LeftOut

What Happened to Gay Literature?
After coming into the mainstream in the early ’90s, lesbian and gay authors are finding a much tighter publishing environment
by Paula Martinac

Spring is the time of literary awards, from mainstream honors like the Pulitzer Prize to smaller, gay-specific ones like the Lambda Literary Awards. While the lesbian and gay community celebrates its culture with awards, it’s also necessary for us to take a hard look at the state of our literature, whose future is far from secure.

Over the past five years, I’ve written on this topic several times, and each time it has gotten harder to write positively about the outlook for lesbian and gay literature. We’ve come such a long distance from the late 1980s, when I launched my own writing career with a book of short fiction. At that time, there was a host of vibrant small presses devoted to publishing the writing of lesbians and gay men, whose work had often been ignored by mainstream presses. I received interest in my writing from not just one small publisher, but three.

By the early ’90s the mainstream had "discovered" lesbian and gay fiction and nonfiction–like it "discovered" black writing in previous decades and is "discovering" Latino and Asian-American writing now. There followed a brief, heady period in which queer writers were courted and awarded generous royalty advances. Some of us actually found it possible to earn our livings writing books with queer content. What a novelty for writers, gay or straight, who on average earn just a few thousand dollars a year! And with all these small- and mainstream-press titles, there was an exciting array of queer-themed books available.

But then came Disney, Paramount, and other conglomerates, which began devouring publishing companies like they were popcorn, offering Jim Carrey-league advances to select "star" writers like John Grisham while simultaneously cutting back on the slots reserved for books that would sell in the thousands, not millions. While this was happening, superstore chains like Barnes & Noble put many independent, gay, and feminist bookstores out of business. This, in turn, wounded small publishers, who depended on the independent stores to keep their books in stock and support their writers with book signings and readings.

All these developments contributed to the current dismal state of lesbian and gay literature. Now fewer and fewer lesbian and gay authors are getting contracts from mainstream publishers to do queer-themed work, which doesn’t sell in large enough numbers to warrant the big presses’ time or money. On top of that, we’ve lost many of the smart, literature-loving, openly gay and lesbian editors who were our advocates at the big publishing houses, including most recently Michael Denneny, founder of the Stonewall Inn imprint of St. Martin’s Press. Sure, the work of a handful of "star" gay writers like David Leavitt, Edmund White, and Sarah Schulman will continue to be published. But there’s an inordinate number of titles like Drama Queen: The Gay Man’s Guide to an Uncomplicated Life hitting the bookshelves, suggesting a general dumbing-down of lesbian and gay books.

Add to this an even more serious problem–that lesbian and gay presses have been damaged by the corporate shifts in publishing and bookselling. And they, rather than mainstream publishers, have kept our literature alive. Many have gone out of business or been sold–the demise of Firebrand Books a few years ago was one of the biggest blows to lesbian literature. But more jolts have followed: Recently, the feminist- and lesbian-oriented Seal Press became an imprint of Avalon, a larger, mainstream (though progressive) publisher. It remains to be seen if that sale will affect the books Seal publishes.

Some of our presses have adapted what they publish to stay competitive with the mainstream publishers. But instead of adding to our literary culture, they’ve produced a bizarre glut of mediocre mysteries, how-to books, and collections of erotica to satisfy every sexual, gender, and ethnic identity. There also seem to be more and more reprints cropping up on "new books" lists. Cleis Press, for example, has gone through several savvy transformations in the last decade, most recently reprinting work by canonical queers like Virginia Woolf. Of course, it’s important to keep our literary forebears in print. But at the same time, every slot on a queer publisher’s list taken by a reprint is a slot that won’t go to a modern-day lesbian and gay writer struggling to publish in this current harsh climate.

There are a few positive developments from lesbian and gay presses. Perhaps most notably, Alyson Publications, once known almost exclusively for its light, sexy fare by gay male authors, has lately been publishing wonderful literary fiction and nonfiction by both gay men and lesbians–a bold and welcome move. Alyson is helping to revive the tradition that’s been so important to the growth of lesbian and gay literature–publishing books that would never see the light if we waited for mainstream presses to "discover" them again.

Based in New York City, Paula Martinac is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, and the editor of Q Syndicate. She can be reached at LNcolumn@aol.com.