Cleis Press Launches the OutWriters Project

Independent publisher Cleis Press has launched a campaign called OutWriters that explores why queer writing is important.

In celebration of Pride month, Cleis Press has launched OutWriters, a brand new project that explores the importance of LGBTQ writing. Using the hashtag #OutWriters on Twitter, over fifty authors, readers, and writers of LGBTQ literature have been sharing why queer writers are important to them, and what it means to have queer visibility in books.

Radclyffe, editor of the Best Lesbian Romance series, said "We can be the heroes of stories. We can have happy ever afters. Books matter. #OutWriters." Nathan Burgoine, prolific author of gay literature, contributed "Because the majority of the time we're not born to LGBT families, and often have to go find our own. Stories can be maps. #OutWriters." Perhaps most poignantly of all, Jacob Anderson-Minshall explained that "I write queer stories to increase LGBTQ visibility. Visibility=Rights."

Cleis Press's co-founder Felice Newman commented that "as an out writer myself, I've spent most of my life encouraging LGBTQ people to be visible, free, and well-pleasured. The presence of LGBTQ voices in literature is dear to my heart." Cleis hopes that OutWriters will help give LGBTQ books and writers the attention and visibility they deserve.

Cleis Press publishes provocative, intelligent books across genres. Whether literary fiction, human rights, mystery, romance, erotica, LGBTQ studies, sex guides, pulp fiction, or memoir, if it's outside the ordinary, it's Cleis Press.