National Lottery Grants for Heritage – £10,000 to £250,000
The archive grew out of the pioneering Lavender Menace bookshop, founded in 1982, and its successor West & Wilde – both important spaces for Edinburgh’s queer community.
With our funding, Lavender Menace is continuing to safeguard and share LGBTQ+ book heritage through a physical archive and a digital catalogue bringing together literature from 1970 to 2000.
Alongside opening its rich collection up to the public and researchers, the organisation is:
- running an oral history project capturing people’s memories of visiting LGBTQ+ bookshops in the 1980s and 1990s
- creating a temporary exhibition based on material from the archive and oral histories
- hosting talks from authors and reading groups focused on under-served sections of the community
- expanding its volunteer programme and offering existing volunteers training to build their skills
The project is also building organisational resilience by developing a new governance structure, collection policy and fundraising strategy.
Sigrid Nielsen, Founding Director of Lavender Menace, says: "This community space has celebrated 40 years of LGBTQ+ writing and history in Scotland, created a platform for today’s LGBTQ+ writers and helped volunteers to learn skills and make connections which have furthered their studies and careers. Heritage Fund support has enabled us to continue Edinburgh’s heritage of LGBTQ+ bookselling in the 1980s into the present day, when it was in danger of being forgotten, and to create Scotland’s only regularly accessible LGBTQ+ archive space."
