THE WOMEN’S PRESS : A STATEMENT BY KATHY GALE, PUBLISHING DIRECTOR AND SUBSEQUENTLY JOINT MANAGING DIRECTOR 1991-1999

THE WOMEN’S PRESS EARLY YEARS

Stephanie Dowrick founded The Women’s Press in 1977, and the first books were published in February 1978.  Stephanie is, in my experience of her and my analysis of her contribution, one of those rare visionaries in life; a woman with enormous flair who can have a wild dream and make it happen.

In the early years of The Women’s Press, she brought her flair and previous high-level publishing experience and contacts in both the UK and the USA to the publication of an extraordinary array of successful authors who changed the world for many women. 

These writers included Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Lisa Alther, Kate Chopin, Marge Piercy, Angela Davis, Michèle Roberts, Michèle Barrett (collecting the feminist writings of Virginia Woolf for the first time), Louise Bernikow, Janet Frame, Lucy Goodison, Gillian Perry (the first-ever monograph on Paula Modersohn-Becker), Sheila Ernst, Joanna Ryan, Flannery O’Conner, Shulamith Firestone, Susan Griffin, Rozsika Parker, Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Dale Spender, May Sarton, Joan Barfoot and Rosalie Bertell. 

In 1980 Stephanie founded The Women’s Press Book Club to provide bread-and-butter income to anchor the more financially precarious publishing of brand-new books. This was not only a new outlet for Women’s Press authors and books, it also bought in other publishers’ works by women, expanding the market for women writers and providing The Women’s Press with a vitally important additional income stream.  And the Book Club both expanded and enhanced our crucial brand recognition.

By the time Stephanie left London to visit Australia in 1982, then to live there from 1983, The Women’s Press was established as a force in British publishing, as well as within and well beyond the women’s movement.

It was loved and respected by women worldwide and was simultaneously shining a light on inequality and injustice, recognising women’s struggles and supporting them, and providing exciting and new ideas, thereby empowering change. 

The Women’s Press had put out into the world a literature that was not only transforming the landscape for women writers through its demonstration of proven demand and success but was actively changing the world women lived in for the better. 

Whether Stephanie was living in the UK, Australia, or visiting her native New Zealand, as director and co-owner as well as founder, until 1985/6 she was actively involved in the political aims and publishing viability of The Women’s Press, taking a strong interest in sales and marketing throughout ANZ, and most especially editorial and management matters – especially though not exclusively in relation to the authors she had initially contracted. (She was later as involved from 1991 onwards.)

THE SECOND PHASE

Ros de Lanerolle was appointed Managing Director in 1981, taking up her post from late 1981 with close support from Stephanie until around 1985 when Stephanie reduced her involvement due to personal circumstances as a parent and writer.

Ros’s vision was, first and foremost, political.  Distinctive of her time at The Women’s Press was the number of black and Asian women writers she published, making many unpublished women’s voices available to readers for the first time.  Those newer authors joined a list distinguished by Stephanie’s early publishing of Patricia Grace, Yuan-Tsung Chen, Toni Cade Bambara, and Alice Walker’s Meridien and You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, among others. 

Ros published Joan Riley’s The Unbelonging, the first book by a black British writer to depict the cold, harsh post-colonial experience in Britain for black British women and girls.  The Unbelonging was adopted on courses across the UK and widely read, remaining in print for years.

There were many books of powerful political significance, from sexual politics to race to disability, notably Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ellen Kuzwayo’s Call Me Woman, Nawal El Sa’adawi’s Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, Jenny Morris’ Able Lives and Lillian Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Men.

Fiction included the much-loved Caeia March, literary novelist Stevie Davies, the esteemed Merle Collins, and several successful anthologies, including lesbian short stories Girls Next Door edited by Jan Bradshaw and Mary Hemming, and Reader, I Murdered Him edited by Jen Green.  I always felt they had a particular flare for titles in that era. We were to go on to publish, edited by Helen Windrath, Reader, I Murdered Him, Too.

