Feminist Bookstore News |
Aunt Lute Books |
"Feminist Bookstore News" began in 1976 in San Francisco as a way to share information among the informal network of feminist bookstores across the country. One of the goals was to build a communications network based on "cooperation rather than competition." Issues would feature information on small press books, foreign press, book lists on specific subjects, news about bookstores, trouble with publishers and distributors, outreach programs, etc. The first issue was a six page mimeographed stapled newsletter featuring seven "hot new books," a list of feminist books in Spanish for women and children, new bookstores and was put together by Carol Seajay, co-owner of Old Wives Tale Bookstore in SF and who later became its sole editor and publisher and Andre of Rising Woman Books in Santa Rosa. Only feminist bookstores could subscribe at the beginning but later subscriptions were open to feminist printers, publishers, distributors, and periodicals. Although begun as a newsletter, it later expanded into a bi-monthly magazine that reached over 500 feminist and feminist-included bookstores in the US and Canada as well as Europe and elsewhere. It was a widely read and influential periodical well known for its breath of information and its analysis. In addition, it provided a community-in-print for publishers, editors, writers, and librarians as well as booksellers. After twenty-five years of serving as a "place of recognition, acknowledgement, and encouragement" as well a tool for information that women could use to bring about social change, FBN closed down in 2000. The archives are now located at the San Francisco Public Library. |