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In January of this year, Stonewall Inn Editions, the only gay and lesbian-themed trade paperback imprint of a major mainstream publishing house, was discontinued by St. Martin's Press, one of the ten largest book publishers in the U.S. According to the imprint's current editor, Keith Kahla, the decision to discontinue the line was "brewing for a while because of the way the marketplace has changed."
Started in 1987 by editor Michael Denneny, Stonewall Inn Editions published more than one-hundred non-fiction and fiction titles by such authors as Randy Shilts, Larry Kramer, Quentin Crisp, Eric Orner, Nisa Donnelly, and Ruthann Robson. Kahla, who took over as Stonewall Inn general editor in 1994, says the imprint had never been a big profit-maker for St. Martin's, but within the last year it became an "active money loser."
Kahla cites several reasons for the continuing decline in sales, among them the decreasing shelf space for gay and lesbian books and the lack of reviews for the titles in both mainstream and gay press outlets. "You have...