#Spring Fire

[queerliblib]

Pulp Fiction anyone??!

Here at Queer Liberation Library we’ve got you covered! from Beebo Brinker, to the Gay Detective, this was such a fun collection to put together for our readers

they are flying off our digital shelves though, so get your holds in when you can! 🌈

[cantsayidont]

Barye Phillips cover for the original 1952 edition of SPRING FIRE, a lesbian novel by Marijane Meaker. ("Vin Packer" was one of several noms de plume she used throughout her career, which also included "Ann Aldrich" and "M.E. Kerr.")

[uwmspeccoll]

Steamy Saturday

Spring Fire by Vin Packer, the pen name of American writer Marijane Meaker (1927-2022), was the first lesbian paperback novel and was published in New York by Gold Medal Books in 1952. It was an instant bestseller, outselling other popular titles of that year, including James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Daphne du Maurier's  My Cousin Rachel, and its publication marks the beginning of the lesbian pulp fiction genre.

The story, based on Meaker's own experience, revolves around the relationship between the shy and awkward, freshman sorority sister Susan ("Mitch") Mitchell and her more experienced roommate Leda Taylor. Both play at heterosexual "normality," while engaging in and at the same time questioning their same-sex attraction. Unfortunately, because it's the early 1950s, the relationship had to end in tragedy, with Leda bound for an insane asylum and Mitch denying to herself that she ever loved Leda.

Meaker was always distressed about having to write that ending. When Cleis Press approached her to republish the novel, she was very reticent. But the project went forward, and according to Wikipedia, Meaker wrote about this in the introduction to that reissue:

"I still cringe when I think about it. I never wanted it republished. It was too embarrassing." Meaker explained in the 2004 foreword that Dick Carroll, her editor at Gold Medal Books, told her that because the book would be sent through the mail, no references to homosexuality as an attractive life could be portrayed or postal inspectors would send it back to the publishing house. He said that one character must acknowledge that she is not a lesbian, and the other she's involved with "must be sick or crazy."

Beside lesbian romances, Marijane Meaker also wrote mystery and crime novels, nonfiction books about lesbians (as Ann Aldrich), children's books (as Mary James), and young adult fiction (as M. E. Kerr), for which she received the 1993 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association. The butch/fem cover illustration is by noted American artist and pulp-fiction cover illustrator Barye Phillips.

View more posts on lesbian romance fiction.

View more LGBTQ+ posts.

View other pulp fiction posts.

[pigeon-princess]

"Does he have the..." "The sword of Aegon the Conqueror? Blackfyre? Yeah, he does."

[werewolfetone]

They need to do that thing where actual professionals in certain fields have seminars for writers but with letting historical fiction writers faff about with firearms you can't get the proper experience with through any kind of legal modern shooting. god I just can't get into this scene does anyone have a paper cartridge I can try ripping open with my teeth

[ed13d1]

season of renewal

[felicitykings]

You scared me to death. Damn you.

[moondostj]

“beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.” / “he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. in his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.” / “you saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath.” / “the slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore.”

— george r.r martin

[lunegrimm]

Spring equinox

[candidlywhimsical]

Imbolc… the pagan rooted light and fire festival, the first of three, that celebrates winter’s midpoint and honors the goddess Brigid… we’re half way through until spring ❄️🐑🌼🪻🌾🔥

Blessed Imbolc to anyone who celebrates✨

[franzkafkagf]

then the storm broke, and the dragons danced

[xander-wolk]

Bunny sketches🐰

[chippedcupwrites]

sansa/arya/dany, your stans could never make me hate the other two of you 💞✨

[jasmine7031]

I went to Tokyo Disney Resort this weekend.

[nobllite]

Sleepy Bunny..

[mercerharlan]

Cold Spring Park neighborhood of Milwaukee

November 2018