Aqueduct Press

Aqueduct Press dedicates itself to publishing challenging, feminist science fiction. We promise to bring our readers work that will stretch the imagination and stimulate thought.

Although feminist science fiction has been thriving for thirty years, its role as an oppositional literature means that it will almost never be "mainstream" enough to attract an audience that makes works best-selling blockbusters or even meets the bottom-line criterion of corporate publishers and booksellers that prevails in the industry today. As a sad consequence, the leading publishers often decline to bring fine works of feminist science fiction into print. André Schiffrin, in The Business of Books, writes,

Books can afford to go against the current, to raise new ideas, to challenge the status quo, in the hope that with time an audience will be found. The threat to such books and the ideas they contain-what used to be known as the marketplace of ideas-is a dangerous development not only for professional publishing, but for society as a whole. We need to find new ways of maintaining the discourse that used to be considered an essential part of a democratic society.

Fortunately, a few small presses have begun to include feminist science fiction in their lists. Aqueduct Press is pleased to join their ranks. Thirty years is only the beginning: let the discourse continue.