CELEBRATING "OFF OUR BACKS" 35 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT FEMINIST PUBLISHING

In March 2005 I attended the annual Independent Press Association (IPA) conference where I learned about a couple very positive trends for progressive thought in this country. First, I learned that progressive magazines and news journals are flourishing (for example, the circulation for Mother Jones and the Nation has, for instance, been steadily increasing since President Bush was elected). second, I learned that new startup feminist magazines and news journals are on the increase as well. In upcoming issues we hope to highlight some of the new independent feminist publications emerging in the United States. As a prelude to this focus, however, we thought it was fitting to start a series on feminist independent publishing by first looking backward at the oldest feminist news journal still in publication, Off Our Backs. For this interview I had thepleasure of talking to long-time member of the Off Our Backs collective, Karla Mantilla, about their struggles, successes, and philosophy about feminist publishing.

-Sharon Groves

SG: How would you describe the work that Off Our Backs does?

KM: One of our most distinguishing features is our longstanding commitment to the idea that feminism is an international and global movement. This has been a focus since our inception and we feel that many feminists in the United States are not aware of how alive the feminist movement is around the world. Each issue of Off Our Backs is filled with information about feminist international...