American writer Barbara Grier - who founded one of the world's
biggest LGBT publishing houses - has died aged 78.
Her partner of more than twenty years, Donna McBride, said she
died of cancer on Thursday at a hospital in Tallahassee,
Florida.
An icon of lesbian and gay literature, Grier co-founded Naiad
Press - which, at one point, was one of the world's biggest
LGBT publishing houses.
"It was her belief that through literature she could make
lesbians feel good about themselves and find a happy life," McBride
told Associated Press.
Naiad was publishing almost forty books a year before it was
sold to Bella Books, another publisher of LGBT literature, in
2003.
Grier's body was cremated and there will be no funeral service,
McBride said.
Her ashes will likely be scattered in the Bahamas, where she
spent much of her time.
