In 1982 Sue Butterworth, who has died of cancer aged 53, and I dreamed up a vision of feminism and books, politics and professionalism sweetly intertwined.

We wanted to put women's writing slap in the centre of the high street - and we wanted to do it well.

Two years later Silver Moon women's bookshop opened at 64 Charing Cross Road, in London's West End and it survived into the 21st century.

It was the right idea at the right time. The Greater London Council - then led by Ken Livingstone, - was under threat of abolition by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government and wanted the Charing Cross Road restored to bookselling.

It was also politically sympathetic to projects like Silver Moon.

The bookshop was to make a difference to the lives of thousands of women in London - and worldwide.

We provided the books women wanted to read and, perhaps, the books men ought to read. We built authors' careers.

Male publishing sales representatives stopped trying to sell us football books and learnt that we were professionals.

But Silver Moon was so much more than a bookshop. We were an advice centre on everything from women's holidays to rape crisis centres: we ran writing courses: we were a meeting place for lesbians and feminists.

There was incomprehension: "Have you got the biography of Field Marshall Rommel?". No, but we hoped that works on sexual politics and violence against women would prove educational. There was direct aggression, we had books thrown at us, considerable verbal abuse, flashers, a knife attack, hate mail and death threats.

We ran author readings and signings long before the chains got the idea and were visited and supported by wonderful authors including Margaret Atwood, Beryl Bainbridge, Angela Carter, Zoe Fairbairns, Germaine Greer, Helena Kennedy, Val McDermid, Kate Millet, Toni Morrison, Michèle Roberts, Sandi Toksvig, Jeanette Winterson and many others.

Sue wrote the Silver Moon Quarterly creating a sense of community and connection to more than 10,000 women worldwide.

It gave them access to the books that they could not get, or were afraid to get elsewhere.

The politics were serious, but never gloomy. Sue believed, like the American anarchist Emma Goldman that the "sound of women laughing is the sound of revolution".

Sue made Silver Moon a happy, laughter-filled place.

Sue was born in Llandudno, north Wales, the daughter of a furniture retailer, and was educated at Penrhos School.

There her idiosyncratic dress sense and quick wit got her nicknamed "Snazzer". She left school at 16, did a secretarial course and between 1968-73 mixed work with travel.

Her publishing career began in 1972 with Phoebus Partworks, then, in 1976, came Macdonald Educational.

In 1977, she broke out from secretarial work as an editorial assistant at Book Club Associates. Sue loved her work, but then, in 1981, she was made redundant.

But things were stirring in publishing. The feminist magazine Spare Rib had been launched in 1972, and the feminist publisher Virago in the mid-1970s.

Then there was Onlywomen Press, the Women's Press and Sheba and Sisterwrite bookshop in Islington. Women were demanding to make policy, not tea!

W ith the election of Thatcher's government in 1979, the political mood may have become callous, but the reaction to it was invigorating and exciting.

Sue's response was both personal and professional. Professionally, Women In Publishing was set up in 1979, to network, train, give confidence and experience to women - and Sue was a key member.

In 1981, we were on our first Lesbian rights march - we were latecomers to activism - along with 300 other scared but brave women. It was a far cry from today's sponsored and approved festival. Then came Silver Moon.

Sue left Silver Moon in 2001 and substantial rent rises led to the closure of the bookshop in the November 2001 when Foyle's bought the Silver Moon brand.

Thoughtful, positive and confidently ego-free, Sue developed a talent for committee work, on the Booksellers Association (BA) council and on the Arts Council's literature panel.

Sue founded Meerkat, working to ensure independent booksellers have a collective voice. She was vice-chair of the Book Trade Benevolent Society and chaired the Society of Bookmen from 2002 to 2003. She was a judge on the NCR Non fiction Prize (1996) and taught BA courses in Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

In 2001, Sue received recognition from somewhat contrasting sources: she won the Mike Rhodes Trust Award for promoting a better understanding of lesbian and gay life and she was one of 600 members of the book trade to be invited by the Queen to Buckingham Palace.

At her funeral there were flowers in the green and purple suffragette colours and in Silver Moon's blue and silver.

Sue brought people together for argument, good food and wine, holidays, and she made people laugh and feel better about themselves. It was a life lived well.

· Sue was nursed with dedication and love by her partner Irene Roele, who survives her.