From a New York Times story by Elizabeth A. Harris headlined “Roxane Gay Starts Publishing Imprint With Grove Atlantic”:
Roxane Gay wears many hats — professor, editor, social commentator, advice columnist — but she is perhaps most widely known as a best-selling writer, whose books include the essay collection “Bad Feminist” and a memoir, “Hunger.”
Now she is starting a book imprint. Roxane Gay Books will be part of Grove Atlantic…with plans to release three titles a year…with a focus on underrepresented voices.
Gay has published books before…though on a very small scale. She founded Tiny Hardcore Press in 2011, turning out 25 to 50 copies of each title along with e-books.
“This was when I was making absolutely no money,” she said. “Everything was very shoestring but well intended. And I always wondered what it would be like to publish books with an actual budget and actual promotion efforts behind it…”
Grove is one of the larger independent publishers….It has published Gay’s fiction since 2014, starting with her first novel, “An Untamed State.” She said the company has committed to offering a minimum for advances at her imprint….
Gay, who is based in Los Angeles, will make her first call for submissions this summer and plans to open her doors to writers with and without agents….
Grove also said Wednesday that it plans to offer a paid, one-year fellowship program that would serve as a crash course in publishing, for applicants without access to such jobs through traditional pathways.
Gay will select and edit the books her imprint publishes, but she will also work closely on these projects with Amy Hundley, an executive editor at Grove who edits Gay’s work….
“She’s really interested in queer voices, she’s really interested in feminist voices, she’s really interested in voices on body size,” Hundley said, “all kinds of different conversations that are really exciting right now, and I think are the future.”
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Elizabeth A. Harris writes about books and publishing.
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