Regional History Project Oral Histories

Founded in 1969 during the counterculture of the late 1960s in Berkeley and the early second wave of feminism, Shameless Hussy Press was the first feminist press in the United States. One of the most important historical contributions of Shameless Hussy Press was the first publication of books by four women who later became prominent feminist writers: Pat Parker, Mitsuye Yamada, Ntozake Shange, and Susan Griffin. Alta's recollections discuss these writers, and other Shameless Hussy titles, as well as the cultural and political milieu in which she was working. In this oral history Alta also discusses her growth as a writer.

Shameless Hussy Press is one of three presses archived in the Special Collections department of UC Santa Cruz's University Library, as part of the UC/Stanford US History and Women's Studies Consortium California Feminist Presses Project. The other two are Papier-Mache Press and HerBooks Feminist Press. The project is designed to preserve the output as well as the history of feminist presses in California.