnited Artists Books
Susan Sherman on IKON
Maureen Owen on Telephone and Telephone Books
Renee Tajima-Peña on Bridge
Maxine Chernoff on Oink! And New American Writing
Alice Notley on CHICAGO
Jaime Robles on Five Trees Press
Barbara Barg and Rose Lesniak on Out There, Power Mad Press, and Out There Productions
Rena Rosenwasser and Patricia Dienstfrey on Kelsey Street Press
Patricia Spears Jones on W. B., Ordinary Women, and the Heresies Collective
Martha King on Two and Two Chapbooks and Giants Play Well in the Drizzle
C. D. Wright on Lost Roads Press
Eileen Myles on dodgems
Deborah Costello and Lisa Kellman on Black Oyster Press
Barbara Smith on Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press
Joanne Kyger on Bolinas Hearsay News
Lisbet Tellefsen on Aché: A Journal for Black Lesbians
Lee Ann Brown on Tender Buttons Press
Afterword
MC Hyland
Resources
Additional Selected Women Editors and Publishers
List of Selected Small Presses and Publications with Women and Non-Binary Editors and Publishers, 1950s–80s
Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
