by Fay Jacobs
But by the early 70s, both Anyda and Muriel had health issues. Muriel had lung problems and her blood pressure was off the charts. Anyda was told she had a life-threatening heart condition and the doctor ordered mandatory retirement. So in 1972, Anyda (age 60) and Muriel (age 58) headed to Rehoboth full-time. While they both had wanted to continue their careers, at least the reluctant lawyer would now have the time to write her lesbian novels.
“You know, I had been writing novels all along, and a few of the novels I wrote years ago I did present to publishers,” Anyda told me, “but they were turned down flat. I realized I was not reaching my potential because I was not writing about gay subjects. I had a gay mentality, but I was writing non-gay novels, so naturally they had fatal flaws,” Anyda acknowledged in her somewhat scholarly voice. “When I came to retire I thought, ‘Well, this is the opportunity.’”
Anyda took it and ran. She started writing stories with fiercely feminist themes, strong women protagonists and happy endings. But she and Muriel firmly believed there could be no way to publish such “scandalous” material without disguising the author’s identity by using a pen name. Anyda chose Sarah Aldridge, a name that sounded vaguely historical and a tad British—by this time Anyda had a bona fide affinity, from both her ancestry and her travels, for Great Britain. She scribbled her novels—rich in both historical detail and romance, in long-hand on yellow legal pads, filling up dozens at a time. Along the way, Muriel, a voracious reader herself, would go over the drafts, making comments or raising questions.
Then, Anyda would dictate them to Muriel for typing. Sometimes Muriel waded through the long-hand drafts herself, muttering and cursing at Anyda’s scrawl, as she transcribed. Writing was the easy part; getting published only a dream.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” I said, helping to pack up copies of Aldridge titles A Flight of Angels and The Nesting Place. “You were so closeted, how did you even know there were readers out there?”
“We had The Ladder,” said Muriel.
I had heard of the publication, a newsletter of the early lesbian rights organization The Daughters of Bilitis. It was the first American magazine published by lesbians for a lesbian readership. I had read about it and the amazing women, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, homosexual rights pioneers, who were behind both the organization and its magazine. The Ladder was probably the very first written lifeline thrown to a scattered and mostly isolated population of lesbians all over the country.
Anyda submitted short stories to the publication, marking the first appearance of the Sarah Aldridge byline. And through The Ladder Anyda and Muriel met Barbara Grier, the publication’s last editor.
By 1972, the magazine had folded, but Grier still had the mailing list—an incredibly valuable commodity of over 3,000 entries. Anyda, encouraged by Muriel, decided she would publish the first Sarah Aldridge novel, The Latecomer, herself. “I told Muriel we should start a publishing house,” Anyda remembered. “If you had a manuscript of a lesbian novel, you certainly could not find a publisher. But we would do it ourselves and work with Barbara Grier to get the word out with her mailing list.”
It was a collaboration that worked—for a long time forward.
October 2003
THE RISE OF THE NAIADS
They would call the publishing house Naiad Press, based on Greek Mythology. Naiads were beautiful water nymphs and Naiad Press would allow lesbian feminist writers’ words to flow. Anyda and Muriel put up the $2,000 required, but no printer would touch a lesbian book with the proverbial ten foot pole. After several irritating encounters with insulting printers who refused the job, the women finally found a Florida company, whose only other big client was a Baptist Church. “It was a remarkable combination,” Anyda said.
The Naiad Press was officially launched on January 1, 1973, with the publication of The Latecomer a year later. The printer shipped the finished books to Anyda and Muriel, who distributed them from their garage. “We were shipping clerks,” said Muriel.
Anyda, ever the lawyer, saw to it that by 1974, Naiad was incorporated in Delaware, with Anyda and Muriel, Barbara Grier and her partner Donna McBride as shareholders. Thanks to the large network of independently owned lesbian-feminist bookstores cropping up throughout the 70s, and fledgling gay newspaper outlets, Naiad Press started to make a name for itself.
