Nancy Joyce Peters (born October 3, 1936) is an American publisher, writer, and co-owner with

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and ...

City Lights Books City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ...

and Publishers in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

until Ferlinghetti's 2021 death.

Biography

Nancy Peters was born in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, and took a BA in literature and an MLS at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. After travel and life abroad between 1961 and 1967, she was briefly employed as a librarian at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. In 1971, she moved to San Francisco and began working as an editor with City Lights.Morgan, Bill
"City Lights bookshop tour"
City Lights. Retrieved 7 August 2007. In addition to editorial work Peters was involved in coordinating collaborations with literary and community organizations sponsoring readings, performances, and benefits for progressive social action. Among the authors Peters worked with are

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German Americans, German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambien ...

Harold Norse Harold Norse (July 6, 1916, New York City – June 8, 2009, San Francisco) was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse w ...

, Diane di Prima,

Julian Beck Julian Beck (May 31, 1925 – September 14, 1985) was an American actor, stage director, poet, and painter. He is best known for co-founding and directing the Living Theatre, as well as his role as Reverend Henry Kane, the malevolent preacher ...

, Andrei Vozsesnesky,

Anne Waldman Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political acti ...

Andrei Codrescu Andrei Codrescu (; born December 20, 1946) is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He is the winner of the Peabody Award for his film ''Road Scholar'' and the Ovid Prize for ...

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

, Ron Kovic,

Ellen Ullman Ellen Ullman is an American computer programmer and author. She has written books, articles, and essays that analyze the human side of the world of computer programming. She has owned a consulting firm and worked as technology commentator for N ...

Michael Parenti Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is ...

Peter Lamborn Wilson Peter Lamborn Wilson (October 20, 1945 – May 22, 2022) was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wils ...

Rikki Ducornet Rikki Ducornet (; born Erica DeGre; April 19, 1943) is an American writer, poet, and artist. Her work has been described as "linguistically explosive and socially relevant," and praised for "deploy ngtactics familiar to the historical avant-gard ...

, and Alejandro Murguia. Peters helped City Lights avoid a financial crisis in the early 1980s, and become a co-owner of the business in 1984. She and Ferlinghetti bought the Columbus Avenue building that houses the bookstore in 1999. City Lights became a registered landmark in 2001, the first time this recognition had been granted to a cultural institution as well as a building. In the book ''Literary San Francisco'' (by Peters & Ferlinghetti), she wrote about the bohemian and radical Bay Area literary scene, from the beginnings through the early 20th century. Co-editor of ''Unamerican Activities: The Campaign against the Underground Press'', ''Howl on Trial'', and ''Reclaiming San Francisco'', she also co-edited ''Free Spirits: Annals of the Insurgent Imagination'' and a series of ''City Lights Reviews''. Among other journals, her writing has appeared in ''Arsenal: Surrealist Subversion'', ''

Cultural Correspondence ''Cultural Correspondence'' was a journal of leftist politics and cultural commentary published from 1975 to around 1985. Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner were its founding editors. History ''Cultural Correspondence'' was part of a wave of cultural ...

'', and ''The Beats: A Graphic History'' (Harvey Pekar). She is the translator of

Antonio Tabucchi Antonio Tabucchi (; 24 September 1943 – 25 March 2012) was an Italian writer and academic who taught Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena, Italy. Deeply in love with Portugal, he was an expert, critic and translator o ...

's ''Dreams of Dreams and The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa'' and was a longtime member of the board of directors of the Istituto Italiano Scuola. In 2007, after 23 years as City Lights' executive director, Peters stepped down but remains on the board of directors and is president of City Lights Foundation. In 2010, she was given the Northern California Book Association’s Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement. Ferlinghetti praised her as "one of the best literary editors in the country". In 1978, she married the

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

–

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by members o ...

poet

Philip Lamantia Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet, writer and lecturer. His poetry incorporated stylistic experimentation and transgressive themes, and has been regarded as surrealist and visionary, contributing to the ...

(1927–2005), who lectured at the Art Institute and San Francisco State University. Peters participated with Lamantia in the World Surrealist Exhibition in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in 1976, and they sometimes read together at such events as a benefit for Hopi and Navajo traditional peoples and the Santa Barbara Poetry Festival, and they recorded for the San Francisco Poetry Center Archives. Fourteen of her poems were published in a

Black Swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large Anatidae, waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent ...

Press chapbook entitled ''It’s In the Wind''. Her poetry was included in ''Surrealist Women, An International Anthology''Rosemont, Penelope (1998)
"Surrealist Women"
University of Texas. Retrieved 7 August 2007. and in ''Anthologie des Poètes Surréalistes Américains''.

Notes and references

External links

at the landmark celebration.
Webcast from University of California
(listed at "2.15pm, 11 February 2006"). Needs Realplayer. {{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, Nancy 1936 births Living people 21st-century American women American book editors American publishers (people) American women writers Writers from Seattle