Ros’s team published a successful crime fiction series (many lesbian detectives!), and a feminist science fiction series.  Major bestselling Scottish crime writer, Val McDermid, was first published by The Women’s Press at that time.

 Mary Wings, too, stays in the memory – She Came in a Flash! She Came Too Late! published in bright pulp fiction jackets had to raise a smile.  And raising a smile was important in the kind of world women and especially lesbian women lived in during the 1980s and 90s. 

PHASE THREE

When I came to The Women’s Press in 1991, I joined Sales Director Mary Hemming, a woman with considerable radical and feminist book sales experience. She had repped [sold to bookshops]feminist and radical books across Scotland, and founded and co-ran Scottish and Northern Book Distribution, subsequently Bookspeed, which remains one of the leading book distributors in Britain today. 

Mary was the longest-serving member of The Women’s Press, joining in 1983 and working with extraordinary dedication and commitment for sixteen years. 

Stephanie Dowrick had known Mary earlier through women’s liberation politics, and says of her, “Mary Hemming gave unstintingly of herself for what she believed in. Her dedication to the politics of both the women’s and gay liberation movements was matched only by a capacity for hard work that I deeply and consistently appreciated. She also had a dry sense of humour that was needed – and disarming! Publishing is a profession as well as an ‘industry’. Like Kathy, Mary was a true and trustworthy as well as skilled professional.”

Mary’s was a huge contribution that spanned the good, and the much more challenging times for feminist book sales (and book sales generally).  At times she was the dynamic champion, undertaking an herculean and highly successful effort to maximise distribution of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple when the Stephen Speilberg film came out (no mean feat for a small press); and careful stewardship – seeing the writing on the wall when the UK book chain, Dillons, radically changed its terms to the detriment of publishers and reducing The Women’s Press stock in their shops just before their collapse. 

Mary was also an early adopter of the importance of data.  At every book stall, at every event (of which there were many), she prioritised adding contact details to our mailing list, and she maintained it rigorously, adding considerable value to both The Women’s Press and The Women’s Press Book Club (which sold books direct to readers).

It was Mary who insisted The Women’s Press retain the paperback rights of The Color Purple when the film came out and substantial offers were on the table. Sales of this book, beyond any other, sustained The Women’s Press for two decades. 

During the period 1991-1993, Carole Spedding was Marketing and Publicity Director, while continuing to publish the Livewire list. She ran The Women’s Press Book Club from1991 to 1994. Carole had a high profile in feminist publishing as a founder member of Sheba Feminist Press, which had arrived on the scene with some force, and founder and director of Feminist Book Fairs, a major initiative in feminist publishing, both highly successful in themselves and instrumental in supporting feminist publishers for many years.

The new list

My editorial priority as Publishing Director of The Women’s Press was to honour the values and principles the company had established, and to consolidate and build upon the successes of the past.  I wanted to maintain our commitment to the very best writing by women across a broad range of vitally important issues, while bringing fresh insights and ideas for this new decade.  

As we established the revitalised team at The Women’s Press, and brought our style of publishing excellence to the fore, we began to draw both new and established authors to the list.  This included bell hooks with Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood, plus Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life, and Beatrix Campbell with Diana, Princess of Wales: How Sexual Politics Shook the Monarchy.

Stephanie Dowrick chose to publish her non-fiction books, Forgiveness & Other Acts of Love, Intimacy & Solitude and The Intimacy & Solitude Self-Therapy Book, plus her novel, Tasting Salt, with us, alongside her US and Australian publishers (Penguin then Allen & Unwin in Australia and New Zealand; W W Norton then Penguin in the US).  We held our own in the company of these sizeable and very well-resourced mainstream publishers, and these books became enduring bestsellers for The Women’s Press.