Through the rest of the 1970s and early 80s, Anyda continued to write novels, with Muriel acting as a sounding board and informal editor. One time, Muriel caught a confusing plot twist in one of the stories requiring Anyda to head back to the legal pads. Although she had to re-write almost half the book to straighten out the plot, she credited Muriel with discovering that “fatal flaw.”
In addition to the early Sarah Aldridge novels, Naiad Press began to publish romances, mysteries and novels by other female authors—writers like Katharine V. Forrest, Renee Vivien, Valerie Taylor, and many more.
Anyda was most proud of the business as an incubator for lesbian writers who otherwise might never be published. She and Muriel never expected financial success and never cared if they got any money back on their investments. They used the money made from the sale of The Latecomer to pay for publication of the next book, which in turn financed another. And another.
Over the years, Naiad published 12 Sarah Aldridge novels and dozens of other books by lesbians/feminists—surprisingly growing from a small business in the back of a garage to an impressive feminist publishing company with its own warehouse, staff, author list and first-rate nationwide reputation. In the early 80s, Naiad author Jane Rule, who had written the novel Desert of the Heart, saw the book turned into the now classic lesbian film Desert Hearts. Naiad Press was in the thick of it.
In 1985, Naiad also published the ground-breaking and controversial book Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, a collection of true stories.
As Anyda and Muriel continued to tell me the history of Naiad Press, the setting sun indicated the start of cocktail hour, an event not to be ignored. We seemed to be at a stopping point in the Naiad Press story anyway, as Anyda had gotten very quiet. And I knew, from comments Muriel had been dropping, that by the late 1980s the Naiad partnership was on the rocks.
After her second scotch Anyda, who had been very closed mouthed about the whole thing, hinted that the rift involved the direction Naiad Press was taking. Too commercial, not literary.
“We don’t really have anything more to say about it,” Anyda told me.
Later, I heard from Anyda and Muriel’s long-time friend Tom, that Anyda felt Naiad was retreating from its original goal—a publishing opportunity for quality lesbian/feminist writers who might not otherwise be able to publish. As it turned out, the vision Grier and McBride had for the company took Naiad in a much more commercial and controversial direction.
In fact, after researching it, I learned that soon after Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence was released, Naiad Press sold the rights to one of the interviews to MS Magazine, which published it in August 1985.
Apparently, Naiad, with Grier and Johnson at the helm also sold other stories from the book to the men’s magazine Forum.
Immediately I understood why Anyda has been so reticent to talk. The selling of the chapters to Forum must have deeply disturbed Anyda and Muriel on so many different levels.
I found a listing online about a collection of material in the archive at the James C. Hormel Center in San Francisco. The archive contained Naiad Press correspondence from 1971-1994 donated by Barbara Grier. In a description of the material, the archivist notes, “Of particular interest are the files of clippings and correspondence relating to the publication of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence edited by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan… Grier’s sale of rights to publish excerpts in Forum caused a firestorm of controversy within the feminist and lesbian communities. The controversy served to make the book a best seller….”
Well, that answered a lot of questions. Obviously this move by Naiad was the antithesis of everything Anyda and
Muriel stood for and saw for the future of Naiad Press.
A&M BOOKS IS BORN
Eventually, Barbara Grier and Donna McBride bought Anyda and Muriel out of Naiad Press and in 1995 Rehoboth’s best known publishers started a new company, A&M Books of Rehoboth, once again, out of their home and garage.
As part of the financial settlement with Naiad, A&M Books retained both the existing stock and the rights to all of the Sarah Aldridge titles. And Anyda, at 83, was still writing.
If nothing else, A&M Books would be the avenue for publishing more Sarah Aldridge novels. Although by this time, the Aldridge novels were joined in gay and mainstream bookstores by an explosion of lesbian-written, lesbian-themed and lesbian-published novels, romances and the new hot genre, mysteries with lesbian detectives, cops and investigators.
