Nancy Peters
Encyclopedia
Nancy Joyce Peters is an American publisher, writer, and co-owner with Lawrence Ferlinghetti
of City Lights Books and Publishers in San Francisco.
Nancy Peters was born in Seattle, and took a BA in literature and an MLS at the University of Washington
. After travel and life abroad between 1961 to 1967, she was briefly employed as a librarian at the Library of Congress
. In 1971 she moved to San Francisco and began working as an editor with City Lights. In addition to editorial work Peters was involved in coordinating collaborations with literary and community organizations sponsoring readings, performances, and benefits for progressive social action.
Among the authors Peters worked with are Allen Ginsberg
, Charles Bukowski
, Harold Norse
, Diane di Prima
, Julian Beck
, Andrei Vozsesnesky, Anne Waldman
, Andrei Codrescu
, Sam Shepard
, Ellen Ullman
, Michael Parenti
, Peter Lamborn Wilson
, Rikki Ducornet
, and Alejandro Murguia. Peters helped City Lights avoid a financial crisis in the early 80’s, and become a co-owner of the business in 1984. She and Ferlinghetti bought the Columbus Avenue building that houses the bookstore in 1999. City Lights became a registered landmark in 2001, the first time this recognition had been granted to a cultural institution as well as a building.
In the book Literary San Francisco (by Peters & Ferlinghetti), she wrote about the bohemian and radical Bay Area literary scene, from the beginnings through the early 20th century. Co-editor of Unamerican Activities: The Campaign against the Underground Press, Howl on Trial, and Reclaiming San Francisco, she also edited Free Spirits: Annals of the Insurgent Imagination and a series of City Lights Reviews. Among other journals, her writing has appeared in Arsenal: Surrealist Subversion, Cultural Correspondence, and The Beats: A Graphic History (Harvey Pekar). She is the translator of Antonio Tabucchi’s Dreams of Dreams and The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa and was a longtime member of the board of directors of the Istituto Italiano Scuola.
In 2007, after 23 years as City Lights’ executive director, Peters stepped down but remains on the board of directors and is president of City Lights Foundation. In 2010 she was given the Northern California Book Association’s Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Ferlinghetti has praised her as "one of the best literary editors in the country."
In 1978, she married the Surrealist-Beat Generation
poet Philip Lamantia
(1927–2005), who lectured at the Art Institute and San Francisco State University. Peters participated with Lamantia in the World Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago in 1976, and they sometimes read together at such events as a benefit for Hopi and Navajo traditional peoples and the Santa Barbara Poetry Festival, and they recorded for the San Francisco Poetry Center Archives. Fourteen of her poems were published in a Black Swan
Press chapbook entitled It’s In the Wind. Her poetry was included in Surrealist Women, An International Anthology and in Anthologie des Poètes Surréalistes Américains.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
of City Lights Books and Publishers in San Francisco.
Nancy Peters was born in Seattle, and took a BA in literature and an MLS at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
. After travel and life abroad between 1961 to 1967, she was briefly employed as a librarian at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. In 1971 she moved to San Francisco and began working as an editor with City Lights. In addition to editorial work Peters was involved in coordinating collaborations with literary and community organizations sponsoring readings, performances, and benefits for progressive social action.
Among the authors Peters worked with are Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
, Harold Norse
Harold Norse
Harold Norse was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse was widely published and anthologized.- Life :Born Harold Rosen to an unmarried Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn...
, Diane di Prima
Diane di Prima
Diane Di Prima is an American poet.-Early life:Di Prima was born in Brooklyn. She attended Hunter College High School and Swarthmore College before dropping out to be a poet in Manhattan...
, Julian Beck
Julian Beck
Julian Beck was an American actor, director, poet, and painter.-Early life:Beck was born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, the son of Mabel Lucille , a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman. He briefly attended Yale University, but dropped out to pursue writing and...
, Andrei Vozsesnesky, Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman is an American poet.Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activist....
, Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....
, Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
, Ellen Ullman
Ellen Ullman
Ellen Ullman is an American computer programmer and author. She has written novels as well as articles for various publications, including Harper's, Wired, the New York Times and Salon. Her essays and novels analyze the human side of the world of computer programming.Ullman earned a B.A. in...
, Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti
Michael Parenti is an award-winning, internationally known American political scientist, historian, and culture critic who has been writing on a wide range of both scholarly and popular subjects for over forty years. He has taught at several universities and colleges and has been a frequent guest...
, Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson , is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone , based, in part, on a historical review of pirate utopias...
, Rikki Ducornet
Rikki Ducornet
Rikki Ducornet is an American postmodernist, writer, poet, and artist.-Biography:...
, and Alejandro Murguia. Peters helped City Lights avoid a financial crisis in the early 80’s, and become a co-owner of the business in 1984. She and Ferlinghetti bought the Columbus Avenue building that houses the bookstore in 1999. City Lights became a registered landmark in 2001, the first time this recognition had been granted to a cultural institution as well as a building.
In the book Literary San Francisco (by Peters & Ferlinghetti), she wrote about the bohemian and radical Bay Area literary scene, from the beginnings through the early 20th century. Co-editor of Unamerican Activities: The Campaign against the Underground Press, Howl on Trial, and Reclaiming San Francisco, she also edited Free Spirits: Annals of the Insurgent Imagination and a series of City Lights Reviews. Among other journals, her writing has appeared in Arsenal: Surrealist Subversion, Cultural Correspondence, and The Beats: A Graphic History (Harvey Pekar). She is the translator of Antonio Tabucchi’s Dreams of Dreams and The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa and was a longtime member of the board of directors of the Istituto Italiano Scuola.
In 2007, after 23 years as City Lights’ executive director, Peters stepped down but remains on the board of directors and is president of City Lights Foundation. In 2010 she was given the Northern California Book Association’s Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement.
In 1978, she married the Surrealist-Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poet Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia was an American poet and lecturer. Lamantia's visionary poems were ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic which explored the subconscious world of dreams and linked it to the experience of daily life.-Biography:...
(1927–2005), who lectured at the Art Institute and San Francisco State University. Peters participated with Lamantia in the World Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago in 1976, and they sometimes read together at such events as a benefit for Hopi and Navajo traditional peoples and the Santa Barbara Poetry Festival, and they recorded for the San Francisco Poetry Center Archives. Fourteen of her poems were published in a Black Swan
Black Swan
The Black Swan is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic...
Press chapbook entitled It’s In the Wind. Her poetry was included in Surrealist Women, An International Anthology and in Anthologie des Poètes Surréalistes Américains.
External links
- Photos of Peters and Ferlinghetti at the landmark celebration.
- Webcast from University of California (listed at "2.15pm, 11 February 2006"). Needs Realplayer.