Publishers Weekly, the trade magazine for the book industry in the US, published an article "How Women Keep Reinventing Independent Publishing" about Prof. Stephanie Anderson's interview book Women in Independent Publishing: A History of Unsung Innovators, 1953–1989 (University of New Mexico Press).
Prof. Stephanie Anderson
Women in Independent Publishing: A History of Unsung Innovators, 1953–1989
Original Text:
When scholar Stephanie Anderson interviewed poet Alice Notley in 2010, she was surprised to learn that no one had ever asked Notley about her work as an editor and publisher. In addition to writing poetry, Notley had presided over several literary magazines and a small press, Unimproved Editions, in the 1970s and ’80s, and Anderson was apparently the first to take a scholarly interest in that work. Eager to preserve this piece of publishing history, she set off to uncover and record the stories of other women small press editors from Notley’s era, which coincided with both the rise of second-wave feminism and the mimeograph revolution, an explosion of noncommercial literary publishing—particularly of poetry—made possible by the Xerox’s low-cost predecessor.
From 2010 to 2023, Anderson interviewed 25 trailblazing women and nonbinary editors and publishers who helped shape the small press landscape from the 1950s through the 1980s. The result is Women in Independent Publishing: A History of Unsung Innovators, 1953–1989, an intimate yet thorough oral history that includes interviews with such editors and publishers as Lee Ann Brown of Tender Buttons Press, Lindy Hough of North Atlantic Books, Bernadette Mayer of United Artists Books, and C.D. Wright of Long Roads Press, all of whom injected new voices and perspectives into the literary landscape and approached the publishing process on their own terms.
The presses highlighted in the book constituted what Anderson calls “a feisty counterculture” of feminist, lesbian, and Black presses publishing formally experimental and politically radical works. They were often based outside the publishing hub of New York City and housed “in unexpected places, like apartment kitchens and church basements,” where books and zines were often collated and stitched by hand. While traditional printing spaces had what Anderson called a “history of sexist exclusion,” the mimeograph made the production process widely accessible, leading to a boom in women-helmed small presses.
“The indie space shows us possibilities for success in a context where commercial success is not the primary motivation,” Anderson said. “Women and nonbinary people often, by socialization and by necessity, have nonmainstream views of success and power.” She noted that for many women and other marginalized publishers, in years past and the present day, small press publishing “provides more opportunities to build something new than to try to play a game that’s rigged.”
This sentiment still rings true for many small presses, even though contemporary publishing includes many more women. According to PW’s 2024 industry report, women comprise 79% of publishing employees—quite the leap from 43% in 1962. In fact, between 1963 and 1968 alone, women’s employment in the book industry increased 41%—an astounding stat that PW reported in the 1971 story “The Rise of Women in Publishing.” Though most of these roles were clerical, women soon ascended to the highest ranks at publishers of all sizes. But it’s in the world of small press publishing that women have historically forged their own opportunities to run the show.
Today, indie publishing has long grown past the mimeograph, but the collaborative and countercultural ethos that first drove women to embrace small press publishing in the midcentury continues to inspire. “I think women—and other individuals who have been historically
marginalized—are drawn to independent publishing because it’s a more caring and democratic landscape,” said Carey Salerno, publisher of the poetry press Alice James Books, founded in 1973. Diane Goettel, executive editor of Mount Vernon, N.Y.–based Black Lawrence Press, has a similar sense. “The small press world is a place where women can thrive, both authors and editors alike,” she said. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we publish—and are steeped in—books and ideas that challenge power structures.”
Meg Reid of the Spartanburg, S.C.–based Hub City Press, which turns 30 this year, was “drawn to the creativity and collaboration you find at indie publishers,” and suspects many other women are too.
Barbara Epler, president and publisher of New Directions, agreed. “I really don’t want to sound as if I’m suggesting we should all be den mothers, but there’s a lot of care-taking with a small publishing house, from the authors to the employees to the finances: you have to be part talent scout, part friend, part shrink, part sounding board, part banker, and part constable,” she said. “It seems to me that, for better or worse, women are trained up to be collaborative.”
Michelle Dotter, publisher and editor-in-chief of Ann Arbor, Mich.–based Dzanc Books, has yet another theory about why so many small presses are run by women. “Is it too cynical to say, because there’s less money and power involved?” she said. “Sincerely, I think it’s partly that, and partly that the Big Five hasn’t always made space for women in the top ranks.”
Publishing has grown more corporate and consolidated in the decades following the era covered in Women in Independent Publishing, which has made it harder for indies to survive. Dotter acknowledged that small press publishing can be “heartbreaking work sometimes, because you have to do it knowing most of the books you publish will never be more than a blip on the industry’s radar.” But Anderson also credits “short-run digital printing and improved print-on-demand technologies” with an increased number of “independent, writer-run book presses” in the last two decades. Several of the small presses highlighted in the book—including Kelsey Street, founded in 1974; Lost Roads, founded in 1977; and Tender Buttons, founded in 1989—are still in operation, which Anderson chalks up to the fact that “they embraced collective models” over the hierarchical ones replicated by most other publishers.
Staying small has other advantages. “Corporate houses tend to try to copy successes,” Epler said. “The independents usually first locate the really new voices.” And indies often pride themselves on their ability to be nimble, take risks, and enjoy more freedom and autonomy, editorial and otherwise. “I’m mindful not to confuse Big Five goals with indie goals,” Salerno said, “because they are not—nor should they ever be—the same thing.”
Like the scrappy, radical presses that cropped up amid the social and political upheaval of the ’60s and ’70s, most of today’s indie publishers feel they have a special responsibility amid our current cultural moment as free speech and arts funding come under threat. Reid argued that, while corporate publishers “will quickly bend to the pressures of shifting political landscapes,” indies can challenge a “monoculture of ideas” both with their titles and their operational structures. “We have to resist the tendency toward anticipatory capitulation, censoring ourselves to stay out of trouble,” Dotter said. “We have to keep publishing books with teeth.”
At the heart of small press publishing, Anderson said, is “a beautiful and necessary contradiction”: “On one hand, you have to have the sense that you are starting something new. On the other hand, you get a great deal of inspiration from predecessors—their stories give you new ideas and encourage you to pay attention to what they made.”
Women running indie presses today emphasized the importance of knowing and preserving the history of their forebears in order to lay the groundwork for indie publishing’s future. Casey Plett, publisher of the New York–based, trans women–run indie LittlePuss Press, cited “those good ol’ feminist publishers of yore” Firebrand Books, Naiad Press, and Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as examples of “how to create something despite obstacles.” Plett also credits the mentorship of Feminist Press senior editor and Instar Books publisher Jeanne Thornton, a champion of trans fiction, as formative in her own publishing career.
Notably, some of the publishers PW talked with shouted out one another as inspirations. Reid, for example, counts herself as an admirer of both Epler’s tenure at New Directions and Plett’s work at LittlePuss. “When I think about the women publishers I admire, so many of them saw a lack in our literary culture and decided to fix it,” Reid said of both her predecessors and contemporaries. “They battled the urge for relentless growth and instead focused on sustainability and care for their authors and the work. Knowing that inspires everything I do.”