Other non-fiction highlights included The Protectors’ Handbook by Gerrilyn Smith, a book that broke new ground in arguing that every non-abusive adult in society needed to participate in providing a shield around children to prevent abuse. She drew attention to widespread patterns in families and societies that encouraged children to override their own judgement and provided a comprehensive blueprint for better protecting them.

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan drew attention to the shocking treatment of young women gymnasts, and the brutality and physical harm to which they could be subjected. The Dreams of Women by Dr Lucy Goodison gave us profound psychological insights into the female subconscious, and Mustn’t Grumble by Lois Keith provided an anthology of writing by disabled women which argued that disability itself was not the problem; a society not set up for disabled people was.

Much-loved crime writer Marcia Muller wrote many successful books for us, providing regular novels featuring her detective, Sharon McCone.  This kind of steady and regular publishing of authors with strong sales is one of the key ways in which publishers stay stable, and Marcia’s consistent writing was very important to us.  As indeed was May Sarton, another early TWP author, whose backlist we regularly brought back in to print. 

In Livewire Books for young readers, we published, among many more, Kate Cann’s Diving In trilogy, which broke new ground in exploring the pressures young women are under to have sex, and their desires and doubts.  This series became a huge success.

As well as new writers, it was always a priority for me, as a matter of personal, professional and political ethics, to keep in print, develop and support existing writers on the list.  I was to go on publishing authors from both of my predecessors with a great deal of commitment.  These included Alice Walker, Joan Riley, Mary Daly, May Sarton, Joan Barfoot, Caeia March, Stevie Davies and Mary Wings.

It was very important, especially early on, to reassure our existing authors. They had experienced considerable upheaval at The Women’s Press, and from the adverse media coverage around it.

As an editor and publisher who had worked closely with authors for years, I knew how disturbing it was for them when one key member of a publishing team left, let alone the kind of seismic change that had just happened in and during 1990-1991. A publisher can haemorrhage your more successful writers at a time like this: more settled publishing houses will seem a lot more likely to publish you well.

 First secure your backlist: that must be a primary focus of any new publisher inheriting a shaky situation, and any editor who cares about writers will want to encourage them and put their minds at rest.

In my early weeks and months, I put considerable effort into talking to authors, reassuring them, conveying our vision for restabilising The Women’s Press and consolidating a publishing house that would support and sustain them going forward.

I was rewarded by huge loyalty and support, and most authors stayed with us.

Throughout my time at The Women’s Press, I brought my editorial experience, my social and political understanding and my empathic and supportive style to bear in creating very close relationships with authors and providing detailed editing to nourish and develop their writing. This was one of the most rewarding and valuable aspects of my time there, and I remain very proud of it.

Financial security

From the time of my appointment in June 1991, it was key for me to ensure that The Women’s Press was financially secure.  That was the basis on which I was appointed by Stephanie Dowrick and the Board, when the future of the Press was at stake.

It was an urgent task at the time to put rigorous focus on profitability on both a title-by-title basis, and on the company as a whole.

The Women’s Press was funded by book sales, as well as, to a lesser extent, foreign and subsidiary rights sales. This is how all publishers are funded, unless publicly or charitably supported. (Or unless it is a subsidised press, like a university press, that seldom pays authors conventional royalties.)

There has sometimes been confusion about The Women’s Press funding because we had, from our inception, the financial backing of Naim Attallah within the Namara Group. 

A financial backer provides set-up finance (just like a bank and often used when banks won’t take the risk) or, in this instance, a highly conditional access to an overdraft facility. They will sometimes provide financial support in difficult times. But every organisation with a financial backer must become financially viable on its own terms. It is otherwise vulnerable because financial backing can be withdrawn, especially if circumstances change.  So Naim was not “funding” The Women’s Press, but he would be 100 per cent responsible for any debts or overdraft borrowing, and so our financial health was paramount to ensure that the Press continued.   

