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Naiad Press

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Naiad Press
StatusDefunct
Founded1973
FounderBarbara Grier, Anyda Marchant, Donna McBride, Muriel Crawford
SuccessorBella Books
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationTallahassee, Florida
Key peopleBarbara Grier and Donna McBride, Publishers
Publication typesBooks
Fiction genresLesbian fiction
No. of employees6
Official websitewww.naiadpress.com

Naiad Press (1973–2003) was an American publishing company, one of the first dedicated to lesbian literature, and an early leader in the women in print movement during second-wave feminism. At its closing it was the oldest and largest lesbian/feminist publisher in the world.

History

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Naiad Press was founded by partners Barbara Grier and Donna McBride in January 1973, along with Anyda Marchant and Muriel Crawford. It was devoted exclusively to lesbian literature. At the time, the women in print movement was an effort by women's liberationists to establish alternative, autonomous communication networks created by and for women, including feminist periodicals, feminist bookstores, and women's presses like Naiad.

The company began in Reno, Nevada before moving to Kansas City, Missouri, and finally Tallahassee, Florida in 1979.[1] The business began with $2000, provided by the author of the Press's first work, The Latecomer by Sarah Aldridge, the pen name of lawyer Anyda Marchant, and her partner Muriel Crawford.[2]

In 1973, there were few bookstores which would carry such overtly lesbian materials, so Naiad Press relied heavily on mail order in order to market and sell books. Naiad benefitted from its use of the 3800-member mailing list of The Ladder, a prominent and recently defunct lesbian newsletter published by the Daughters of Bilitis. "Naiad's commitment to the publication of lesbian material included the use of its profits from one book to produce the next".[3]

In its first decade, Naiad remained a small operation with a modest budget compared to better-funded competitors like Daughters, Inc. While other feminist presses like Daughters, Inc. (led by June Arnold) cultivated an experimental aesthetic aimed at artistic women living in New York City, Naiad sought to cultivate working and middle class audiences in rural and Midwestern areas. Therefore, much of their cataloged consisted of pulp novels and other genre fiction that was widely denigrated as "trash." Ever since her tenure as book reviewer for The Ladder, Barbara Grier had believed that these novels served an important purpose of cultivating lesbian identity and community for isolated and closeted women, regardless of their literary merit.[1]

Many other feminist publishers associated with the women in print movement operated as collectives, with non-hierarchical decision making, a reliance on volunteer and amateur labor, and a distaste for mainstream publishers, commercial interests, and traditional marketing strategies. Conversely, Naiad operated much like a traditional press, with paid staff, a hierarchical structure, and conventional marketing strategies.[1][4]

In addition to original writings, Naiad published out-of-print lesbian fiction, such as novels of Ann Bannon, Jane Rule and Gale Wilhelm and acquired rights and brought back into print poetry by Gertrude Stein and translations of poetry by Renee Vivien. Early book covers were designed by Tee Corinne. Naiad was credited with playing "a crucial role in bringing lesbian mysteries into prominence in the 1980s[5]" by publishing award-winning series featuring detectives Kate Delafield, Carol Ashton, Caitlin Reece, Virginia Kelley and others.

Authors Sarah Schulman and Patrick Califia were first published by Naiad Press. Its genre fiction authors included prolific and award-winning writers such as Katherine V. Forrest, Claire McNab and Karin Kallmaker.

Naiad achieved national prominence in 1985 with its publication of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence. The book was banned in Boston.[6] The press also published other nonfiction work, such as The Lesbian Periodical Index, The Lesbian in Literature, and Staying Power: Long-Term Lesbian Couples.[7]

In 2002, Grier and McBride received the Pioneer Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation. On their retirement in 2003, Grier and McBride sold their current stock to Bella Books. Many Naiad Press authors transferred their contracts to Bella Books.

The Naiad Press Collection at Gay and Lesbian Center of the SFPL

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In 1992, Grier established the Naiad Press Collection at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center of the San Francisco Public Library,[8] completing delivery of their massive collection of memorabilia, lesbian and gay literature, including many classic lesbian pulp fiction titles in 1998. Correspondence in the collection includes exchanges with contracted authors as well as other literary luminaries and influences such as Dorothy Allison, Rita Mae Brown, Nancy Berreano of publishing houses Crossing and Firebrand, Andrea Dworkin, Audre Lorde, Sherry Thomas of Old Wives Tales feminist bookstore and Spinsters Ink, and background material on the establishment of the Women in Print Conferences which began in 1976 and are widely credited with creating the Feminist Bookstore Network.[citation needed]

Clothing, banners, posters, T-shirts and scrapbooks comprise the memorabilia in the collection. Extensive audio recordings made of interviews and news programs over the press's history are also in the collection. The San Francisco Public Library History Center holds the considerable collection of archival photographs of lesbian and gay literary figures.[citation needed]

Notable authors

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ a b c Harker, Jaime (2018). The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 17–51. ISBN 9781469643359.
  2. ^ Anyda Marchant; Author, Publisher - washingtonpost.com
  3. ^ Biography and Corporate History, The Naiad Press Collection. Collection GLC30, San Francisco Public Library
  4. ^ Klinger, Alisa (1995). Paper Uprisings: Print Activism in the Multicultural Lesbian Movement (PhD thesis). University of California Berkeley. p. 62. ISBN 9798208218761.
  5. ^ Priestman, Martin. Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, Cambridge University Press, p. 200-01.
  6. ^ The Naiad Press Collection, Collection GLC30, San Francisco Public Library
  7. ^ According to an August 25, 1986 letter from Nancy Manahan, editor of the anthology Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, addressed to "Dear Contributors," she writes: "With Naiad's August 1986 check, I can begin compensating myself for my time during the past five years and send each of you a check....I want to start paying myself. I used most of my savings during the year I was on the road, drawing no salary, still paying rent, upkeep, utilities, auto and medical insurance, estimated taxes, food, clothes, books and all the other little costs of living." It seems unlikely that Manahan and Curb received an advance in the neighborhood of $500,000. (This is in reference to footnote 5.)
  8. ^ The Naiad Press Collection, Collection GLC30, San Francisco Public Library

Further reading

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