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be able to publish. As it turned out, the vision Grier and McBride had for the companytook Naiad in a much more commercial and controversial direction.
    In fact, after researching it, I learned that soon after Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence was released, Naiad Press sold the rights to one of the interviews to MS Magazine , which published it in August 1985.
    Apparently, Naiad, with Grier and Johnson at the helm also sold other stories from the book to the men’s magazine Forum .
    Immediately I understood why Anyda has been so reticent to talk. The selling of the chapters to Forum must have deeply disturbed Anyda and Muriel on so many different levels.
    I found a listing online about a collection of material in the archive at the James C. Hormel Center in San Francisco. The archive contained Naiad Press correspondence from 1971-1994 donated by Barbara Grier. In a description of the material, the archivist notes, “Of particular interest are the files of clippings and correspondence relating to the publication of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence edited by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan… Grier’s sale of rights to publish excerpts in Forum caused a firestorm of controversy within the feminist and lesbian communities. The controversy served to make the book a best seller….”
    Well, that answered a lot of questions. Obviously this move by Naiad was the antithesis of everything Anyda and Muriel stood for and saw for the future of Naiad Press.
    A&M BOOKS IS BORN
    Eventually, Barbara Grier and Donna McBride bought Anyda and Muriel out of Naiad Press and in 1995 Rehoboth’s best known publishers started a new company, A&M Books of Rehoboth, once again, out of their home and garage.
    As part of the financial settlement with Naiad, A&M Books retained both the existing stock and the rights to all of the Sarah Aldridge titles. And Anyda, at 83, was still writing.
    If nothing else, A&M Books would be the avenue for publishing more Sarah Aldridge novels. Although by this time, theAldridge novels were joined in gay and mainstream bookstores by an explosion of lesbian-written, lesbian-themed and lesbian-published novels, romances and the new hot genre, mysteries with lesbian detectives, cops and investigators.
    Keeping with the style she knew, Anyda kept on writing. With the lesbian publishing industry growing so rapidly—by this time Naiad was joined by several other thriving lesbian publishing outlets—the lesbian community had their own thriving literary culture. And the Sarah Aldridge novels were fast becoming collectible classics.
    While continuing to write her romantic novels energized Anyda, she also wanted very much to bring A&M Books to prominence by finding other unpublished authors and letting their words flow as well. It was Anyda’s goal.
    The publishers have worked on A&M Books projects every single day for over a decade now, at a pace slowed by age, but with more gusto than most people decades younger. A thirteenth Aldridge novel was released and they worked to send out publicity, fill orders and keep the publishing business going. These days, hardly a week goes by without a letter in the A&M post office box from a fan, a former author or a purchase order from a bookseller. Muriel takes care of the checkbook and Anyda does the correspondence. Longhand. Not a computer in the house.
    And several of the porch regulars, in addition to stopping by for cocktails and conversation have doubled as shipping clerks, delivering packages to the post office.
    Anyda and Muriel humbly accept a little help (like hiring me to do some of the promotional work and mailings), but these fiercely independent women are determined to stay happily and stubbornly self-sufficient.
    They both read at least two newspapers a day to stay current. Anyda has a passion for crossword puzzles, The New Yorker , and her old muse Virginia Woolf, while Muriel never met a romance novel she didn’t love. They cook a bit,