Newman, Felice

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NEWMAN, Felice

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Bowling Green State University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Office—Cleis Press, P.O. Box 14697, San Francisco, CA 94114. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Publisher, editor, and translator. Cofounder, small feminist press in Pittsburgh, PA, 1970s; former staff member, Poets & Writers magazine; Cleis Press, founder and publisher, with Frédérique Delacoste, 1980–. Also works as a somatic sex educator and coach.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Cameos: 12 Small-Press Women Poets (anthology), Crossing Press (Trumansburg, NY), 1978.

(Editor, with Frédérique Delacoste) Fight Back!: Feminist Resistance to Male Violence (nonfiction), Cleis Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1981.

(Translator, with Ines Rieder) Erzsébet Galgóczi, Another Love (nonfiction), Cleis Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1991.

The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (nonfiction), Cleis Press (San Francisco, CA), 1999, second edition, 2004.

Contributor of poetry to periodicals and to anthology Amazon Poetry, edited by Joan Larkin, Out & Out Books. Author of syndicated weekly column "Whole Lesbian Sex," published newspapers, including San Francisco Bay Times and Seattle Gay News. Author of advice column for lesbian and bisexual women for ClassicDykes.com.

SIDELIGHTS: Felice Newman is the cofounder and copublisher of Cleis Press, a publishing house that releases books aimed for feminist, lesbian, and gay readers, as well as erotica and sex guides for a general audience. The company describes itself as the largest independent publisher of homosexual materials in the United States and the only one of the many founded in the 1970s and 1980s to still be run by its founders as of 2005. Newman, originally a poet, became interested in publishing during an internship with a feminist press. She met Frédérique Delacoste, her Cleis Press collaborator, in graduate school, and they initially set up the company in Minneapolis, eventually relocating it to Pittsburgh and then San Francisco. Cleis's first project was a book the co-founders coedited and titled Fight Back!: Feminist Resistance to Male Violence. Its success led them to publish many more titles, both fiction and nonfiction, encompassing literary works, erotica, and sexual how-to guides. In an interview on the Cleis Press Web site, Newman commented, "I'm most proud of the fact that … in one generation, we've helped change the way people think and speak about sexuality and gender. For me, this is personal. My mission is to help people create authentic and fulfilling sex lives. I do that as a writer and a sex educator and most significantly as a publisher of Cleis Press."

Among Newman's efforts as a writer is The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us. This book aims to advise lesbians on how to achieve sexual pleasure with a variety of acts and techniques. It deals with bisexuality and transgender issues as well, and discusses how to maintain a satisfying sex life in a long-term relationship, while acknowledging that some women favor monogamous relationships and others do not. Newman's research included surveying hundreds of women on their sexual tastes and experiences. It includes a bibliography and resource guide. "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book acknowledges that lesbians may have sex with men, they may be quite transgressive and fluid in their sexuality and gender, and they may like to do things that would shock an old-fashioned girl," Newman commented on the Cleis Press Web site.

Some reviewers found the book not at all shocking, but rather thorough, inclusive, and well written. "Newman's sex guide for lesbians is superb," observed Martha Cornog in Library Journal, noting that heterosexual women and the men in their lives also could learn much from the volume. Pat Califia, writing in the Advocate, considered Newman's prose to be "warm and accessible" as she details "a banquet of delightful options" for sexual fulfillment. "The Whole Lesbian Sex Book is a classic," Califia concluded. When Newman updated the book after five years, Cornog, again critiquing for Library Journal, had more positive things to say about the second edition. The critic remarked that it "sets a standard for which all popular sex writers should aim."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, March 14, 2000, Pat Califia, review of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us, p. 65.

Lambda Book Report, June, 2000, review of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book, p. 30.

Library Journal, January, 2000, Martha Cornog, review of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book, p. 137; January 1, 2005, Martha Cornog, review of The Whole Lesbian Sex Book, second edition, p. 132.

Publishers Weekly, December 6, 1991, review of Another Love, p. 66.