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citapress.bsky.social
Cita Press
@citapress.bsky.social
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Open access feminist press
We publish free, carefully designed books by women
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citapress.bsky.social
Cita Press titles are now available on BRIET, a new platform from Brick House Cooperative that allows libraries to buy permanent copies of ebooks (instead of repeatedly paying licensing fees on the same titles).

Cita books are free—to libraries and to all. 📚💙https://market.briet.app/#cita-press
A screenshot of a page from the BRIET Marketplace site. It reads "Purchase digital books fro libraries, for patrons, forever. Not a librarian? Send this page on to your local library. We are BRIET, and our mission is to sell ebooks to libraries, so they can be loaned freely to you. Pictured: The Old Maid by Edith Wharton (Cita Press edition)
October 22, 2025 at 4:31 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Bay Area readers! TONIGHT (10/14, 7 pm), head to Mrs. Dalloway's in Berkeley for "Scribbling Women" Strike Back, a Litquake panel on recovering the legacies, work, and (often wild) stories of women writers. 📚💙

Details and RSVP here: litquake2025.sched.com/event/28SCE/...
Litquake, "Scribbling Women" Strike Back! A discussion on recovering the voices of women writers whose legacies have been erased, lost, or distorted. Oct. 14, 7-8:30pm, Mrs. Dalloway's in Berkeley. Free, $10-$15 suggested donation. Black and white photos of six panelists: Jessi Haley, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Jessica Ferri, Kim Askew and Amy Helmes, Emily Van Duyne, Mimi Pond (Pond's photo is a cartoon self portrait of Pond's head floating out of a ripple)
October 14, 2025 at 5:10 PM
citapress.bsky.social
The mini-zine companion for Planted in a Strange earth excerpts the story "The Snow Episode" and opens up to include a coloring page!

Download + Print + Fold —> A mini book!

Zine design & illustration by Kassie John; book cover by Mer Young. 📚💙

citapress.org/planted-in-a...
October 13, 2025 at 10:08 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Planted in a Strange Earth: Selected Writings by Zitkála-Šá brings together fiction, nonfiction, & poetry by one of the most influential feminist activist-artists of the twentieth century. Available for free at citapress.org — read a story to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day! 📚💙
A square image of the book cover of Planted in a Strange Earth: Selected Writings by Zitkala-Sa, feat. the title over a photo illustration of a young Zitkala-Sa in profile, doubled and facing in opposite directions over a background with a Dakota geometric print
October 13, 2025 at 10:08 PM
citapress.bsky.social
For the latest issue of the Cita Press Bulletin, we explored 3 writers we want to read in translation, with help from the scholars & translators bringing them back into prominence: Ntšeliseng 'Masechele Khaketla, Na Hye-sŏk, and Albertina Bertha. Learn more: citapress.substack.com/p/there-is-a...
September 8, 2025 at 10:08 PM
citapress.bsky.social
White and yellow background split vertically in half with the book cover for Marianna Sirca written by Grazia Deledda in Italian and originally published in 1915. The book cover for the recent English translation by Graham Anderson for Dedalus Books, 2023, displays a black and white image of an Italian woman with dark hair and clothing with a pearl necklace; the border fades out into black with the title, author, and translator at the bottom. White and yellow background split vertically in half with the book cover for The Honditsch Cross written by Ingeborg Bachmann in German and originally published in 1978. The black book cover has the title and author written in a white, handwritten-esque font with two crossing flags in the middle that present two eyes, cutting off the rest of the face for the recent English translation by Tess Lewis for New Directions, 2025.
August 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
citapress.bsky.social
White and yellow background split vertically in half with the book cover for We, the Casertas written by Aurora Venturini in Spanish and originally published in 1992. The book cover displays an image of a woman descending a large granite spiral staircase with the title, author, and translator listed at the top for the recent English translation by Kit Maude for Soft Skull Press, 2025. White and yellow background split vertically in half with the book cover for On Homo rodans and Other Writings by Remedios Varo, written in Spanish ~1950s-1963. The book cover displays a painting by Remedios Varo featuring someone riding in a wheeled-gadget that connects to their long and spiralling cloak that opens up to show their face for the recent English translation by Margaret Carson for Wakefield Press, 2024. Yellow and white background split vertically in half with the book cover for Covert Joy: Selected Stories by Clarice Lispector, published ~1940s-1977 in Portuguese. The book cover presents the negative of a photograph of a woman’s face for the recent English translation by Katrina Dodson for New Directions, 2025.
August 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
citapress.bsky.social
For #womenintranslationmonth, here are 5 new English translations of works by iconic women writers from across the globe🧵

These translations bring new readers to old(er) books and expand our access to the feminist canon. We are grateful to the translators and publishers who made this possible.

