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Square Peg pre-empts Possanza’s queer history of Sapphic romance
Amelia Possanza’s creative non-fiction debut, Lesbian Love Story: A Queer History of Sapphic Romance, has been signed by Square Peg.
Marianne Tatepo, publishing director pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from literary agent Anna Carmichael at Abner Stein for publication on 22nd June 2023.
In the US, rights were acquired from literary agent Sarah Levitt at Aevitas Creative Management by Megha Majumdar, with Catapult publishing on 30th May 2023.
The publisher says: “Lesbian Love Story explores the remarkable stories from seven unforgettable historic lesbians and what they can teach us all about love. How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?
“Charting the stories of athletes and memoirists, drag kings and Harlem Renaissance activists, by way of Sappho, Lesbian Love Story is a genre-defying repository of Sapphic romance like no other. On her quest to discovering lesbian role models overlooked by history, Amelia Possanza uncovers seven incredible romantic pairings in the archives.”
Possanza, a book publicist and writer who lives in Brooklyn, said: “I’m absolutely chuffed that this story about my journey into the archives to uncover the love stories of lesbians who passed through New York City is making its own journey over to the UK, the country that gave us the first popular male impersonator, Annie Hindle, and the namesake for Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, the site of many queer ocean swims. I’m smitten with the sexy cover that Square Peg put together, featuring a painting by Jenna Gribbon that also celebrates lesbian love in its many forms, and I hope that everyone can learn a little something from our history about how to love.”
Tatepo commented: “What is the value of love when it does not confer systemic protection, or societal acceptance; when it elides heteronormative metrics? And what life lessons can be found in the stories of queer elders past and present? Amelia asks this and so much more. Through seven Sapphic pairings of all stripes, she presents a revolutionary history, using etches of lesbian lives gleaned from diaries, letters, newspapers and conversations to build a powerful narrative and romantic thesis.
“Hers is an astute creative non-fiction début, capacious in scope yet also – in its deeply-researched minutiae – an immediate, close study of queer intimacies. Lesbian Love Story is a remarkable ode to unexpected love, New York City, and sapphics everywhere, labels notwithstanding. I am beyond proud to publish it in the UK, jacketed with Jenna Gribbon’s defiant art.”
