Graywolf Press has been at the forefront of the small-press movement. They have published a diverse range of authors, including African American writers and experimental works.
Fiona McCrae helped move the press from its modest beginnings in Washington state to the forefront of literary publishing. She has been the director and publisher for 27 years.
About Us
Graywolf Press is one of the country's most venerable and influential independent literary publishers. With more than thirty books published annually - including poetry, memoir, essays and novels - the company is committed to the discovery and energizing publication of twenty-first century American and international literature.
As the publishing landscape continues to change, Graywolf has emerged as a leader in the small press movement. It has embraced new models and has made significant investments in its authors.
In the past six years, Graywolf has had more than a dozen writers win national awards for their work. These include former United States poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, Tomas Transtromer, Leslie Jamison, and Claudia Rankine, among others.
Over the past two years, Graywolf has also gotten off to a remarkable start in nonfiction, selling more than 60,000 copies of its most acclaimed titles. The most recent titles in the lyric-essay genre include Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams and Claudia Rankine's Citizen, which has sold more than 100,000 copies since it came out in 2014.
The publisher also publishes work by diverse voices, including former New York Times bestselling novelist Sarah Manguso, Nobel Prize winner Eula Bliss, PEN Open Book Award-winning poet Maggie Nelson, and Sven Birkerts.
While the press's success is often attributed to its nurturing and supportive environment for its writers, there are other factors at play. Its authors have been recognized by the National Book Critics Circle and its titles have won multiple prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
It has a reputation for bringing in the most promising authors from diverse backgrounds. For example, the press has been known to publish debut poets and to champion work by under-represented voices, such as James Franco.
We're looking for individuals, arts organizations, and literary entities that share our vision and support our literary mission. If you'd like to become a donor, partner with us in our mission, or affiliate yourself with an imprint, please contact our office for more information.
As a nonprofit, we are dedicated to the mission of nourishing and expanding cultural horizons. We believe works of literature nourish the spirit and foster empathy, and we want to make them available to all readers. We believe that the power of literature lies in its ability to reach across cultures, geographies, and time periods to offer new understanding of our world and of ourselves.
Our Mission
In twenty-seven years of publishing, Graywolf Press has championed the literary careers of some of the most acclaimed writers in America and around the world. Its editors believe that literature nourishes the imagination and enriches the culture through its discovery, energetic publication, and thoughtful editing.
A leading independent publisher, Graywolf Press publishes a diverse range of books in the genres of poetry, memoir, essays, and fiction. They seek work that is artistically singular and of a high literary quality.
The publisher's mission is to promote underrepresented communities, daring new artists, and alternate points of view. For example, they recently launched the "Graywolf Press Africa" Prize to support African fiction. They also publish a number of books on writing and teaching, including the "The Art of..." series by Charles Baxter and the "Voices of the Elders" anthology by Jane Kenyon.
As a teacher, I have found that the books in these collections are indispensable resources for my classes. I often use them to encourage students who have had a hard time getting started with writing. It's a good way to get their voices heard and help them grow as writers.
One of the challenges that came up when working with the team on the website redesign was a desire to keep the site more about their core mission-promoting underrepresented communities, daring new artists, an alternate points of view. As a result, the home page is now led with a strong mission statement, "Publishing Voices for the Twenty-First Century."
Another challenge was making the website more responsive across multiple devices. The team developed several tools to improve the experience on mobile devices, and incorporated important book data from Title Management. The site also now incorporates social media and is accessible to users with disabilities to WCAG 2.0 standards.
Rather than being simply a place to shop for books, the website is now an active part of the Graywolf community, from author readings and events to social gatherings and the annual Book Festival. The site is designed to be easy to navigate and provides the best user experience possible.
Our Books
We seek writers who have a distinctive voice and a unique vision for their work. Our editors look for writers whose books challenge the status quo, ask important questions, and offer new ways of thinking about the world around us.
Graywolf Press is a small but influential publisher of literary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and genre-defying literature that fosters new thinking about what it means to live in the world today. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Graywolf publishes an annual list of thirty to thirty-five new titles and organizes around two hundred local and national events featuring its authors each year.
Since its inception in 1974, Graywolf Press has forged its own path by embracing and promoting a wide range of voices. Its roster of authors includes former United States poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, Vijay Seshadri, and the translated work of Nobel Prize winner Tomas Transtromer.
In 2014, the Los Angeles Times cited Graywolf as one of the centers of one of literature's most important current developments, the lyric essay. It named John D'Agata, Maggie Nelson, Eula Biss, and Leslie Jamison as leaders of the movement.
Our staff is made up of talented and dedicated people who work hard to produce high-quality books. We have an active and enthusiastic team of editors, book designers, and proofreaders who are committed to making Graywolf a place where writers can thrive.
As editor-in-chief of Graywolf, Fiona McCrae has built the Press into a powerhouse that goes far beyond being financially stable. She has steered the press to become an important literary standard-bearer, bringing in more than $2 million in sales in 2015.
From its roots as a poet-driven publisher, Graywolf is also a juggernaut in nonfiction, publishing a host of award-winning writers such as Leslie Jamison, Sarah Manguso, Sven Birkerts, and Eula Bliss. Their titles have topped the New York Times bestseller lists and won many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle award for poetry, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.
A longtime advocate for literature's diversity, McCrae has also been instrumental in launching a number of literary prizes, such as the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and the African Fiction Prize. She also created partnerships with organizations such as Cave Canem, the Academy of American Poets, and the Library of Congress. She has steered Graywolf to become an important force for literary quality and new thinking about what it means to live in today's world.
Our Staff
Graywolf Press has a strong team of editors, art directors, and marketing professionals who work together to ensure that our books are published in the best possible way. Each year, we publish a diverse and exciting range of books from both established and emerging writers, both in the United States and around the world.
We publish authors who are committed to exploring contemporary issues and whose voices, stories, and genres are underrepresented in commercial publishing. We believe literature is an accessible art form that nourishes the reader’s spirit and encourages enduring empathy across the divides of geography, culture, and time.
Our editorial team is led by Ethan Nosowsky, our Editorial Director. He began his career at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and has edited books by Jeffery Renard Allen, Hilton Als, Deborah Baker, David Byrne, Geoff Dyer, Dave Eggers, Stephen Elliott, J. Robert Lennon, and Jenny Offill, among others. He has also taught in creative writing programs at Columbia University and contributed to Bookforum, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and Threepenny Review.
He serves as editor for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry titles. He also works on marketing and social media strategies for Graywolf’s titles.
As a marketing and social media specialist, you will support our director of marketing and engagement with social media strategy and content creation for the Graywolf brand and all of Graywolf’s publications. This position is an ideal fit for someone who is passionate about the importance of engaging with readers, and who has experience in book publicity and marketing.
The ideal candidate for this role has at least five years of book publicist experience working on lead title campaigns; experience managing others, ideally on a publicity team; and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment that requires a high level of attention to detail. You will be responsible for coordinating author tours, and for developing and executing publicity campaigns for four to five lead titles per season, focusing on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
We are proud to be a leading independent publisher, championing outstanding writers at all stages of their careers to ensure that adventurous readers can find underrepresented and diverse voices in a crowded marketplace. Our award-winning publication program has included the books of Eula Biss, Anna Burns, Ilya Kaminsky, Jessica Francis Kane, Paul Lisicky, Carmen Maria Machado, Claudia Rankine, Jess Row, Danez Smith, Tracy K. Smith, Layli Long Soldier, and Esme Weijun Wang, to name a few.