📚💙
Yellow slide with a vertical white bar on the left. Text begins in the white line and moves out to the yellow, reading: “Old Books, New Translations”
August 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Award-winning Canadian poet, prose writer, translator, and classicist Anne Carson (b. 1950) on translation.

From a 2001 discussion with Brighde Mullin for the Lannan Foundation. Full video 🔗: lannan.org/media/anne-c...

#WITMONTH #womenintranslation #WIT 📚💙
August 15, 2025 at 9:15 PM
citapress.bsky.social
🐈WRITERS AND CATS 🐱
Elsa Morante and her cats!

Morante’s love for cats crept into her writings such as History: A Novel (translated by William Weaver, 1977) featuring Rossella, the striped orange and red cat!

#WITMONTH #womenintranslation #WIT 📚💙
Black and white image of Elsa Morante, an Italian woman wearing a dark shawl on her head and holding a disgruntled white cat who looks at the camera, both of them in front of bookshelves and hanged art. A black and white photo of a young Elsa Morante, an Italian woman with curly, dark hair, wearing a dark sweater and holding two cats before a bookshelf. One is in her arms and the other rests on her shoulder, both of them looking at the camera.
August 13, 2025 at 8:46 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Find yourself by the water this summer? Here are six different writings on waterways, shorelines, and the critters you might find in their sands or skies.

This post is inspired by the scholarship of Susan A.C. Rosen, editor of Shorewords: A Collection of American Women’s Coastal Writings (2003)
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Blue design of layered, wavy shapes to imitate the appearance of water. Blue-scaled covers of the books mentioned later in this post float on the waves and yellow text at the top reads: “6 Beach Reads;” while white text at the bottom reads: “for nature lovers.” Yellow background with two book covers. The first cover is for “Gray Lady and the Birds” by Mabel Osgood Wright published in 1907. The faded cover features the illustration of three birds (or a sequence of one bird) flying over trees and into the distance. The title is printed in yellow at the top of the cover; the author is printed in the bottom-right just above the treeline. The second cover is for “London Parks and Gardens” by Alicia Amherst (or Mrs. Evelyn Cecil) published in 1907 with Illustrations by Lady Victoria Manners. The embroidered cover features the title, author, and illustrator at the top-right with a row of flowers each springing from their own blossom at the bottom of the page. Yellow background with two book covers. The first book cover is for the original imprinting of “The Sea Around Us” by Rachel L. Carson (1951). The cover is green with sea creatures surrounding a darker area in the center where the book title and author are written in white. The second book cover is for the 70th Anniversary edition of “Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1955). The cover is light blue but fades to white in the center where there is the outline of a conch shell and the title printed under; the author is listed at the top of the cover. Yellow background with two book covers. The first cover is for Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead” (2025). The art consists of water-colored dots that flow across the cover. The title is printed in blue amid a white circle in the middle of the cover, and the author’s name is printed at the top in white. The second cover is for “Margins: A Naturalist Meets Long Island Sound” by Mary Parker Buckles (1997). It is white with a skinny-outlined box that surrounds all of the cover’s contents. In the box is the title and author printed in skinny, underlined text and an image of fishing nets set in the water at sunset.
August 7, 2025 at 7:31 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Polish writer and Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk on how she views literary translators as her co-creators in her work.

From a 2019 interview with the Nobel Foundation @nobelprize.bsky.social

#womenintranslation #WITMonth 📚💙
August 6, 2025 at 7:05 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Nos complace anunciar la publicación de la nueva traducción al español de Diez días en un manicomio, por Daniel Saldaña París @dsparis.bsky.social para el Cita Press Literary Translation & Technology project. 🔗⬇️

Prólogo: Mikita Brottman

Portada y ilustraciones: Dajia Zhou

📚💙 #womenintranslation
Blue book cover for the Spanish translation of Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly with an illustration of a group of people looking into a chained box with an eye above. Stamps on the cover denote that it is now available for free online.
July 30, 2025 at 8:34 PM
citapress.bsky.social
🐈WRITERS AND CATS 🐱
Helen Gurley Brown and Samantha

Helen Gurley Brown was noted to have loved cats all her life, at times even including her cat’s paw print with her signature 🐾

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Black and white photo of Helen Gurley Brown, a young white woman with her neck-length hair pinned back on each side, in front of a typewriter with her Burmese cat, Samantha, sitting on the table and reaching her head out curiously to the camera.
July 29, 2025 at 7:05 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Writer, poet, teacher Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) speaks about the emotional toll of finishing a novel.

