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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."[1] The publisher has a stated aim to embrace the opportunity to work with and support first-time authors.[2]
In 1982, Aunt Lute Book Company was founded by Barb Wieser and Joan Pinkvoss in Iowa.[3]
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.[4] 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.[3][5]
Aunt Lute continues to operate independently as a nonprofit to the present day.
Aunt Lute has published a number of high profile feminist and lesbian authors, including Audre Lorde (The Cancer Journals), Gloria Anzaldúa (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza), Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, LeAnne Howe (Shell Shaker, winner of the 2002 Before Columbus American Book Award and Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story), 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.[6] Other Aunt Lute titles include the first U.S. collection of Filipina/Filipina American women writers[7] and the first collection of Southeast Asian women writers[8], as well as a number of translated texts.[9]
Aunt Lute Books was the 2004 - 2005 and the 2005 - 2006 Best of the Small Presses Award granted by Standards, an International Cultural Studies Magazine.