A BOOKSHOP OF ONE’S OWN

Jane Cholmeley

RIGHTS SOLD: UK & Commonwealth/Mudlark/Harper Collins

RIGHTS AVAILABLE: All other rights handled by the bks Agency

Jane Cholmeley is currently writing a personal history of Silver Moon

What was it like when feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement met publishing, the Gentleman’s Profession? In the 1980s, the Conservative government was locked in ideological combat with Ken Livingstone’s GLC, who gave us the opportunity of a shop on the Charing Cross Road, the best bookselling street in the UK. What was it like to be a lesbian in Thatcher’s time with the attack of Clause 28 and the response of resistance by the LGBT community? How do you run a business when your real aim is to change the world?

Times of struggle and joy.

Jane Cholmeley is a key figure in British feminism and books, the co-founder of Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop, which became the largest of its kind in Europe.

Her 40-year book trade career began at Yale University Press, followed by Macdonald Educational, which was then acquired by Robert Maxwell. She refused to work for him and instead took an M.A. in women’s studies.

Jane opened Silver Moon with her then partner Sue Butterworth and Jane Anger in 1984 and it became a vibrant centre of women’s writing, hosting prestigious events with authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood, and Sandi Toksvig, who nominated Jane Cholmeley as a Gay Icon in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of that name in 2009.

Silver Moon created a safe space for women and proudly made women’s writing central and visible on the best bookselling street in the world.