In this interview from 1980, just a week before the election of Ronald Reagan, Oates speaks about the influences of political terrorism and discontent as well as her creative process.

📚💙
July 28, 2025 at 3:41 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Read @dsparis.bsky.social's new essay “Translation, A.I. and the Political Weight of Words,” trans. by Christina MacSweeney, in Asymptote’s new issue: “What A.I. Can’t Do.”🔗⬇️

Illustration by Daija Zhou for Cita’s (free!) edition of Ten Days in a Mad-House/Diez días en un manicomio by Nellie Bly

📚💙
Blue and white design with an illustration of a large group of late-1800s women wearing hats and dresses standing under a tree (by Daija Zhou) and text reading: "Exactly how revolutionary is this new technology in terms of our profession?" Read "Translation, AI, and the Political Weight of Words" by Daniel Saldaña París in the ASYMPTOTE special feature "What AI Can't Do" -- out now!
July 25, 2025 at 7:29 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Writer Minae Mizumura (b. 1951) on the importance of literature.

Mizumura moved to the United States as a child. She moved back to Japan after her graduate study, where she achieved her long held goal to write literature in Japanese.

#WomenInTranslation 📚💙
Yellow text and a faded design of a hand resting on an open book over a black background. The text reads: "Science may explain how humans came into being, but it has no answer to the slippery question of how humans should live. Only literature makes it possible to pose such questions in the first place. And if there is no answer, only literature can point to the impossibility of ever finding one." Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English (2008), translated by Mari Yoshihara and Juliet Winters Carpenter in collaboration with the author (2015). Image: Odilon Redon via The MET
July 23, 2025 at 7:29 PM
citapress.bsky.social
🐈WRITERS AND CATS 🐱
Elsa Gidlow and her cats

“I have learned much from my cat friends, been encouraged and inspired by their gentle-to-fierce resources for survival. It is the same spirit in women that men through the ages have tried to tame, to conquer” - Gidlow, "Elsa, I Came with My Songs"

📚💙
Black and white image of Elsa Gidlow, an older white woman with short hair wearing a white, long-sleeve shirt and light pants, sitting on a wooden porch with a Burmese cat on her lap. Black and white image of Elsa Gidlow, a young white woman in a white dress with long, kept-back hair, standing and holding a dark cat in her arms in front of her home.
July 22, 2025 at 3:42 PM
citapress.bsky.social
For more on the design history here, check out Queer X Design: 50 Years of Signs, Symbols, Banners, Logos, and Graphic Art of LGBTQ by Andy Campbell (2019, Black Dog & Leventhal).
The first image shows a magazine cover for Mirage. It is black and white with a bolded, lowercase outline of the title at the top and ink sketches of women such that their hair flows together as one body. The second image shows the cover for the Moonshadow Newsletter. Around the top-right border is bubble text reading “The Voice of the Transexual Action Organization, TAO;” there is a black and white ink illustration of a woman wearing a cropped, tie front, geometric floral print blouse, seemingly surrounded by a net. Text reads: “A magazine and newsletter founded by Angela Lynn Douglas, founder of TAO (the first international trans rights organization). The publications forged connections during a time when trans people were alienated from straight and gay communities.” Two book covers for books published by Kitchen Table Press. The left is Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology edited by Barbara Smith; the title and editor are written in yellow text over a black and white pattern of lines and rectangles. The right is Cuentos: Stories by Latinas edited by Alma Gómez, Cherríe Moraga, and Mariana Romo-Carmona. The title and editors are written in orange text over a black background and an orange pattern borders the left side of the cover. Text reads: “The first publishing company run by women of color; started in 1980 by Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Cherrie Moraga, and Audre Lorde. Kitchen Table used graphics from indigenous African, Asian, Latino and Indian cultures in the cover and text illustrations of their books. The Press’ design in turn influenced other book designs by and about women of color. Covers designed by member Susan Yung.” Two magazine covers for The Ladder: A Lesbian Review. The first is from October 1957; it shows an illustration of a young woman with short hair removing a drama mask. The second shows an abstract depiction of two women, one wearing white clothes and thick, round glasses, the other wearing a dark jacket and seemingly aviation goggles. The first woman appears to be holding the second from behind and placing a cigarette in her mouth. Text reads: “The first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. Included book reviews, news, poetry, short stories, a running bibliography of lesbian literature, letters from readers, and updates from Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) meetings. All issues came in brown paper coverings for the duration of the magazine’s existence. The first issue (175 copies) was mailed out directly to individual women. It soon became available in newsstands in major cities and by subscription, obtained by word of mouth.”
July 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Covered in brown paper, distributed through private networks and published under pseudonyms–these books and magazines provided access and visibility despite many obstacles.
Two magazine covers, both for ONE magazine. The first is from April 1955; it is yellow with abstract outlines of male figures and faces; white triangles contrast portions of the cover. The second is from March 1965; it is a black cover with illustrations of two men diving in the ocean with three-pronged handrakes, surrounded by fish and white bubbles floating to the surface. Text reads: “Joan Corbin (aka Eve Elloree) was the main illustrator from 1953 to 1963. Her long-time partner, Irma Wolf, publishing under the pseudonym Ann Carll Reid, served as chief editor.” The first image is of a magazine cover for DYKE: A Quarterly. The title is in bold, white letters in a red box over a black and white outdoor image of three young ladies with short hair smiling in front of a car and a cliffside. The second image shows the inside cover for the First Anniversary issue of DYKE, showing a patchwork illustration of a woman who appears to have been quilted together. Text reads: “DYKE was distributed only through women's outlets and by mail. Most articles were written by lesbians; issues were printed by a lesbian print shop; and advertisers were primarily lesbian feminists.The title was a spoof of LIFE magazine.” Two different book covers for The Price of Salt by Claire Morgan, aka Patricia Highsmith. The first depicts a pile of salt spilling down into the spine of the book with the word, “Salt,” written into it; “The Price of” is above, with “PRICE” written in all red, and “THE” and “OF” are reduced to their outline. The second presents a pulp illustration of a casually-dressed young woman looking displeased resting on a chair with another, formally-dressed young woman above her smoking a cigarette and comforting her; the backlit silhouette of a man reaching out in a desert remains in the background. Text reads: Highsmith followed up the success of Strangers on the Train with this blatantly lesbian novel, which was firmly rejected by her publisher. It came out in hardcover in 1952 with the "Claire Morgan" alias, followed by a cheap pulp edition and mass market paperback. Published as Carol under Highsmith’s name in 1990, adapted into a film starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in 2025.
July 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
citapress.bsky.social
A small sample of publications that brought words and design together to build community, spread, knowledge, and promote art in the face of mainstream silence.🧵⬇️

