Amy Scholder | |
|---|---|
 Amy Scholder on location with the documentary Disclosure, Los Angeles, California, 2019 | |
| Born | 24 September 1963 San Francisco |
| Occupation | Literary Editor and documentary filmmaker |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Notable awards | GLAAD Media Award |
Amy Scholder is an American literary editor and documentary filmmaker known for publishing works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ writers, artists, musicians, and activists.
Born in San Francisco, Scholder grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. [1] She attended Tufts University for two years, then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from University of California, Berkeley. [2]
Scholder began her career as an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco in 1985. [3] She added to its list by publishing books by Karen Finley, Gil Cuadros, Rebecca Brown, Leslie Dick, Carla Harryman, Marguerite Duras, George Bataille, and Laure (Colette Peignot). While at City Lights, she also created an imprint of books for the nonprofit ArtSpace in San Francisco, publishing books by author-artists David Wojnarowicz , Dennis Cooper, and Nayland Blake.
In 1991 she edited, with Ira Silverberg, the anthology High Risk: Writing on Sex, Death, and Subversion (Dutton and Plume) which collected transgressive writing in the midst of the AIDS crisis, regardless of genre. [4] Another volume followed in 1994. [5] Among the writers included in High Risk are Karen Finley, Essex Hemphill, Kathy Acker, David Wojnarowicz, Mary Gaitskill, William S. Burroughs, Dorothy Allison, Dennis Cooper, Ana Maria Simo, Darryl Pinckney, Akilah Nayo Oliver, Darius James, Lynne Tillman, Craig G. Harris, Rikki Ducornet, John Giorno, John Preston, Diamanda Galas, Cookie Mueller, Gil Cuadros, Kate Bornstein, Wanda Coleman, and Manuel Ramos Otero. Speaking to BOMB Magazine in 1991, Scholder described the High Risk anythology saying: [6]
The fact that this book is not all one thing is what’s interesting—that this is not a lesbian and gay anthology, and that this is not a heterosexual anthology, it’s not all white, it’s not all fiction. What became the constant was the fact that each work challenges something, is radical, either from within or without. That’s what we’re looking for, but that’s very loose and so it does make sitting down and reading this anthology a little difficult perhaps. We’re trying to broaden the base because we’re not so interested in whether we’re homo or heterosexual but rather what’s radical and what isn’t. The point is to suggest a new idea of community. It’s so much more challenging intellectually.
— "Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder", BOMB Magazine
Scholder moved to New York City in 1995 when Serpent’s Tail, an independent literary publisher in the UK, offered Scholder and Silverberg a US imprint which they named High Risk Books. [7] They published a list of mostly paperback originals designed by artist Rex Ray. Authors include Sapphire, Cookie Mueller, Gary Indiana, John Giorno, Heather Lewis, Lynne Tillman, Kate Bornstein, Diamanda Galas, Hervé Guibert, Ann Rower, Mary Woronov, and June Jordan. Scholder edited books for High Risk and Serpent's Tail until 2004 [2]
As an independent editor, she also edited the diaries (In the Shadow of the American Dream) and short fiction (The Waterfront Journals) of David Wojnarowicz for Grove Press; selected writings (Essential Acker) [8] and short fiction (Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective) by Kathy Acker for Grove Press; and a book of poetry by Joni Mitchell for Crown.
Scholder began editing books for Verso in 1999, and became their US publisher in 2005, [9] where she acquired books by Laura Flanders, Judith Butler, Kate Millett, and Valerie Solanas, whose SCUM Manifesto was reprinted with an essay by Avital Ronell. [10]
She left to join Seven Stories Press as editor-in-chief in 2006, and acquired books by Coco Fusco, Ulrike Meinhof, Elfriede Jelinek, Annie Ernaux, Savannah Knoop, [11] Douglas Martin, and hattie gossett.
In 2008, Scholder left Seven Stories to become the executive editor of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. [12] There she rebranded the organization to address contemporary feminist issues and sensibility, such as Pussy Riot!: A Punk Prayer for Freedom, "a collection of letters, songs, poems, courtroom statements, and tributes [13] " pertaining to the jailed members of Russian performance art group, Pussy Riot. [14] During Scholder's tenure at Feminist Press, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's Hiroshima in the Morning was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Virginie Despentes′ King Kong Theory , Justin Vivian Bond′s Tango: My Life Backwards and in High Heels, Barbara Hammer′s Hammer: Making Movies Out of Sex and Love, and Ana Castillo′s Give It to Me all won Lambda Literary awards. Other works published by Scholder include the translation of Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie into English, a previously unpublished novel, Savage Coast, by Muriel Rukeyser, and books by June Jordan, Karen Finley and Laurie Weeks.
In 2015, Scholder left the Feminist Press and returned to Los Angeles. She produced [15] with Sam Feder the documentary feature film Disclosure, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance FilmFestival and was released as a Netflix Original in June 2020. Disclosure was nominated for a Peabody Award [16] and earned a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary; [17] PinkNews award; [18] a Global Mental Health Programs/Columbia University award; and a Women's eNews award for Groundbreaking Film of the Year.