History clearly demonstrates that Stephanie’s decision to accept and welcome this backing was essential to the existence and the continuance of The Women’s Press. Would we have preferred that a woman could afford to do this?  Yes. Was that available at the time? No. And in discussions, Stephanie has been very clear that in proposing “a publishing house of her own”, Naim was offering his confidence in her proven, high-level abilities, as much as the necessary access to capital to produce quality books, even when the outgoings were kept low by Stephanie working from home for most of the first year, and as the only full-time employee.

During my time at The Women’s Press, Naim showed no interest in the nature of the publishing, nor did he ever attempt to influence it. Stephanie tells me that, during her time, he made “only the most general” comments about the list or the authors, and did so supportively.

Publishing processes

Considerable attention in my early years was given both to maximising the success of the publishing and to reducing expenditure by improving clarity and efficiency. 

We published highly judiciously: every book had to cover its costs and make a fixed percentage contribution to overhead (I brought in tried and tested formulas for this from my experience as a commissioning editor in mainstream publishing), otherwise we just couldn’t do it.

We combined our steadfast political commitment with practical good publishing sense.

Expenditure was rigorously controlled.  We did not want to reduce staff numbers, and we wanted to keep raising salaries fairly each year.  And so every other item of other expense was scrutinised and reduced, except where that might adversely affect the quality or effectiveness of our publishing. The Women’s Press was in annual profit within six months of my arrival, and the historic debt was steadily reduced.

Publishing systems

Focus on systems is often disparaged in creative industries yet is crucial in enabling any organisation to function well. Like Stephanie before me, I had had publishing experience in demanding roles where accountability was paramount, and I knew what a difference these systems could make. It was a priority of mine to set up and embed seamless and efficient ways of working, to the great benefit of our authors, The Women’s Press and everyone who worked within it. 

Challenges and rewards

In the 1990s, the women’s publishers, including The Women’s Press, were beginning to be the victims of their own success.  We had proven that challenging, provocative women writers of excellence could be highly successful, and therefore lucrative when published well.  Where once we could sweep up the talent and the issues, and put them out into the world, now the larger corporate publishers were onto it too. 

Feminism, with all its passion and variety of perspectives, was not in fashion.  Many young women rejected us. The days when women’s issues discussed by women writers were perceived as exciting seemed long gone.

Moreover, when I had started at The Women’s Press in 1991, the fall-out in the previous team had been bitter. This was having a major impact on us all.  A campaign was running in the national press and beyond, extraordinarily and shockingly attacking of women from before my appointment who had stayed at The Women’s Press, of me for taking a job that would continue it, and of our financial backer, Naim Attallah.

This was, of course, in addition to all the usual stresses of running an organisation, and the particular stressors inherent in running a radical organisation that needed to operate on a shoestring while publishing successfully in a highly competitive industry.

It wasn’t always easy (the understatement of all understatements).  I am proud that I stuck it out, supported and developed the authors I worked with, supported my colleagues, and kept The Women’s Press flourishing and alive.

These were nine very challenging years, but they were also rewarding. Rewarding for every new book published – a woman’s voice and a woman’s issue drawn to the attention of the public.  Rewarding because of the very close author-editor relationships I developed, which were an enormous support to me, and vice versa.  Rewarding because of the widespread support I received from literary agents and others who believed in me, as well as from Stephanie Dowrick, Naim Attallah and the rest of The Women’s Press board. And because, for every Women’s Press book published or reprinted, there were legions of women out there, supported, entertained, amused – their experiences reflected, their injustices reported, their lives validated and celebrated.

PHASE FOUR

In 1999, I decided that that time had come to pass on the baton to someone else. The Women’s Press was in steady financial shape, efficient systems were in place, a strong list with loyal authors was secure, expenditure was well under control.  Moreover, I’d overseen a transition from a period of upheaval to a much calmer and more supportive context for a new person coming into the role.  I had developed good relationships with authors, literary agents, colleagues, stakeholders and supporters from Stephanie, founder and Chair of The Women’s Press, to Naim, Quartet and the Board. There were good health and good will. Now I believed someone with new energy could come in and take The Women’s Press to the next level.

