We’re two blue collar lesbian writers of color with a favor to ask.

Fret not: it’s a sweet favor.

Like most queer people, we thirst for more knowledge of our history. Though nonfiction + academic books and digital platforms on “rainbow” history abound, there’s a problem:

No meaningful effort has been made to bring the complex breadth of lesbian history to print, and certainly not in an accessible and enticing form.

In 2019, we got to work. The end product: The New Lesbian Pulp, an anthology that breathes life into the 1950s lesbian pulp fiction genre by collecting lost works (particularly those by women of color) alongside new contributions inspired by classic pulp, including stories by M.J. Corey, Grace Byron, Anna Dorn, Shamim Sarif, and Sarah Schulman.

Our authors are cis, trans, and nonbinary, living and gone; yet always in dialogue with one another across time, from 1898 to 2025.

Out August 12 from Feminist Press, The New Lesbian Pulp easily translates from beach read to academic text: the book features front and back matter that encourages discovery and research.

We invite you to join us in re-imagining lesbian history yet again.

We are raising funds to pay our living contributors a rate for their stories similar to what they would earn if they were heterosexual cisgender white men of equivalent experience: $1,000 per story. We've already begun paying our writers. And now, we need our community's support to fulfill this commitment.

This fundraising is essential given the atmosphere of 2025. In many ways, we are living the worst of queer history: a wave of censorship, arts funding cuts, and medical mandates are throttling us on a national scale. This summer, our publisher’s $35,000 NEA grant for this year was abruptly rescinded.

The total devastation of this moment remains to be seen.

We write this as individuals all too familiar with scarcity and gender-based violence. As such, we are committed to providing our industrious and openly queer contributors with as much material security as possible as the book becomes more visible, and the hits keep coming.

We look forward to celebrating its success with you. All donors have the option of their names being included in subsequent print runs of The New Lesbian Pulp.

By contributing, you too become a part of this rich history.

Though our urgency is real, our desire to spread resourcing and joy remain intact. Names of donors the project of $1.00 or more have the option to have their name included in the book's dedication in subsequent print runs (and additional perks).

Read early coverage of The New Lesbian Pulp below. She's already going places. Let's resource the writers who served as gasoline:

https://www.autostraddle.com/our-most-anticipated-queer-books-for-august-2025

https://lesbrary.com/the-new-lesbian-pulp-review/

https://msmagazine.com/2025/08/01/best-new-feminist-books-august-2025-reads-for-the-rest-of-us-women-lgbtq-writers/

https://lithub.com/sex-ed-vintage-sapphic-tales-constantine-cavafy-26-new-books-out-today/

https://electricliterature.com/7-books-featuring-freaky-queer-sex-scenes/

https://www.lionessbookstx.com/blog/on-our-paper-backs-the-new-lesbian-pulp

Yours,

Sarah Fonseca

Octavia Saenz

Co-Editors, The New Lesbian Pulp

Feminist Press

The City University of New York