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Purple Slide with text reading “Publishing Milestones to know for Pride” and a black and white image of four women, Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Cherrie Moraga, and Audre Lorde, standing beside each other, holding hands, and wearing shirts that say “KITCHEN TABLE PRESS.”
July 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
citapress.bsky.social
Virginia Woolf on life – and what a novelist is trying to capture about the human experience, in the essay “Modern Fiction” (first published in 1919).

Stay tuned for exciting news related to Woolf x Cita Press!!

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Design of a radiating purple circle with limb-like shadows passing in-front of and through it. Text over the design reads: "Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." Virginia Woolf
July 17, 2025 at 3:21 PM
citapress.bsky.social
🐈WRITERS AND THEIR CATS 🐱
Alice Walker and Frida

“When it is bedtime I pick her up, cuddle her, whisper what a sweet creature she is, how beautiful and wonderful, how lucky I am to have her in my life and that I will love her always.”
- Walker, in On Cats: An Anthology

📚💙
Black and white image of Alice Walker, a Black woman wearing a necklace and button-up blouse, holding Frida, her long-haired calico cat. Walker is happy; Frida is not.
July 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM
citapress.bsky.social
At home at Andalusia Farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, O’Connor raised ducks, chickens, geese, ostriches, emus, toucans, and up to around 100 peafowl at a time. Her love of birds was an influence on her fiction, and she frequently used the peacock as a symbol in her stories.
Black and white image of Flannery O’Connor, a white woman with glasses and a light outfit sitting on brick stairs. She is feeding the birds around her, but an exceptionally curious duck is sticking his nose into her cup while she looks away.
July 14, 2025 at 9:09 PM
citapress.bsky.social
After this early brush with fame, she explains in a 1961 essay, “What had been only a mild interest became a passion, a quest. I had to have more and more chickens…My quest, whatever it was actually for, ended with peacocks. Instinct, not knowledge, led me to them.”
Black and white image of Flannery O’Connor, a young white woman with crutches wearing a dark dress with a pearl necklace. She smiles at the camera from the brick stairs leading to a screened patio; there is a peacock, train feathers slightly sprawled, investigating the ground on the left.
July 14, 2025 at 9:09 PM