This landmark gathering moderated by Cheryl Clarke will discuss the contributions of black lesbian writers to the print and publishing economy of the Women in Print movement from 1969-1990. The late Minnie Bruce Pratt once said that lesbians “see” from the edge, because in the 1980’s we were still largely invisible to the world and often to each other. And so, while we were invisible, we still saw the world and each other and wrote and published for each other. Black lesbians no less.

Publications like ONYX, BLACK LESBIAN NEWSLETTER, ACHE, AZALEA, THE GAYZETTE, published, beginning in the early 1980’s, were keys to communication among black lesbian communities and tools to building an expressive culture of and for black lesbians. Although these periodicals all were based in US coastal cities, they had national and international readerships.

Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press published four crucial collections of writing in the U.S., e.g., NARRATIVES: POEMS IN THE TRADITION OF BLACK WOMEN in 1982, CUENTOS: STORIES BY LATINAS, HOME GIRLS: BLACK FEMINIST ANTHOLOGY, second printing of THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK: WRITINGS BY RADICAL WOMEN OF COLOR, which caused many more independent press collections of writings by Black, Latina, Asian, Native American lesbians. However, Black Lesbian writers, publishers, and editors opened the field for many women of color and feminist ventures in independent publishing.

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Cheryl Clarke, Alexis De Veaux, Jewelle Gomez and Briona Simone Jones will speak from their experiences of publishing journals, magazines, newsletters, and books; of publishing Black lesbian/queer writers; and of controlling the means of producing our own work.

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