Aunt Lute Books


Aunt Lute Books is a multicultural feminist press whose mission is to "publish literature by women whose voices have been traditionally under-represented in mainstream and small press publishing" and "distribute literature that expresses the true complexity of women’s lives and the possibilities for personal and social change." The publisher has a stated aim to embrace the opportunity to work with and support first-time authors.

Publishing history

In 1982, Aunt Lute Book Company was founded by Barb Wieser and Joan Pinkvoss in Iowa.
Aunt Lute merged with another feminist publisher, Spinsters Ink in 1986, and the two organizations published jointly for several years in San Francisco under the name Spinsters/Aunt Lute. In 1990 the Aunt Lute Foundation was established as a non profit publishing program, and in 1992, Spinsters Ink was purchased by lesbian feminist philanthropist Joan Drury and moved to Minneapolis.
Aunt Lute continues to operate independently as a nonprofit to the present day.

Titles

Aunt Lute has published a number of high-profile feminist and lesbian authors, including Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, LeAnne Howe, Alice Walker, and Paula Gunn Allen.
Call Me Woman, the autobiography of South African activist Ellen Kuzwayo, Radmila Manojlovic Zarkovic's anthology, I Remember: Writings by Bosnian Women Refugees, and Cherry Muhanji's Lambda Award winning novel Her are all been published by Aunt Lute. Other Aunt Lute titles include the first U.S. collection of Filipina/Filipina American women writers and the first collection of Southeast Asian women writers, as well as a number of translated texts.
Aunt Lute Books was the 2004 - 2005 and the 2005 - 2006 Best of the Small Presses Award granted by , an International Cultural Studies Magazine.