Firebrand Books Building - 141-143 East State St (141 The Commons)

The Firebrand Books Building is located at 141-143 East State Street on The Commons, a pedestrian mall in downtown Ithaca. The building was constructed in 1872 for the prominent local publishing and bookselling firm Andrus, McChain, & Lyons (later Andrus & Church) and was designed by architect Alfred B. (A. B.) Dale. It is a four-story commercial brick row building with Italianate influence. From 1984 to 2000, its second floor housed the headquarters of Firebrand Books, a nationally recognized, multiple award-winning, small feminist and lesbian press founded by local activist, editor, and publisher Nancy K. Bereano.

Bereano began her publishing career in 1979 as editor for the Feminist Series at Crossing Press, a small publishing house founded by Ithaca College English professors John and Elaine Gill, then located in nearby Trumansburg, New York. She published 17 titles over her four years at Crossing. Despite bringing notoriety to the press through her keen editorial eye and acquisition of titles by emerging feminist icons like Michelle Cliff, Judy Grahn, Audre Lorde, and Pat Parker, Bereano was fired in October 1984. Crossing incorrectly claimed the Feminist Series was not making enough money, and Bereano’s dedication to the publication of lesbian books was “uppity.”

One month later, she founded Firebrand Books in Ithaca with financial support from family and friends, most notably the well-known lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich. Bereano took up residence on the second floor of 143 East State Street (listed under the address 141 The Commons). The prominent location of The Commons made the building an ideal choice for Bereano who, true to the name of her press, wanted to make her mark on the publishing world.

In a letter to writer Dorothy Allison, dated October 12, 1984, Bereano explained:

"The name has been decided upon: Firebrand Books. It has an honorable linguistic history dating back to the 13th century; I like the sense of controlled fierceness it conveys; I can use a dragon (a much male-maligned creature) as a logo. After I leave Crossing on November 19th (it is doubtful that they will negotiate anything with me), my new address will be Nancy K. Bereano, Firebrand Books, 141 The Commons, Ithaca, New York 14850."

Firebrand soon became a leader of the publishing revolution that occurred during the Second Wave Feminist and Women in Print movements of the 1970s and 1980s. The press produced work in a wide variety of genres by ethnically and racially diverse authors including Dorothy Allison, Alison Bechdel, Cheryl Clarke, Leslie Feinberg, Jewelle Gomez, Audre Lorde, and Minnie Bruce Pratt. In addition to full-length books, Firebrand also published a series of informational pamphlets called “Sparks” and semi-annual catalogs, released every fall and spring. The catalogs were packaged and mailed by volunteers from the Firebrand Flames, a local women’s softball team sponsored by the press.

As Bereano says of her immersion in the world of feminist and lesbian publishing:

"I believed in the significance, the importance, of doing this work. I saw a blossoming of lesbian culture. I was entering into it. I had a history—not a personal history, but a lesbian history—that I really wanted to learn about and honor. And there was a lot of work to do to get stuff out there. It was a period of time where women had manuscripts that they had had in their drawers for years that they couldn't imagine possibly getting published. It was very fertile. It was all tingley, all over the place. Many magazines, many, many publishers, just a lot of excitement. And this became my work. It's like all of the stuff that I had done for organizing, all of the skills that I had learned about getting people to a demonstration and planning backwards and what you needed to do, that's how a book got produced. Do you know what I mean? It was just different stops along the way. But in terms of thinking about it, that was how a book got into bookstores. And I was, you know, I was a reader. I had been an English lit major. So yeah, it was me, there was a growth in me concomitant with the growth in the press."

In 1996, Bereano was recognized with the Lambda Literary Publisher’s Service Award for her contributions to LGBTQ and small press publishing. Due to the changing economics of the book trade, Firebrand closed its doors in 2000 after sixteen years in operation. Stephen Landesman, writing about Bereano’s retirement for The Ithaca Journal, described Firebrand Books as a “widely renowned press” and “one of the most prestigious lesbian, gay, and feminist publishers in the world.” On October 5, 2022, the Ithaca Common Council unanimously voted to designate the building at 141-143 East State Street as a local historic landmark. It is officially known today as the Firebrand Books Building.

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