Once upon a time, not all that long ago, two women found a silver moon. They burnished it till it shone and let a rope ladder down to earth so that all the other women could climb up into the stories. It was only possible because then, the earth was warm red, not cold blue. But as the world turned, the earth got colder, and it got harder and harder to keep the place warm enough, and the rope ladder frayed, and broke. The silver moon moved, for a while, to a bigger place, and had its own little corner on the top floor. But being on the top floor wasn’t quite the same as having your own rope ladder to lead you up among the stars. So that was that.
A Bookshop of One’s Own: How a Group of Women Set Out to Change the World (Mudlark 2024)by Jane Cholmeley tells the story of Silver Moon women’s bookshop. I found it in another bookshop of our own, Gay’s the Word, around the corner from where Silver Moon used to be. When I moved to London in 1998, Silver Moon was still there. I had just started my PhD and my first relationship with a woman. I remember walking everywhere; down to the new British Library and through Bloomsbury to Soho and Charing Cross Road. At number 68 was Silver Moon.
So hearing the whole story was thrilling. How difficult it was to start a women’s bookshop in 1984 and to keep it going until 2001. But how much harder it would be to start it now, without a left-wing Greater London Council subsidising your rent and with the online competition. Cholmeley describes all the ups and downs in detail. Raising the funds, which didn’t extend to an accessible lift. Who cleaned the toilets. How they fought back against Section 28. They had book signings and events with everyone from Acker, Atwood and Angelou to Walker, Weldon and Winterson.
For writers, what might be most interesting is the politics and economics of how to get books out there so people can find and buy them. This has changed a lot in forty years, of course, but the passion and personal connections and power relations are as important then, as now. As is the magic of meeting an author whose work you love, who inspires you to write.
Ridge Writing Retreats 