Lethe Press is an American book publishing company based in

Maple Shade, New Jersey Maple Shade Township is a Township (New Jersey), township in Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 19,131. What is now Maple Shade was originally fo ...

."Steve Berman's Lethe Press Connects Queer Adolescence with Science Fiction"
. ''

Philadelphia Weekly ''Philadelphia Weekly'' (''PW'') is a website based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, a ...

'', April 30, 2013. Launched in 2001 by

Steve Berman Steve Berman is an American editor, novelist and short story writer. He writes in the field of queer speculative fiction. Biography Berman was born on August 28 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in southern New Jersey. Berman realiz ...

, a writer and a former employee of

Giovanni's Room Bookstore Giovanni's Room Bookstore is a gay bookstore in Philadelphia. It is the oldest gay bookstore in the United States still operating and has been called the "center of gay Philadelphia, Philly". Founded in 1973 in Philadelphia, Giovanni's Room Book ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, Pennsylvania, the company was originally launched to publish

speculative fiction Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nat ...

, primarily

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

-themed, as well as rereleasing

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a boo ...

titles from other LGBT publishers. In recent years, with numerous LGBT-oriented publishing companies folding, the company has also expanded its line to include new LGBT-themed non-fiction, poetry and anthology titles. The company also Tincture, a separate imprint for LGBT people of color. In 2012, '' The Advocate'' published a piece by Berman criticizing the structure and organization of the

Lambda Literary Awards Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted ...

."Op-ed: The Lambda Literary Awards Are a Shambles"
'' The Advocate'', October 5, 2012. His criticism included the fact that while many categories have separate awards for gay men and lesbians, the award offers no transparency in its judging and maintains only a single gender-neutral category for both speculative fiction and anthologies. In 2020, '' Writer Beware'' reported receiving complaints from multiple individuals about Lethe, including contract breaches in the form of unpaid royalties (for both authors and editors) and late royalty payments and statements. Berman addressed these issues on the site. "Small Press Storm Warnings: Lethe Press, Seventh Star Press"
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References

External links

Lethe Press
LGBT book publishing companies 2001 establishments in the United States Publishing companies established in 2001 {{US-publishing-company-stub American speculative fiction publishers