Author: Laura van den Berg

It’s hard for me to give a succinct introduction to Dalkey, as they are one of my all-time favorite publishers, so I’m going to keep it brief: if you don’t have any Dalkey books on your shelves, run, don’t walk. They will set your world on fire. Associate Director Martin Riker was kind enough to…

Matt Bell is an editor at Dzanc Books, where his duties include running the literary magazine The Collagist. He’s the author of How They Were Found (2010) and Cataclysm Baby (2012), as well as three chapbooks, Wolf Parts, The Collectors, and How the Broken Lead the Blind. This fall he will be teaching writing at…

Melissa Broder is the author of two poetry collections, Meat Heart (Publishing Genius, 2012) and When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother (Ampersand Books, 2010). She edits La Petite Zine and curates the Polestar Poetry Series. By day, she is a publicity manager at Penguin. I was excited to speak with Melissa because, in addition…

Paper Darts founders Jamie Millard, Regan Smith, and Meghan Suszynski are “taking back the lit scene, one lame pen and quill metaphor at a time.” Since 2009 Paper Darts has produced a reliably gorgeous magazine, and the organization recently expanded to include a press, which will soon publish its first title, John Jodzio’s Get In…

Tonga Books, a Europa Editions imprint, was founded in 2010. Titles published under Tonga are selected by prominent contemporary writers, and the first titles were chosen by Alice Sebold, best-selling author of The Lovely Bones, Lucky, and The Almost Moon. Tonga’s inaugural titles, Alexander Maksik’s You Deserve Nothing and Ian Holding’s Of Beasts and Beings, are…

featherproof books is an indie press founded by Zach Dodson and Jonathan Messinger. They are based in Chicago, and their serious literary chops—recent titles include Patrick Somerville’s The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, Lindsay Hunter’s Daddy’s, Christian TeBordo’s The Awful Possibilities, Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas, and Amelia Gray’s AM/PM—and genius eye for design have garnered…

Our second “innovators in literature” brings us into the world of Vouched Books, an organization devoted to promoting small press literature. I deeply admire founder Christopher Newgent’s proactive, passionate approach to spreading the word about books, the way he talks about the possibility of “setting up on the main party stretch here in Indy on…

We are currently having trouble attributing posts with WordPress.  This post was written by Laura van den Berg. I’m very excited to start my guest-blogging tenure at Ploughshares, where I will be bringing you nice people weekly interviews with “innovators in literature.” Whether it’s a different vision of what a publishing house can be or…