That’s Radical Feminism: Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne & 25 years of Spinifex Press
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:40 — 25.0MB)
BROAD’s Sonja Hammer talks with Spinifex Press’s founders and publishers Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne, both published authors and feminists. Spinifex Press was set up in March 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein. Now with well over 200 titles in print and more than half available as eBooks, Spinifex turns 25 this year 2016 and celebrates with a festival called:‘That’s Radical feminism,a celebration of Spinifex 25 years’. The festival is NOW ON this weekend, it started Friday 9th September and runs until Saturday the 10th.
From the Spinifex website:
‘1991 was a time of cut backs in publishing following the recession in Australia this was having a significant effect on two areas of interest to us: feminist and literary publishing.We began with four titles and of those titles two were reprinted, three were about to be translated and three were shortlisted for awards. We had set up distribution in the US and quickly found networks to expand into overseas markets with distribution soon following in NZ and UK and several translations picked up.Spinifex has always been at the forefront of technological change – publishing books about new technologies – we were the first Australian publisher to offer a web-based catalogue and the third to have our full catalogue available for purchase from our website. In 2006, Spinifex was the first small press in Australia to release eBooks through an eBookstore attached to our website. We were the first publisher (1996) to set up an interactive site based on a book.’
Below Left to Right: Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein,publishers and writers from Spinifex Press, turns 25 years.
Susan Hawthorne:Poet, aerialist, publisher and academic. Author eight books of poetry, a verse novel, a novel, and three non-fiction.
Renate Klein:Feminist Health Activist, Academic, Writer, Publisher
‘Spinifex has developed a number of strong specialist lists including Indigenous, writing from Asia and Africa, lesbian books as well as women’s health, violence against women, racism and cultural opportunism, ecology and economics, war and exile, prostitution and pornography.
Feminist publishing has gone from a thriving international network which was decimated by the advent of superstores and depoliticisation of feminism in the late 1990s. But feminist publishing is getting a new lease of life through activism against corporates and with the repoliticisation of young women who are challenging the sexualisation of culture. Social networking has given us a way of contributing to and tapping into these new communities. In 1997 we set up a site aboutWomen in Publishing in Asia and Pacific. ‘ – excerpt from the Spinifex website.
Mission:To publish innovative and controversial feminist books with an optimistic edge.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:40 — 25.0MB)
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