Susan Ann Butterworth (10 September 1950 – 26 July 2004) was a British bookseller and activist, co-founder of

Silver Moon Bookshop The Silver Moon Women's Bookshop was a feminist bookstore at 68 Charing Cross Road in London, England, founded in 1984 by Jane Cholmeley, Sue Butterworth, and Jane Anger. Redclift and Sinclair (1991) p. vii, They established Silver Moon Booksho ...

in 1984, and editor of the store's newsletter, ''Silver Moon Quarterly''.

Early life

Sue Butterworth was born in

Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community (Wales), community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, the community � ...

in north Wales, the daughter of F. Buttersworth and Doris Buttersworth. Her father had a furniture store. She attended Penrhos College until the age of 16. In 1973, she and a friend made a driving tour of South Africa.

Career

Butterworth began working in publishing as a secretary, then as an editorial assistant at

Book Club Associates Book Club Associates (BCA) was a mail-order and online book selling company in the United Kingdom. It came to dominate the mail-order book-club business in the U.K. in the 1970s and 1980s through extensive advertising in Sunday newspaper colour s ...

from 1977 to 1981. She was a member of

Women in Publishing Women in Publishing (WiP) is a London-based group, established in 1979, that works to promote the status of women working in the publishing industry and related trades by helping women to develop their careers.

from its launch in 1979. In 1982, she and Jane Cholmeley began creating Silver Moon Bookshop, which opened in 1984 in

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street), which then merges into Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direc ...

, and Silver Moon Books, a publishing company. They only stocked books by women; they worked with publisher

Barbara Grier Barbara Grier (November 4, 1933 – November 10, 2011) was an American writer and publisher. She is credited for having built the lesbian book industry. After editing ''The Ladder (magazine), The Ladder'' magazine, published by the lesbian ci ...

Naiad Press Naiad Press (1973–2003) was an American publishing company, one of the first dedicated to lesbian literature. At its closing it was the oldest and largest lesbian/feminist publisher in the world. History Naiad Press was founded by partners Barba ...

to bring more American lesbian-themed works to the British audience. The shop was a community hub for feminists in London, and Butterworth's newsletter, the ''Silver Moon Quarterly'', had more than 10,000 subscribers worldwide. After Silver Moon closed in 2001, due to rent increases, Butterworth taught, chaired the Society of Bookmen from 2002 to 2003, and was vice-chair of the Book Trade Benevolent Society. She and Corinne Gotch founded Meerkat Books, a not-for-profit marketing network to promote independent British booksellers and publishers. Butterworth and Cholmeley won the Pandora Award from

in 1989, and the Mike Rhodes Trust Award in 2001. In 1996, Butterworth served as a judge for the NCR Non-Fiction Prize, on a panel with

Nick Hornby Nicholas Peter John Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is an English writer. He is best known for his memoir '' Fever Pitch'' (1992) and novels ''High Fidelity'' and '' About a Boy'', all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequen ...

Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English former broadcaster, journalist and author, born in Yorkshire. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate ...

Cristina Odone Cristina Patricia Odone (born 11 November 1960) is an Italian-British journalist, editor, and writer. She is the founder and chair of the Parenting Circle Charity. Odone is formerly the Editor of '' The Catholic Herald'', Deputy Editor of the ...

, and Andrew Roberts.

Personal life

Butterworth died at

Bank, Hampshire Bank is a village in the English county of Hampshire. The settlement is within the civil parish of Lyndhurst in the New Forest, and is located approximately from both Ringwood and Southampton. It has one inn and approximately 30 distinct dw ...

, in 2004, aged 53 years, from cancer; she was survived by her partner Irene Roele. The British Book Industry Awards include a Sue Butterworth Award for Young Bookseller of the Year, named in her memory and sponsored by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

."HC to launch Sue Butterworth prize", ''The Bookseller'', 25 February 2005, 6. ''Gale Academic OneFile''. Retrieved 29 May 2022.

References

External links

* Annie Roma Southern, ''Women in the Book Trade: Three Women Publishers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (2014); Butterworth is one of the profiled publishers in this volume. {{DEFAULTSORT:Butterworth, Sue 1950 births 2004 deaths 20th-century British businesswomen 20th-century Welsh LGBTQ people British booksellers British feminists British publishers (people) British women activists British women company founders British women editors People from Llandudno Welsh LGBTQ businesspeople Welsh LGBTQ rights activists