On Amazon Women and Sinister Wisdom
The first cover of the Sinister Wisdom literary and arts journal, now celebrating its 50th anniversary (submitted)
When Amazon Bookstore started on a front porch in Minneapolis in 1970, there was “almost nothing written” in the landscape of feminist literature. Even organizing readings of women’s poetry was radical, according to former bookstore employee Barb Weiser. The store’s vision was to make available what lesbians and feminist presses were creating. This included books, of course, as well as women’s music, jewelry, and cards.
Amazon Bookstore was not alone in this goal. It was woven into the tapestry of bookstores, publishers, and writers that made up the movement of women in print (WIP).
The WIP movement began in earnest in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the establishment of hundreds of feminist periodicals. It aimed to create independent networks of communication by and for women. Although it has diminished over the years, individuals and organizations today work to carry on its legacy.
For decades, Amazon Bookstore was an institution in the lives of Twin Cities lesbians. In addition to amplifying women’s work, the shop served as a physical space that women could walk into every day to find safety and community.
“It was a place where women knew they could come and be very welcome, and if they were lesbian, they could maybe find other lesbians or work written by lesbians,” Weiser says. “So many times I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘It just saved my life [when I was] coming to town.’”
In 1999, Amazon Bookstore sued Amazon.com for their name. Jeff Bezos’s creation, while not yet the behemoth it is today, had started having an outsized presence at book fairs. Small booksellers were upset, and Amazon Bookstore was getting calls from people thinking the shop was Amazon.com. The bookstore was unsuccessful in the lawsuit.
“Everyone I know in the publishing world — authors, small presses — hates Amazon[.com] because of how they’re treated [by Amazon.com],” Weiser says. “And they have no recourse. [Amazon.com has] so much power now.”
The rise of Amazon.com was not the first massive industry shift that independent bookstores have faced. Chain booksellers like Barnes and Noble, then the internet, and then Amazon.com have set prices so low that smaller shops often cannot compete, Weiser says.
Amazon Bookstore held out for a while. However, by 2008, running a bookstore had become a financial battle that Weiser and her colleagues were tired of fighting. They sold the shop to Ruta Skujins, who ran it as True Colors Bookstore until 2012.
To Weiser, the WIP movement “hardly exists now.” The number of feminist bookstores has drastically fallen, as has the role that these spaces hold in queer communities.
At the same time, some of the organizations that came out of the movement have survived.
A 50-Year-Old Lesbian Literary Journal
One such publication, the lesbian literary and art journal Sinister Wisdom, is ringing in its 50th anniversary this year. In Minneapolis, community members gathered in a celebration and fundraiser for the journal on June 3.
“What is happening with this journal, and has happened since 1976, is really important,” says Judith Katz, a Sinister Wisdom board member and Minneapolis resident. Current Sinister Wisdom editor Julie Enszer is “carrying on a tradition that started even before us. People were publishing either covert or overt lesbian stories, or even pornography, or scary paperbacks of the ’50s and ’60s. She’s making sure that we don’t become invisible. It’s important that [we] support it, because the journal has been supporting us.”
To Katz, Sinister Wisdom has survived to see this milestone through a combination of money and dogged determination to fulfill the journal’s vision. She defined this vision as preserving and elevating the past, making the present happen, and looking towards a future where today’s younger lesbians run the journal their own way.
In addition to publishing new work, Sinister Wisdom republishes what it calls Sapphic Classics, hosts virtual and in-person events, and archives queer history, adapting to fit the current moment.
Against the backdrop of book bans and transphobic governments, Weiser’s hope for feminist and queer writers is that they are able to keep publishing. But she is worried.
“It’s scary right now,” Weiser says. “But the future of our world is to be more and more open to the possibilities of who people can be.”
The history of published lesbian writing goes back nearly 80 years. When The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall, was published in 1928, it broke new ground. For decades, it was the most well-known novel by a lesbian about a woman loving another woman.
The book was promptly banned in the U.K. until 1949 because it defended “unnatural practices between women.” The novel’s only sex scene was far from steamy and consisted of the words: “and that night, they were not divided.”
The publication of the book in New York prompted a court case. By the time the case came to trial, the novel — which sold over 100,000 copies its first year — was in its sixth edition. Fifty years later, the book that critics panned is still selling 100,000 copies a year in the U.S. alone.
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