Today, Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive is announcing a £119K grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to unlock Scotland’s LGBTQ+ heritage and improve access to it for our community.
Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive has grown out of Scotland’s first LGBTQ+ bookshops, Lavender Menace (1982–87) and West & Wilde (1987–97). Bob Orr and Sigrid Nielsen, the owners of the original Lavender Menace Bookshop, founded the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive in 2019 to keep this valuable LGBTQ+ book heritage alive and share it with the community. It works to create and maintain a free and welcoming community archive space for reading, research, and socialising. This funding will help to ensure that we can continue to deliver our mission, expand our reach, and build sustainability for the Archive—and, thus, preserve LGBTQ+ literature for future readers.
This new project will strengthen and share Scotland’s queer history by expanding public access to our community archive, deepening national partnerships, and building long-term pathways for people to connect with LGBTQ+ heritage. Through a programme of outreach events, community-led research, and creative residencies, we will bring together volunteers, researchers, heritage professionals, and LGBTQ+ communities to identify shared histories, celebrate queer literature and culture, and develop new ways for people to discover and understand this heritage. Our project will generate nationally significant resources, including a free online Finding Aid and Research Guide, a strengthened volunteer programme, and new creative interpretations of LGBTQ+ book heritage. These will ensure that Scotland’s queer histories are visible, valued, and accessible long after the project ends.
Keava McMillan, Project Coordinator at Lavender Menace said:
“We are so excited to get support for our work preserving and sharing vital LGBTQ+ histories in Scotland. Thank you to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for this grant, and to everyone who supported us from the People’s Postcode Trust and our recent crowdfunder – your investment in our work made this grant possible.”
Sigrid Nielsen, co-founder of Lavender Menace said:
“We started the archive to save these life-changing books for the future. As a result of the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s generosity, so much more has become possible in the last three years. This new grant, and the support we’ve received from our community, will enable Lavender Menace to bring LGBTQ+ people together around our heritage. We could not have asked for a better outcome.”
Caroline Clark, The National Lottery Heritage Fund Director for Scotland, said:
“Thanks to Good Causes funding raised by National Lottery players we previously supported Lavender Menace on the journey to turn an incredible collection of books, magazine, flyers and zines into a valuable archive of Scotland’s LGBTQ+ heritage, campaigning and community.
“We are very pleased to announce fresh support enabling Lavender Menace to develop as a resource for research, a hub for community engagement and to support creative opportunities; helping Lavender Menace grow as an organisation; and securing the future for the Queer Books Archive and for the rich heritage it reflects.”
Notes to editors
About Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive
Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive is a Community Interest Company established to promote and benefit the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, queer, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA+) community and their allies. Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive works to create and maintain a free and welcoming community archive space for reading, research, and socialising. We have a physical archive which is open for visitors every Tuesday and Thursday between 11am and 4pm. The archive space hosts author events, workshops, community groups, and book clubs. We also have a digital catalogue of our collection, allowing the community to find out more about LGBTQ+ books which aren’t typically easy to find in bookshops today.
We have a mission to:
- bring together the queer community in Edinburgh and beyond.
- celebrate LGBTQ+ authors and their works.
- collect and preserve LGBTQ+ books (focusing on those published between 1970 and 2000).
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
By 2033 we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
Follow @HeritageFundUK on Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLottery #HeritageFund
Further information
Download the press release here:
For further information, images and interviews please contact themenaces@lavendermenace.org.uk
