Anne Cameron
Former location, Press Gang, 603 Powell St.
"The last treasure we have, the secrets of the matriarchy, can be shared and honoured by women, and be proof there is another way, a better way, and some of us remember it."
From Daughters of Copper Women
The best-selling book of B.C. fiction from a B.C. publishing house is Anne Cameron’s much-reprinted Daughters of Copper Woman (1981), first issued from this location by the feminist collective called Press Gang. The combined printing and publishing enterprise operated here, across from a strip bar at the Drake Hotel, from 1978 until 1989 when the group amicably split into Press Gang Printers Ltd. and Press Gang Publishers Feminist Cooperative. The publishing operation moved to 1723 Grant Street, near Commercial Drive, and folded in 2002. Sales from Daughters of Copper Woman had helped keep the women-only, anti-capitalist collective afloat. The idealistic organization had its origins at 821 East Hastings Street in 1974. Born in Nanaimo, raised halfway between Chinatown and the Indian reserve, Anne Cameron, under her married name Cam Hubert, started as a playwright in New Westminster before gaining acclaim as a screenwriter. Always outspoken, she became a prolific novelist and a dedicated British Columbian who says, “Back in Toronto they make jokes like, ‘The continent slopes to the west and all the nuts roll to the West Coast.’ That’s a crock. We know the nuts roll as far as the Rocky Mountains. That’s why we put them there. Only the crafty ones make it through to the other side.”