Mary Hemming decided she didn’t want to carry on without my support.  Steadfast stewards of The Women’s Press, we began a healthy handover process, tending our resignation to the Board, providing recommendations for the future and offering to stay until our successor had been appointed.  In due course we appointed Elsbeth Lindner, a woman with a strong feminist publishing track record.

The original intention was that Mary and I would retain some involvement, including staying on the Board, to provide continuity.  However, it soon became clear we were cramping Elsbeth’s style. If the old team was around, the new person inevitably ends up trying to manage them (their expectations, their doubts about change) at the same time as trying to establish herself.

We realised it was time to withdraw and let the new team get on with it.

As I understand it, after about a year, Elsbeth’s husband moved abroad with work and Elsbeth resigned.  I believe a new woman was appointed who then went on maternity leave.

Corporate publishers offered to buy the all-important backlist of key authors, and those offers were accepted.  At some point around 2003, The Women’s Press publishing ended.

LEGACY

Sometimes I am asked why I think The Women’s Press “failed” in the early years of this century.  I think what they mean is that The Women’s Press ended.  Those are very different concepts.

When I was first at Pan Books (UK) in the mid-1980s, I read for the Picador list.  This was one of the primary literary lists in the UK. If you were a literary or intellectual writer, you probably wanted to be published by Picador.  The number of women writers on the list at that time?  One. 

The women’s publishers and imprints – The Women’s Press, Virago, Pandora, Sheba Feminist Press, to name but a few – challenged the false perception in some powerful publishing quarters at the time that women writers lacked creative and intellectual excellence. Or that women readers would not welcome work that was challenging and politically provocative.

We proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that women read serious books, that women could write them, and, if published well, they could make a commercial as well as political impact.

It was a mixed blessing, of course. 

The corporate publishers (who had no interest in the likes of Alice Walker or Janet Frame or Michele Roberts when Stephanie contracted them for British publication in the early years of The Women’s Press) had begun to siphon off some of the most successful authors we had established, offering much bigger financial deals. When I approached women doing exciting and interesting work to come to us with a book idea, someone with a much bigger cheque book was inevitably hot on my heels. And it was hard to publish the more modest books without those with more sales potential to make the whole thing viable.  I railed against it.  But the fact is, what it proved was that we had done our job. 

Women writers’ voices – those who challenge assumptions – are much more widely published now and they have influenced the world.  The kind of misogyny that was widely acceptable in publishing houses and in business across the UK is no longer acceptable or practised, or it is at least not as naked and rife. 

There is more to do, as recent issues in the UK publishing world about cultural appropriation and representations of people of colour in literature have shown.  But even here there is progress.  Back then I used to try to explain The Women’s Press policy of avoiding cultural appropriation to literary agents, only to be greeted with incredulity.  Now I suppress a smile as they explain it to me.

All the independent women’s publishers of size have now ended or morphed into the mainstream.  We were part of a glorious moment in feminist and literary activism, a moment that included the feminist presses and bookshops in the UK – Sisterwrite, Silver Moon, and more – plus a whole range of feminist and alternative newsletters and magazines. 

The world is different now.  Virago continues as an imprint of Hachette doing sterling work in a mainstream house publishing women writers; other women are published by other mainstream presses. And there, I am proud to say, are a considerable number of women Mary and I employed at The Women’s Press, now in senior positions, influencing just as we influenced.

This publishing story is largely one of extraordinary success and achievement. It rose during a particularly potent moment in history that inevitably changed. There is more to do. But it will need to take place in different structures, different forms, yet inspired, we can hope, by the courage and commitment for 25 years of what writers – and their publishers – achieved together at the London publishers with a global reach, The Women’s Press.