Carol Seajay

Carol Seajay is an American activist and former bookseller.[1][2] She cofounded the Old Wives Tales bookstore in San Francisco as well as the Feminist Bookstore News, which she edited and published for more than 20 years before ceasing publication in 2000.[3][4]

Carol Seajay
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Known forFeminist Bookstore News

Early life

Seajay attended higher education at the University of Michigan.[5] During her last year in school she worked as an abortion counselor, but was fired after being outed as a lesbian, leading her to purchase a motorcycle on which she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1974.[5][6][7]

Activity in the Bay Area

Upon arriving in San Francisco, Seajay attended classes at a free school in the area. She also joined a local feminist worker cooperative bookstore (the Full Moon Cafe and Bookstore), but it was eventually shut down because of unlicensed events.[5]

Several months later, Seajay began working at A Woman's Place, a worker-owned feminist bookstore in Oakland, California. She was an early member of the worker collective there.[8] She and Paula Wallace, a colleague at A Woman's Place and her romantic partner at the time, eventually applied for a loan from the San Francisco Feminist Federal Credit Union to start their own bookstore.[5][9]

Old Wives Tales
Main article: Old Wives Tales (bookstore)
Old Wives Tales bookstore on 1009 Valencia Street in 1983

While attending the First National Women in Print Conference in Nebraska, Paula Wallace called Seajay to tell her that the loan had been approved. On October 31, 1976, Seajay and Wallace opened the bookstore on 532 Valencia Street in the Mission Dolores neighborhood of San Francisco, naming it "Old Wives Tales".[5][10]

Old Wives Tales was a feminist bookstore which often featured books from small publishers, and served as a community space for women in the area.[9]

The bookstore was moved to 1009 Valencia Street after Seajay and Wallace broke up in 1978 and Wallace moved away.[10] Previously a partnership between the two cofounders, it was restructured by Seajay as a worker-owned collective in the new location.[5] Members of the collective incorporated the bookstore as a nonprofit in 1983, the same year Seajay resigned.[9]

Old Wives Tales shut down permanently in October 1995.[9]

Feminist Bookstore News
Main article: Feminist Bookstore News

After returning to the Bay Area from the First National Women in Print Conference, Seajay founded the Feminist Bookstore News to help those who met at the conference remain in touch. She published the first issue on October 14, 1976.[5]

In 1990, Seajay won the Publisher's Service category at the 2nd Lambda Literary Awards, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center by the Lambda Book Report.[11]

Seajay continued to edit and publish the Feminist Bookstore News until summer 2000, when the final issue was published. Over time it became an important trade publication for feminist publishers, printers, and booksellers.[12]

References
  1. "Labyris". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  2. Giard, Robert (January 1994). "Seejay, Carol with Staff Members Susan Vuic and Dawn Lundy Martin". Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Photo). Yale University Library.
  3. Kogan, Deborah Copaken. "Shelf Awareness for Tuesday, June 30, 2009". www.shelf-awareness.com. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  4. Uprichard, Lucy (September 25, 2018). "Feminist Bookstores Built a Radical Legacy of Women's Activism". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  5. Sullivan, Elizabeth. "Carol Seajay, Old Wives Tales and the Feminist Bookstore Network". FoundSF. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  6. Tanenbaum, Laura (2016-05-26). "The Books That Made Them Feminists". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
  7. Palmieri, Brooke (2016-10-24). "Impermanent Dwellings: Bookstores and Feminist Approaches to History". JHI Blog. Journal of the History of Ideas. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  8. Hogan, Kristen (2008). "Women's Studies in Feminist Bookstores: "All the Women's Studies women would come in"". Signs. 33 (3): 598. doi:10.1086/523707. ISSN 0097-9740. JSTOR 10.1086/523707. S2CID 144949497.
  9. "Guide to the Old Wives' Tales Bookstore records, 1976-1995". Online Archive of California. May 1996. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
  10. Kirkeberg, Max. "Old Wives Tales bookstore at 1009 Valencia Street - 1983 - Max Kirkeberg Collection". diva.sfsu.edu. San Francisco State University. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
  11. Harper, Jorjet (21 June 1990). "Lambda Awards Ceremony: Vegas Rising". Bay Area Reporter. 20 (25). p. 82. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  12. "Feminist Bookstore News Records". Online Archive of California. Retrieved 2021-01-21.
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