page_title: Lesbian pulp fiction
section_title: Artemis Smith
hierarchical_section_title: Lesbian pulp fiction / Authors / Artemis Smith
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of "This Bed We Made" by Artemis Smith (Annselm Morpurgo). Illustration by Rafael DeSoto. Français&#160;: Couverture de "This Bed We Made" par Artemis Smith (nom de plume de Annselm Morpurgo). Illustration de Rafael DeSoto.
context_page_description: Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public had for modeling what lesbians were. Stephanie Foote, from the University of Illinois commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes...Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone."
context_section_description: Annselm L.N.V. Morpurgo  (1934 -    ) also known as the founder of the 1950s Unisex Movement, wrote under various pen names, including Carle for ONE Magazine, as well as under A.S. Morpurgo, Diana Carleton Rhodes, Artemis Smith, and presently also under Artemis Smith, Grandma MoseX, and Annselm LNVM. She further collaborated in the arts with her life-partner Billie Ann Taulman (1929-2008), known to The Ladder as Billie Bruce, whose iconic sketch of Artemis Smith was published on one of the magazine's covers. Taulman wrote one of the chapters in Artemis Smith's The Third Sex and is now credited in re-issues, which also contain numerous scientific papers on the nature of self-consciousness and gender identity, written by Smith as a professional bioepistemologist. In her 1960s addresses to East Coast homophile organizations meetings in Philadelphia, Artemis Smith originated the "come out of the closet" slogan and strategy for linking the gay rights movement to other rights movements in which, as both novelist and playwright, she was also a spokeswoman.
  Smith's Odd Girl and The Third Sex were published by Beacon Books in 1959 after multiple rejections by major publishers. Unlike former pulp novels, these also contained strong political statements that influenced the formation of the gay rights movements of the late 1950s. Originally titled Anne Loves Beth, Odd Girl was extensively blue-penciled by the pulp editors. The original version has recently been reissued by the author through 'the savant garde workshop', a service press for The Savant Garde Institute, which also continues to publish her many collected papers, plays, novels, and poetry.  Her most important artistic work, Testament of Sarah (Book I of The SKEETS Triptych. 1967), was originally to be published by Doubleday & Co.
  Under classic pulp fiction, Artemis Smith wrote: The Third Sex, 1959 Beacon Books; Odd Girl, 1959 Beacon Books; This Bed We Made, 1961 Monarch Books.
caption: Cover of This Bed We Made (1961) by Artemis Smith (a.k.a. Annselm Morpurgo) (illustration by Rafael DeSoto)
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