Melville House Publishing

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Melville House Publishing
Melville House Publishing
Founded2001
FounderDennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationBrooklyn, New York
DistributionPenguin Random House Publisher Services (US)
Turnaround Publisher Services (UK)[1]
Publication typesBooks
ImprintsStop Smiling
Official websitewww.mhpbooks.com

Melville House Publishing is an American independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 and is run by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey.[2] The company is named after the author Herman Melville.[3] It has a reputation as an "activist press" and publisher of left-leaning books.

History[]

Melville House Publishing and Bookstore in Brooklyn

The company was founded by husband and wife team of Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians.[4] Dennis wrote a blog MobyLives and after the 9/11 attacks collected poetry related to the event and published it as a book to great success, which launched the company.[4] They intended Melville to be a low volume boutique that specializes in poetry and "highly literary" novels issuing less than six a year.[2] The company has a reputation as a "activist press"[5] and became known for works of "political reportage with a leftist streak".[6] Johnson once said they formed the company with the notion of "getting Bush out of office" in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.[4][7]

In 2007, they were named by the Association of American Publishers as the winner of the 2007 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing.[8][9] The Little Girl and The Cigarette published by Melville was part of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) '50 books/50 Covers' cover design award for 2007.[10]

In 2008 Melville House moved to Dumbo, Brooklyn, to a location which includes a bookstore with their offices. The opening was on January 19, 2008.[11] In 2013, Melville House started a sister company in the United Kingdom, Melville House UK.[12]

Melville House publishes books in several series. These include the Art of the Novella Series which The Atlantic called an "ongoing celebration of the form", and includes classics by Miguel de Cervantes, Anton Chekhov, Virginia Woolf.[3] The Neversink Library, "a collection of lost, forgotten, and 'foolishly ignored' books from around the world".[3][13] The Last Interview series, which collects interviews with prominent writers, including the last interviews given before their deaths, has included Ernest Hemingway, Philip K. Dick and Nora Ephron.[14][15]

In 2014, it published the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture in just 19 days;[6] and later that year, an edition of the Pope Francis' Laudato si', an encyclical on climate change, soon after the Pope released it. The speed of publications has been called "extraordinary" for the industry.[5][4] In 2016, Melville House published The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston.[7] Melville used a process they call "crashing the book" to work around the clock and bring the book out in 27 days.[7][4]

References[]

  1. ^ "Our publishers". Turnaround Publisher Services. Retrieved 2018-01-12.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Lewis Beale (July 28, 2002). "NEW JERSEY & CO.; When Publish or Perish Is More Than Just Words". The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c John Fassler (April 24, 2012). "The Return of the Novella, the Original #Longread". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Tyler Woods (April 4, 2017). "This Indie Publisher Is Throwing the Books at Trump". TheBridge. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Shavin, Naomi (2015-08-04). "Why an Indie Press in Brooklyn Is Publishing the Pope". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2020-09-05. Publishing the Torture Report cemented their reputation as a self-described “activist publishing company.”
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Alexandra Schwartz (December 19, 2014). "Turning the Torture Report Into a Book". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 5, 2020. works of political reportage with a leftist streak
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c John Maher (September 2, 2016). "The Making of 'The Making of Donald Trump'". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  8. ^ "MELVILLE HOUSE CO-PUBLISHERS DENNIS LOY JOHNSON AND VALERIE MERIANS ARE NAMED 2007 MIRIAM BASS AWARD WINNERS" Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine, Association of American Publishers press release dated February 6, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2007.
  9. ^ "RATTLING THE CAGE AT THE AAP ANNUAL CONFERENCE FOR THE LARGE AND LESS THAN LARGE", ForeWord (magazine), March 14, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2007. "One of the most moving moments of the week came when Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians, co-publishers of Hoboken, NJ based Melville House received the Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing at the opening of the conference."
  10. ^ "50 Books / 50 Covers competition". AIGA. Archived from the original on January 11, 2007. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  11. ^ "Melville House moved to Dumbo, Brooklyn". Archived from the original on 2008-02-01.
  12. ^ Philip Jones. "Some people never learn: Johnson & Merians start a new company ... Melville House UK » MobyLives". Melville House Books. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
  13. ^ Melville House Publishing (26 September 2016). "Neversink Library Page". Melville House Publishing. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  14. ^ Maureen Corrigan (January 11, 2016). "Revisiting The 'Last Interview' Of Ernest Hemingway, Philip K. Dick And Nora Ephron". NPR. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  15. ^ Melville House Publishing (26 September 2016). "Last Interview Series Page". Melville House Publishing. Retrieved 26 September 2016.

External links[]

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