Keeping with the style she knew, Anyda kept on writing. With the lesbian publishing industry growing so rapidly—by this time Naiad was joined by several other thriving lesbian publishing outlets—the lesbian community had their own thriving literary culture. And the Sarah Aldridge novels were fast becoming collectible classics.
While continuing to write her romantic novels energized Anyda, she also wanted very much to bring A&M Books to prominence by finding other unpublished authors and letting their words flow as well. It was Anyda’s goal.
The publishers have worked on A&M Books projects every single day for over a decade now, at a pace slowed by age, but with more gusto than most people decades younger. A thirteenth Aldridge novel was released and they worked to send out publicity, fill orders and keep the publishing business going. These days, hardly a week goes by without a letter in the A&M post office box from a fan, a former author or a purchase order from a bookseller. Muriel takes care of the checkbook and Anyda does the correspondence. Longhand. Not a computer in the house.
And several of the porch regulars, in addition to stopping by for cocktails and conversation have doubled as shipping clerks, delivering packages to the post office.
Anyda and Muriel humbly accept a little help (like hiring me to do some of the promotional work and mailings), but these fiercely independent women are determined to stay happily and stubbornly self-sufficient.
They both read at least two newspapers a day to stay current. Anyda has a passion for crossword puzzles, The New Yorker, and her old muse Virginia Woolf, while Muriel never met a romance novel she didn’t love. They cook a bit, entertain guests and keep busy.
Rehoboth residents aren’t surprised to see Muriel at the wheel of their shiny maroon late-model Lincoln Town Car, Anyda riding shotgun and navigating, as they go to out to lunch, visit the library or just head east and park by the ocean for a good long look at the seagulls and sand.
Anyda’s 14th Sarah Aldridge novel O, Mistress Mine, was released by A&M Books last month with a big, celebratory book signing party at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center. Lots of sales, lots of press. Happy, happy publishers.
And last week the big front porch was closed up for the season. No Florida trip this year. It’s just too much stress and difficulty now. So the Florida house has been sold, and the cold months will be spent in Rehoboth. Friends have promised to stop by for cocktails in the back sunroom all winter long and to look in on the ladies every day.
And everyone is pitching in to assist the publishers on their next big project, As I Lay Frying–a Rehoboth Beach Memoir by some little-known local columnist.
November 2003
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
IDENTITY CRISIS
According to Oprah, the only wasted day is a day without laughter. It’s my motto too. Paying taxes, growing older, or sexual orientation is not a choice, but laughing at yourself is.
I make this point because generally, when absurd stuff happens, I try to keep my sense of humor. That is, until yesterday, when somebody stole my identity.
Why anyone would want my identity, with its maxed-out credit and pathetic portfolio, is beyond me, but steal it they did. Okay, that’s not completely true. I pretty much gave them my identity—over the Internet (Fay, call your village, their idiot is missing).
The mess started six weeks ago, when I could still get a good chuckle out of spending two hours on the phone with AOL because somebody in Uzbeckistan had cracked my password. Unable to log on, I’d called AOL. While on hold, I could have read the collected works of Rita Mae Brown.
As it was, wireless phone lodged between my ear and shoulder, I changed my clothes and spent time in the loo. Naturally, the technician finally answered and I had to do the Mexican Hat Dance to get my pants back up without dropping the phone. He pretended not to hear the flush. He explained that I was secure again and issued me a new password. Fine.
Two weeks later, my e-mail went flooey again. This time, the AOL tech had me on my cell phone for forty-five minutes while he coached me on reinstalling my software. I was fixed.
This was a good thing, because I was in the midst of emailing columns back and forth to editors and layout designers, trying to make my self-imposed book deadline.
Unfortunately, the fix AOL offered completely screwed up my modem settings, requiring me to have a martini and call Dell Computer. I was getting ticked but still able to find a little humor in this incident.
