Established in 1978 by Stephanie Dowrick, The Women's Press is an independent publisher of fiction (notably feminist fiction) and non-fiction by women writers from around the world. It has to date published in the areas of literary and crime fiction, biography and autobiography, books on psychology, health, race and disability, women's studies and cultural, sexual and political history.
The press has at various times also established several series, including The Women's Press sf series - a collection of both new titles by contemporary writers and reprints of classic science fiction works by well known authors. In setting up the latter series in 1985 the press stated its intention to 'publish science fiction by women and about women; to present exciting and provocative feminist images of the future that will offer an alternative vision of science and technology, and challenge male domination of the science fiction tradition itself. 'We hope that the series will encourage more women both to read and write science fiction, and give the traditional science fiction readership a new and stimulating perspective'.
Source: Women's Press at wiki.feminsistsf.net (Sighted 11/2/2011)
In her 1996 Hecate article on feminist science fiction, Frances Bonner writes that The Women's Press was for a while the only Commonwealth feminist publisher to publish science fiction on a regular basis, and that its books were readily identified as both feminist and science fiction. Bonner further notes, however, that the press had since discontinued the series, and that the change appears to have come at the time of considerable debate about its operating policies. This same period was marked by the resignation of several well-regarded editors including Sarah Lefanu, the press' science fiction specialist.
One Australian author to be published by The Women's Press is feminist science fiction author Rosaleen Love who had had her first collection of stories, The Total Devotion Machine included within the sf series in 1989. Her second novel Evolution Annie (1993) was also published by the press but not as part of the same series. Other Australian authors include Barbara Hanrahan, Gillian Hanscombe, Finola Moorhead, Penelope Rowe, Drusilla Modjeska and Carolyn Morwood.
