[4][5] Alta was also one of the early collective members of the influential Bay Area feminist newspaper PLEXUS, for which she wrote a monthly column on women's writing and creativity.
Alta used a printing press in her garage to publish books by authors such as Susan Griffin, Pat Parker, and Mitsuye Yamada.
"[8] The press published the first edition of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, and Mary Mackey's first novel, Immersion (1972).
[10] Her first volume of feminist poetry, Freedom's in Sight, was published in 1969,[11] and some of her poems were anthologized in such collections as From Feminism to Liberation (Philip G. Altbach and Edith S. Hoshino, eds, 1971).
[12] Her 1980 collected works The Shameless Hussy (Crossing Press) won the American Book Award in 1981.