Redbone Press

RedBone Press publishes work celebrating the cultures of black lesbians and gay men, and work that further promotes understanding between black gays and lesbians and the black mainstream. 

RedBone’s first book, does your mama know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories, won two 1997 Lambda Literary Awards, for Small Press and Lesbian Studies. The second title, the bull-jean stories by Sharon Bridgforth, won the 1998 Lambda Literary Award for Small Press. Three more books were released September 2004: love conjure/blues, a novel by Sharon Bridgforth; last rights and nothin’ ugly fly, both books of poetry by Marvin K. White. In the summer of 2005, RedBone published Where the Apple Falls, poetry by Samiya Bashir. Published in 2006 are Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity, Blood Beats: Vol. 1, and Erzulie’s Skirt.

Published in 2007 are Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing; Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books; and Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men. Published in 2008 are Blood Beats: Vol. 2 and In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology. In 2009, RedBone Press published Gospel: poems by Samiya Bashir, and issued a revised edition of does your mama know?, with 17 new stories. Most recently, published in 2011 are two collections of poetry by Marvin K. White, Our Name Be Witness and Status. Most titles since 2004 have been Lambda Literary Award finalists; additionally, Blood Beats: Vol. 1 won a 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Award.

“RedBone ambitiously fulfills a two-fold black feminist mission of both creating space for new critical voices to emerge and insisting on the relevance of earlier work by thinkers committed to the wholeness and freedom of black communities.”