Amy Scholder


Amy Scholder is an American literary editor and documentary filmmaker known for publishing works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ writers, artists, musicians, and activists.

Biography

Early years

Born in San Francisco, Scholder grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. She attended Tufts University for two years, then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from University of California, Berkeley.

Career

City Lights Books

Scholder began her career as an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco in 1985. She added to its list by publishing books by Karen Finley, Gil Cuadros, Rebecca Brown, Leslie Dick, Carla Harryman, Marguerite Duras, George Bataille, and Laure. While at City Lights, she also created an imprint of books for the nonprofit ArtSpace in San Francisco, publishing books by author-artists David Wojnarowicz , Dennis Cooper, and Nayland Blake.

High Risk Books

In 1991 she edited, with Ira Silverberg, the anthology High Risk: Writing on Sex, Death, and Subversion which collected transgressive writing in the midst of the AIDS crisis, regardless of genre. Another volume followed in 1994. Among the writers included in High Risk are Karen Finley, Essex Hemphill, Kathy Acker, David Wojnarowicz, Mary Gaitskill, William S. Burroughs, Dorothy Allison, Dennis Cooper, Ana Maria Simo, Darryl Pinckney, Akilah Nayo Oliver, Darius James, Lynne Tillman, Craig G. Harris, Rikki Ducornet, John Giorno, John Preston, Diamanda Galas, Cookie Mueller, Gil Cuadros, Kate Bornstein, Wanda Coleman, and Manuel Ramos Otero. Speaking to BOMB Magazine in 1991, Scholder described the High Risk anythology saying:
Scholder moved to New York City in 1995 when Serpent’s Tail, an independent literary publisher in the UK, offered Scholder and Silverberg a US imprint which they named High Risk Books. They published a list of mostly paperback originals designed by artist Rex Ray. Authors include Sapphire, Cookie Mueller, Gary Indiana, John Giorno, Heather Lewis, Lynne Tillman, Kate Bornstein, Diamanda Galas, Hervé Guibert, Ann Rower, Mary Woronov, and June Jordan. Scholder edited books for High Risk and Serpent's Tail until 2004

Independent

As an independent editor, she also edited the diaries and short fiction of David Wojnarowicz for Grove Press; selected writings and short fiction by Kathy Acker for Grove Press; and a book of poetry by Joni Mitchell for Crown.

Verso Books

Scholder began editing books for Verso in 1999, and became their US publisher in 2005, where she acquired books by Laura Flanders, Judith Butler, Kate Millett, and Valerie Solanas, whose SCUM Manifesto was reprinted with an essay by Avital Ronell.

Seven Stories Press

She left to join Seven Stories Press as editor-in-chief in 2006, and acquired books by Coco Fusco, Ulrike Meinhof, Elfriede Jelinek, Annie Ernaux, Savannah Knoop, Douglas Martin, and hattie gossett.

The Feminist Press

In 2008, Scholder left Seven Stories to become the executive editor of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. There she rebranded the organization to address contemporary feminist issues and sensibility, such as Pussy Riot!: A Punk Prayer for Freedom, "a collection of letters, songs, poems, courtroom statements, and tributes" pertaining to the jailed members of Russian performance art group, Pussy Riot. During Scholder's tenure at Feminist Press, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's Hiroshima in the Morning was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Virginie Despentes′ King Kong Theory, Justin Vivian Bond′s Tango: My Life Backwards and in High Heels, Barbara Hammer′s Hammer: Making Movies Out of Sex and Love, and Ana Castillo′s Give It to Me all won Lambda Literary awards. Other works published by Scholder include the translation of Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie into English, a previously unpublished novel, Savage Coast, by Muriel Rukeyser, and books by June Jordan, Karen Finley and Laurie Weeks.

Documentary Filmmaking

In 2015, Scholder left the Feminist Press and returned to Los Angeles. She produced with Sam Feder the documentary feature film Disclosure, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance FilmFestival and was released as a Netflix Original in June 2020. Disclosure was nominated for a Peabody Award and earned a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary; PinkNews award; a Global Mental Health Programs/Columbia University award; and a Women's eNews award for Groundbreaking Film of the Year.
After she co-edited the collection of works by controversial feminist Andrea Dworkin, Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin with Johanna Fatemen, Scholder was approached by director Pratibha Parmar and producer Shaheen Haq to help them finish their hybrid documentary feature film My Name Is Andrea, about Dworkin. She became an executive producer of the film, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

Back at City Lights

After rejoining City Lights as an editor-at-large in 2016, Scholder edited Pamela Sneed’s Funeral Diva, which won the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry; Steven Reigns′ A Quilt for David; Kate Braverman’s A Good Day for Seppuku; Jewelle Gomez′s The Gilda Stories; and the 25th anniversary edition of Karen Finley′s Shock Treatment.
She joined the Board of Directors of the City Lights Foundation in 2020 and previously served on the Board of Directors of Lambda Literary.

Selected bibliography as editor