Susan Ann Butterworth (10 September 1950 – 26 July 2004) was a British bookseller and activist, co-founder of

Silver Moon Bookshop The Silver Moon Bookshop was a feminist bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London founded in 1984 by Jane Cholmeley and Sue Butterworth,Redclift and Sinclair (1991) p. vii, its name derived from the two symbols of womanhood from a poem by Sappho. ...

in 1984, and editor of the store's newsletter, ''Silver Moon Quarterly''.

Early life

Sue Butterworth was born in

Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2011 UK census, the community – which includes Gogarth, Penrhyn Bay, Craigsi ...

in north Wales, the daughter of F. Buttersworth and Doris Buttersworth. Her father had a furniture store. She attended Penrhos College until the age of 16. In 1973, she and a friend made a driving tour of South Africa.

Career

Butterworth began working in publishing as a secretary, then as an editorial assistant at Book Club Associates from 1977 to 1981. She was a member of

Women in Publishing A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

from its launch in 1979. In 1982, she and Jane Cholmeley began creating Silver Moon Bookshop, which opened in 1984 in

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street) and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of ...

, and Silver Moon Books, a publishing company. They only stocked books by women; they worked with publisher

Barbara Grier Barbara Grier (November 4, 1933 – November 10, 2011) was an American writer and publisher. She is credited for having built the lesbian book industry. After editing '' The Ladder'' magazine, published by the lesbian civil rights group Daugh ...

of Naiad Press to bring more American lesbian-themed works to the British audience. The shop was a community hub for feminists in London, and her newsletter, the ''Silver Moon Quarterly'', had more than 10,000 subscribers worldwide. After Silver Moon closed in 2001 due to rent increases, Butterworth taught, chaired the Society of Bookmen from 2002 to 2003, and was vice-chair of the Book Trade Benevolent Society. She and Corinne Gotch founded Meerkat Books, a not-for-profit marketing network to promote independent British booksellers and publishers. Butterworth and Cholmeley won the Pandora Award from Women in Publishing in 1989, and the Mike Rhodes Trust Award in 2001. In 1996, Butterworth served as a judge for the NCR Non-Fiction Prize, on a panel with

Nick Hornby Nicholas Peter John Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir ''Fever Pitch'' and novels '' High Fidelity'' and '' About a Boy'', all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work f ...

, Jeremy Paxman,

Cristina Odone Cristina Patricia Odone (born 11 November 1960) is an Italian-British journalist, editor, and writer. She is the Founder and Chair of the Parenting Circle Charity. Odone is formerly the Editor of ''The Catholic Herald'', Deputy Editor of the '' ...

, and Andrew Roberts.

Personal life

Butterworth died at Bank, Hampshire, in 2004, aged 53 years, from cancer; she was survived by her partner Irene Roele. The British Book Industry Awards include a Sue Butterworth Award for Young Bookseller of the Year, named in her memory and sponsored by HarperCollins."HC to launch Sue Butterworth prize", ''The Bookseller'', February 25, 2005, 6. ''Gale Academic OneFile''. Retrieved May 29, 2022.

References

External links

* Annie Roma Southern, ''Women in the Book Trade: Three Women Publishers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (2014); Butterworth is one of the profiled publishers in this volume. {{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Sue 1950 births 2004 deaths 20th-century British businesswomen 20th-century Welsh LGBT people British booksellers British feminists British publishers (people) British women activists British women company founders British women editors People from Llandudno Welsh LGBT businesspeople Welsh LGBT rights activists