Watch out!

HOUSE HUNTER

By Michelle Tea

› sfsunday@aol.com

Getting lost in Carol Seajay's neighborhood is sort of sweet. Her Noe Valley enclave is tucked in with winter fog that mutes the bright paint jobs on the Victorians and refreshes the yards full of flowering bushes and spiky trees. But as peaceful as it is to be adrift in her hood, I'd rather be lost in her house. The woman's got books. If you counted all the books in tumbling piles on the floor, the ones heaped on her kitchen table, the ones winding around her kitchen counter, the mountain by the back door, the bins in the hallway, the handful of titles in the bathroom, and the boxes stored away in the basement, Ms. Seajay thinks the grand total would be between four and five thousand tomes, most of them of the lesbian, feminist, or lesbian-feminist variety.

I'm not exactly here to write about her library — though wouldn't that be a great column? Exploring the bookshelves of everyday people? Nope, I'm here because Carol Seajay, founder of the much-missed Old Wives Tales bookshop and publisher for more than 20 years of Feminist Bookstore News, has come up with another way to build book-centric queer community. Books to Watch Out For, an online, subscription-based newsletter series, delivers flashy, gossipy literary info into your e-mailbox each month. Divided into three discrete publications — the Gay Men's Edition, edited by gay lit mentor Richard LaBonte, the Lesbian Edition, edited by Seajay, and the all-new More Books for Women, edited by the staff of the Women and Children First bookstore, in Chicago — Books to Watch Out For publishes 10 times a year, with the errant special edition produced in conjunction with events like the annual Lambda Literary Awards. (Disclosure: I am reviewed on the site from time to time.)

"I used to publish Feminist Bookstore News, and in those days it was a big question about what is a feminist bookstore?" Seajay recalls with, in true lesbian-feminist fashion, a cat purring on her lap. "Everyone knew, but everyone's answer was different. I've always seen my job as collecting up all those visions and reflecting them back in an affirming kind of way, and also expanding those visions."

In the late '90s, as feminist bookstores nationwide went the way of Old Wives Tales, Seajay watched the audience for Feminist Bookstore News shrink. Publishing conglomerates were eating up everything they could find, from smaller presses to other conglomerates, causing advertising revenue to dry up. Feminist Bookstore News folded in 2000, and Seajay gave herself a crash course in all things techie, got a job in a "tech-writing sweatshop," and waited for inspiration to hit and for her job to be outsourced. Globalization and Seajay being what they are, her work was eventually shipped overseas and inspiration for a new way to bring together readers, writers, publishers, and booksellers struck. Taking out a line of equity on her home and office, Seajay launched Books to Watch Out For in 2003, months after getting the idea. Swiftly she had subscribers, not just nationally but also eager readers in Europe, Asia, and Antarctica.

"Books to Watch Out For is two things," she explains. "It's a book review and gossip sheet. You want to know what's going on, and you want a context for things. You want to know who is the author and where does the work come from. The gossip part is very important. I have a pretty severe 'good gossip' ethic," she assures me, squashing any fears and fantasies that queer literary-world hookups or breakups find their way into the newsletter. The gossip end is more to let readers know who's doing what, and why.

The forthcoming February Lesbian Edition features reviews of local first-time author Katia Noyes's breakout novel, Crashing America, new work from Anna Castillo and Ann Allen Shockley, and Nora Vincent's Self-Made Man, a sort of Black Like Me exploration of life as a man penned by a dyke who lived as one for 18 months, joining bowling leagues and going to Iron John–esque men's retreats. Seajay is currently celebrating the new More Books for Women edition, which launched this fall to "address your thinking, straight woman's hunger for literature." The festivities include trial subscriptions to all three newsletters as well as a 15-months-for-the-price-of-12 deal.

"My interest has always been in those ideas that are a little too edgy for mainstream publishing," Seajay says, "and that's what we create and maintain. Readers need to stay involved and be active in the pursuit of information, and not just swallow what comes with the biggest advertising dollar." *

www.btwof.com/pr