Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508170008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By HILLEL ITALIE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
Midway through an interview about the publishing house she founded 25 years ago, Florence Howe of The Feminist Press is interrupted by a phone call from the National Endowment for the Arts.
``I need to take that,'' she said, excusing herself. A few minutes later she returns, looking relieved. The NEA was only seeking help in finding someone for a panel discussion.
``This is a nervous time for us,'' Howe explained. ``I was sure they were calling to say they were going out of business.''
It's a nervous time for anyone who receives federal funding, and more so for a nonprofit publisher that supports feminism, multiculturalism and other causes not favored by the drafters of the Contract With America.
Started when the feminist movement itself was gathering momentum, The Feminist Press is a pioneer in discovering, and rediscovering, books by and about women. Its catalog includes works by Kate Chopin, Paule Marshall and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as literary anthologies from all over the world, children's books, books on health and medicine and on music and art.
``What happens to women is that their writing has been considered unimportant, so some really brilliant woman's work has gone out of print,'' said Carol Seajay, editor and publisher of Feminist Bookstore News, a bimonthly magazine. ``The Feminist Press has made it their commitment to bring these women back.''
The publishing house is based on the Upper East Side and operates out of a second-floor office space donated by the City University of New York. The Feminist Press has an annual budget of about $1 million, puts out about 10 books a year and has a staff of 10, including Howe.
The Reagan years convinced Howe that she needed to rely more on marketing to bring in money, and about 80 percent of the revenue comes from retail sales and sales to schools. The rest comes from gifts and grants.
The Feminist Press grew out of a project conceived by Howe that never got off the ground: a series of writings by contemporary women authors on prominent women in history.
At the time, 1970, Howe was living with her then-husband in Baltimore and was an assistant professor of English at Goucher College. She approached three publishers with her idea but received the same answer each time: great concept, but no chance to make money.
She then attended a meeting of a local feminist organization, Baltimore Women's Liberation, asked for support and was told they were too busy to help.
She went on vacation for a month. Upon returning, she found her mail box stuffed with letters - and contributions - made out to the ``Feminist Press.''
``Baltimore Women's Liberation had decided they were going to print an announcement that this was happening, and they included my address. They also said we were going to print biographies and children's books, which I never said. So I was more than enraged,'' Howe said.
``I just simmered and simmered until sometime in October I mimeographed a long piece of paper saying ... that this was a fantasy of Baltimore Women's Liberation.
``I sent copies to all the people who had sent letters ... saying The Feminist Press doesn't exist, but it may exist if a certain number of people, 20, come to a meeting and at least 12 agree to meet monthly. About 30 turned up.''
While the press issues some new works, Howe's primary mission is bringing back out-of-print books. Among them are Marshall's first novel, ``Brown Girl, Brownstones''; a Hurston anthology that Alice Walker edited and for which Toni Morrison helped raise money; and the novel ``The Living Is Easy,'' by Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West.
``One of the things The Feminist Press has done is publish leading and ground-breaking women writers. The corporate presses aren't connected to the feminist community and only learn about these writers after someone else publishes them,'' Seajay said.
The press' all-time best seller is ``The Yellow Wallpaper,'' an autobiographical short story about a woman's nervous breakdown. Written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman and published in 1892, the book has sold more than 200,000 copies.
A friend of Howe's, author Tillie Olsen, helped persuade her to put out two other books. One was Agnes Smedley's ``Daughter of Earth,'' a novel about a working-class woman first issued in 1929. The second was Rebecca Harding Davis' ``Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories,'' the title piece a grim novella published anonymously in 1862.
The Feminist Press published only American works during its first decade, but in 1980 Mariam Chamberlain, a member of the board of directors, persuaded her to look at books from other countries.
The Feminist Press has put out books from Bangladesh, Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Taiwan and other countries. The publisher issued a two-volume series of women writers in India that covers more than 2,000 years, and a similar project is planned for writers from Africa.
Howe looks upon the future with mixed emotions. On the one hand, female authors enjoy much broader acceptance than they did in 1970, both commercially and in the academic world. No longer, Howe said, does she hear, ``Oh, it's only a woman writer.''
On the other hand, she worries not only about cuts in federal grants, but about what superstores are doing to independents. Like so many small publishers, The Feminist Press relies on retailers who are knowledgeable about its books and are willing to stick with them even if they don't sell right away.
``The hardest thing is keeping the back list alive'' Howe said. ``That's the most depressing thing, when even some new feminist bookstore owners don't understand this stuff is golden and shouldn't be ignored. ... Unless we own the history and pass it on, it's going to get lost again and we'll be back to where we were before, in which history is the history of laws and wars.''
The Feminist Press wants to donate books to prison programs around the United States, but needs money for postage. Contributions are tax exempt and can be sent to The Feminist Press, 311 East 94th Street, New York, N.Y., 10128.)
by CNB