New Words Bookstore
The four founders, Rita Arditti,[1] Gilda Bruckman,[2] Mary Lowry, and Jean MacRae were brought together through introductions made by mutual friends.
In January 1976, New Words moved to a bigger space at 186 Hampshire St, Cambridge (Inman Square), in what was then a hot spot of feminist activity.
By the mid-1980s, the New Words collective had expanded to include Madge Kaplan, Kate Rushin, Laura Zimmerman, Doris Reisig, and Joni Seager.
[5] By 1998, additionally, other feminist establishments in Inman Square (the neighborhood of Cambridge in which New Words was located) had closed, with the exception of Focus Counseling.
[citation needed] In October 2000, New Words Live received a grant from the Ford Foundation to explore possible models for the future of feminist bookstores in the United States, paying particular attention to arrangements that would enhance and build on their broad cultural and political roles.
Owing to community support and the Ford Foundation grant, when the bookstore closed in 2002, the Center for New Words (CNW) carried on in the shop's wake.
Over the years, readings at the store brought authors such as Dorothy Allison, Julia Alvarez, Ellen Bass, Alison Bechdel, Robin Becker, Kate Clinton, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Mary Daly, Edwidge Danticat, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cynthia Enloe, Eve Ensler, Lillian Faderman, Leslie Feinberg, Carol Gilligan, Jane Hamilton, Judith Lewis Herman, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Robin Morgan, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Pat Parker, Marge Piercy, Judith Plaskow, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Adrienne Rich, May Sarton, Marjane Satrapi, Alix Kates Shulman, Barbara Smith, Gloria Steinem, Wendy Wasserstein, Jennifer Weiner, among dozens of others, to Boston-area audiences.
[13][page needed] Women started producing music, newspapers, magazines, opened publishing houses, and forged national and international political and social networks.
New Words was one of the few venues in Boston where Black feminism was made visible; the store was a significant outlet for the writings of the Combahee River Collective and for Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and housed an extensive "African American" section.
The international linkages of the bookstore were evident in the range of offerings—New Words' journal shelves included Manushi (India), Femme (Mexico), and Spare Rib (UK).
The Alliance Against Sexual Coercion (see Sexual Harassment), the original organizing committee for the Boston Women's Fund, Moving Violations, the Boston Dyke March planning committee, Rainbow Café (a gathering of queer women in academia), and a group for transgender writers, among many others, met regularly at New Words.
[5][21] With office and event space located in the Cambridge YWCA in the heart of Central Square, CNW's mission was to encourage diverse women's engagement with the entire "word cycle", from literacy to literary writing to opinion making in the media.
CNW's new local programs and projects included a monthly spoken-word open mic; a cable television show with local feminist writers; a discussion series, Feminism and Dessert (picked up by the Cambridge Women's Commission[23]), feminist writing workshops with instructors such as Patricia Powell and Michelle Tea; book groups on the subject of feminism and undoing racism; and a weekly writing group with women at On The Rise, a safe haven day program for homeless women in Cambridge.
It included readings and discussions with Anne Garrels, Laura Flanders, Mary Frances Berry, Molly Ivins, and other prominent public affairs authors, activists, and commentators; and a series of forums on issues ignored by the mainstream media, such as women in Afghanistan, led with Saira Shah; and "frontline" war reporting in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, with Anita Pratap.