For instance, Dell keeps you on hold for twenty minutes and then, before you can even say hello, an automated voice asks for your service code. I bent down to find the code on the side of the computer, and saw it was written in 2-point type, impossible for a woman of my age to read, even with peepers on.
“You have 30 seconds to say your service code numbers or press the numbers on your touch tone phone,” droned the automated one.
I dove under the desk, plastered my face up against the sadistic code number, and still couldn’t read it. Time up! Bang! I was back on hold. Phooey. I wasn’t even on the portable phone so I could go get stronger glasses. When the robot came back a second time I punched “O” and prayed.
Finally, a human said, “Your service code, please.”
“I can’t see it,” I said.
“It’s on the side of the computer,” he said.
“No, I can find it, I just can’t see it. Can you hold while I get my glasses?”
So I raced off, feeling not at all guilty for making some computer geek wait 30 seconds, when his employer had left me on hold for a long days journey into night.
Returning, I crouched under my desk, peered at the tiny numbers and started reporting them to the farmer in the Dell. Suddenly, I leaned too far with the phone cord, dragging my martini off the desk, followed by the phone, both of which hit me in the head. At this point, I was still laughing. I mean what’s a day without laughter, right Oprah???? Even the guy from Dell started to laugh when he heard the splash followed by the crash, followed by a loud word for a bodily function.
Eventually the computer got fixed and my sense of humor lay in wait for the next insult.
So yesterday I got an e-mail from AOL, which looked like all the other e-mails I’ve been getting from AOL. It announced that since I’d recently had a problem with my password, they needed to verify my billing information. What’s more, they needed this verification within 12 hours, or my account would become invalid—as a protection to me, the account holder.
Well, reading this now, it positively screams “dumb schmuck,” but at the time I was e-mailing columns to my editor and PR stuff for my job, so I panicked. I followed instructions and went to the recommended web site. It sure looked like AOL—right down to the privacy statement and links.
To make double sure this was legit, I minimized the page and surfed to the AOL home page–which looked identical to the one asking for my financial verification. So I typed in the bank information and all that other secret stuff that makes me Fay Jacobs and hit “submit.” The second I did it, I knew I’d been stung. I can’t tell you what brought forth the epiphany, but I was positive my screen name should have been [email protected].
I e-mailed AOL as fas
t as I could and they confirmed I’d been a victim of fraud—me and thousands of others. Scumbag hackers had cloned AOL graphics and made sport of getting people to spill their financial guts.
I then spent six hours on the phone, alternating between numbing classical music and repetitions of my vital statistics to three credit bureaus, two credit card companies, two banks, the Social Security Administration, Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, my mortgage company, and the FBI (“Hello, Fraud Department? Can I speak with Clarice?”). By the fiftieth time I dispensed my social security number I started to go paranoid. Was I really talking to my bank or some con artist in Botswana? Would they soon find me locked in the den with newspaper clippings and secret code numbers pasted to the walls like that guy in Opie’s Beautiful Mind movie?
At one point Bonnie suggested I go ahead and let the con men have my identity. What the hell, I had a perfectly good maiden name to use and I could just start over. I’ve never been lucky at Roulette or in my investment portfolio. I could give ‘em Fay Jacobs and see what they do with her. I considered it.
But, having gotten used to me, I went to the bank the next morning, closed my accounts, cut up my checks, threw away ATM cards and signed up for all new stuff. Hopefully, those hackers who wanted to be Fay J. had nothing left to pilfer. My hope is they’ll try to use my accounts, discover them defunct and go victimize some poor schnook who took longer to realize he’d been had than I did.
Of course, all this left me with exactly $6.54 in my wallet and no way of getting my hands on more until payday or my ATM cards arrive, whichever comes first. I thawed the spiral ham left over from last Easter and figured we could wade through the freezer burn and wait it out.
