Private company

Aunt Lute Books

Logo: auntlute.com3

American multicultural feminist press

Aunt Lute Books is an American multicultural feminist press based in San Francisco, California. The publisher also seeks to work with and support first-time authors.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1982Founded1

Aunt Lute Books is an American multicultural feminist press based in San Francisco, California. The publisher also seeks to work with and support first-time authors.2

The story

In 1982, Aunt Lute Book Company was founded by Barb Wieser and Joan Pinkvoss in Iowa.

Aunt Lute merged with Spinsters Ink, another feminist publisher, in 1986, and the two organizations published jointly for several years in San Francisco under the name Spinsters/Aunt Lute. In 1990 the Aunt Lute Foundation was established as a non-profit publishing program.

In 1992, Spinsters Ink was purchased by lesbian feminist philanthropist Joan Drury and moved to Minneapolis.

Aunt Lute continues to operate independently as a nonprofit to the present day.

From Wikipedia’s article on Aunt Lute Books, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

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 have also been published by Aunt Lute.

Other Aunt Lute titles include the first U.S. collection of Filipina/Filipina American women writers and the first collection of Southeast Asian women writers, as well as a number of translated texts.

Other titles are listed below:

Read the full text

A Simple Revolution by Judy Grahn

Alice Walker Banned by Alice Walker

Beautiful and Dark by Rosa Montero and Trans Adrienne Mitchell

Borderlands/La Frontera (Fourth Edition) by Gloria Anzaldúa

Call Me Woman by Ellen Kuzwayo

The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

flesh to bone by ire'ne lara silva

Gulf Dreams; by Emma Perez

Haggadah by Martha Shelley

Hot Chicken Wings by Jyl Lynn Felman

Her by Cherry Muhanji

The Issue is Power by Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz

My Jewish Face by Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz

Junglee Girl by Ginu Kamani

Lowest Blue Flame Before Nothing by Lara Stapleton

Maidenhome by Ding Xiaoqi

Me As Her Again by Nancy Agabian

Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story by LeAnne Howe

The Storyteller, with Nike Airs by Kleya Forte-Escamilla

Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe

Send My Roots Rain by Ibis Gomez-Vega

Singing Softly/Cantando Bajito by Carmen de Monteflores

Teaching at the Crossroads by Laurie Grobman

Transforming Feminist Practice: Non-Violence, Social Justice, and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism by Leela Fernandes

The Two Mujeres by Sara Levi Calderon

Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School by Jo Scott-Coe

The Way We Make Sense by Dawn Karima Pettigrew

White Snake and Other Stories by Geling Yan

The Woman Who Owned the Shadows by Paula Gunn Allen

From Wikipedia’s article on Aunt Lute Books, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1982Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
    Company websiteAunt Lute Books logo
  4. 4