After she co-edited the collection of works by controversial feminist Andrea Dworkin, Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin (Semiotexte, 2019) with Johanna Fatemen, Scholder was approached by director Pratibha Parmar and producer Shaheen Haq to help them finish their hybrid documentary feature film My Name Is Andrea, about Dworkin. She became an executive producer of the film, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. [19]
After rejoining City Lights as an editor-at-large in 2016, [20] Scholder edited Pamela Sneed’s Funeral Diva, which won the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry; Steven Reigns′ A Quilt for David; Kate Braverman’s A Good Day for Seppuku; Jewelle Gomez′s The Gilda Stories; and the 25th anniversary edition of Karen Finley′s Shock Treatment.
She joined the Board of Directors of the City Lights Foundation in 2020 [21] and previously served on the Board of Directors of Lambda Literary (2014-2020). [22]
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion. Her writing incorporates pastiche and the cut-up technique, involving cutting-up and scrambling passages and sentences; she also defined her writing as existing in the post-nouveau roman European tradition. In her texts, she combines biographical elements, power, sex and violence.
Diamanda Galás is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and visual artist. She has campaigned for AIDS education and the rights of the infected.
Carla Harryman is an American poet, essayist, and playwright often associated with the Language poets. She teaches Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and serves on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.
David Michael Wojnarowicz was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorporated personal narratives influenced by his struggle with AIDS as well as his political activism in his art until his death from the disease in 1992.
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Karen Finley is an American performance artist, musician, poet, and educator. The case, National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998), argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, was decided against Finley and the other artists. Her performance art, recordings, and books are used as forms of activism. Her work frequently uses nudity and profanity. Finley incorporates depictions of sexuality, abuse, and disenfranchisement in her work. She is a professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Heroes in Hell is a series of shared world fantasy books, within the genre Bangsian fantasy, created and edited by Janet Morris and written by her, Chris Morris, C. J. Cherryh and others. The first 12 books in the series were published by Baen Books between 1986 and 1989, and stories from the series include one Hugo Award winner and Nebula nominee, as well as one other Nebula Award nominee. The series was resurrected in 2011 by Janet Morris with the thirteenth book and eighth anthology in the series, Lawyers in Hell, followed by eight more anthologies and four novels between 2012 and 2022.
Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Lucinda Ebersole was a critic, editor and writer of fiction in the literary scene of Washington, D.C. She is best known for her association with the literary journal Gargoyle Magazine, for which she was co-editor along with Richard Peabody from 1997 to 2017. She also edited various anthologies with Peabody, most notably the various books in their Mondo series. She also wrote an unpublished book entitled Málaga, which she described in 1998 as "a really weird little novel that is sort of 'transgendered' kind of poetry, kind of a novel."
Serpent's Tail is London-based independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It specialises in publishing work in translation, particularly European crime fiction. In January 2007, it was bought by a British publisher Profile Books.
Tee A. Corinne was an American photographer, author, and editor notable for the portrayal of sexuality in her artwork. According to Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia, "Corinne is one of the most visible and accessible lesbian artists in the world."
The Feminist Press at CUNY is an American independent nonprofit literary publisher of the City University of New York, based in New York City. It primarily publishes feminist literature that promotes freedom of expression and social justice.
High Risk Books was a book publisher, founded in New York City in 1993 as an imprint of Serpent's Tail Press of London. It was started by Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder who was then an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco. Its titles were designed by Rex Ray.
Ira Silverberg is an American editor and consultant to writers, artists, publishers, and non-profit arts organizations. He is a member of the adjunct faculty of the Columbia University School of the Arts, MFA Writing Program.
K. Tempest Bradford is an African-American science fiction and fantasy author and editor. She was a non-fiction and managing editor with Fantasy Magazine from 2007 to 2009, and has edited fiction for Peridot Books, The Fortean Bureau, and Sybil's Garage. She is the author of Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion, her debut middle grade novel published in 2022, which won the Andre Norton Award in 2023.
Maureen Owen is an American poet, editor, and biographer.
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in the fall of 2011 by 22 year old Nadya Tolokonnikova, it has had a membership of approximately 11 women. The group staged unauthorized, provocative guerrilla gigs in public places. These performances were filmed as music videos and posted on the internet. The group's lyrical themes included feminism, LGBT rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his policies, and Putin's links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kate Zambreno is an American novelist, essayist, critic, and professor. She teaches writing in the graduate nonfiction program at Columbia University and at Sarah Lawrence College. Zambreno is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Nonfiction.
Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.
Catherine Simon is an American portrait photographer and writer. She is known for her photographs of influential musicians, artists, and writers, including The Clash, Patti Smith, Madonna, Andy Warhol, and William S. Burroughs. One of her photographs of Bob Marley was used on the front cover of his 1978 album, Kaya.
