Alta, Letters to Women (Berkeley, CA: Shameless Hussy Press), 1979 - 1979

This collection is made up of LGBT-related poetry, prose, music, and photography chapboooks produced from the 1960s through the current day, most from the 1970s and 1980s. The majority of the materials are in the poetic genre, but literature including short stories and plays are included, as well as books of lyrics and musical notation, and books of photography, especially those which include creative texts alongside the graphics material. Not included in the collection are non-fiction or educational pamphlets, comic books, coloring books, or 'zines. For the most part, periodical publications, including serial poetry journals and anthologies, are not included. These may be found within the Archives' periodicals collection by journal title. Most of the items in this collection were produced by small presses including some collectives, and some of the works are self-published. Books by a single author are included side by side with those with multiple contributors and one or more editors. Many of the writers and presses are from the Philadelphia area, but other centers of LGBT life in the United States are represented as well. Some titles exist in more than one copy. They are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author, editor, or if neither of these is known, by the title of the work. There is one final file at the end which includes clippings, transcriptions, and manuscript copies of LGBT poetry primarily from the 1970s and 1980s.