Angel City Press

About: Angel City Press was established in 1992 and is dedicated to the publication of high-quality nonfiction books. The award-winning books from Angel City Press are sold in fine gift and book stores, and on the Web. Drenched in nostalgia yet undeniably cool, each Angel City Press book is luxuriously illustrated and showcases the modern design concepts of California’s top graphic artists. Angel City Press books are published with extraordinary attention to detail, in the finest tradition of the bound page. In the ensuing three decades, they have done their best to chronicle the cultural history of the West. In December 2023, the Los Angeles Public Library aquired Angel City Press.

Genres Published: High Quality Nonfiction
Representative Authors: Robert Landau, Ernest Marquez, Al Martinez, Kevin Roderick, Al Young, William Bradley, Lynell George and D.J. Waldie
Book Types: Historical/nostalgic nonfiction, Essay Collections
Titles per Year: ≈ 7
Website: http://www.angelcitypress.com/

Arroyo Seco Press

About: Arroyo Seco Press is a small independent press located in Southern California.

Genres Published: Poetry and an Anthology Series
Representative Authors: Kevin Ridgeway, Kareem Tayyar, and Marilyn N. Robertson
Book Types: Poetry Collections and Chapbooks
Titles per Year: 2-3
Website: http://arroyosecopress.org/

California Coldblood Books

About: California Coldblood Books, founded in 2014, is a small publishing company dedicated to science-fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction. The press is an imprint of L.A. publisher Rare Bird Books.

Genres Published: Genre Fiction
Representative Authors: Imraan Covadia, Meg Eden, Mark Faklin, Adam Korenman and Beth Woodward
Book Types: Science-fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction
Titles per Year: 3
Website: http://www.californiacoldblood.com/

Con Todo Press

About: Con Todo Press is a Latina-owned publishing company that creates children’s books that celebrate Latino leaders and culture to help fill the gap in the publishing industry, where our stories are vastly under-represented.

Genres Published: Children’s books, Non-fiction biographies
Representative Authors: Simón Silva, Naibe Reynoso, Mitzi Fernandez Spitzer, Heidi Rojas
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: https://www.contodopress.com

Doppelhouse Press

About: Douppelhouse Press is a Los Angeles-based, character-driven publisher that focuses on storytelling through memoir, art/architecture, and biographies, often encompassing histories of war, migration and diaspora. Our non-fiction histories explore the dynamics between sociopolitical forces and aesthetic forms. Doppelhouse began their work in 2011 looking at the developing styles and attitudes within 20th-century Central European modernism, which is intertwined with the perspective of exiles, for many of whom statelessness and belonging to broader cultural and artistic movements preceded their physical dislocation. Expanding our offerings into fiction, critical essays, and imaginative speculation, they greet the second quarter of the 21st-century with an additional focus on Nature, Species, and Society.

Genres Published: Non-fiction, Art/Architecture, Fiction
Representative Authors: Erich Hackl, Ed Rosenthal, Sarah Kamensky
Book Types: Biography, Memoir, Critical Essays, Imaginative Speculation, Histories
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: https://doppelhouse.com/doppelhouse-books

Golden Foothills Press

About: Golden Foothills Press is a literary indie book press established in 2014 by multiple award-winning author, editor, and Poet Laureate Emerita, Thelma T. Reyna. They are committed to publishing three new books each year. Their mission is to promote top-quality book authors of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in a variety of ways, to foster and support new voices as well as established authors, and to cultivate multicultural diversity in our American literary landscape.

Genres Published: Poetry, Fiction and Non-fiction
Reprehensive Authors: Thelma T. Reyna, Joseph C. Robledo and Alejandro Morales
Book Types: Anthologies, Poetry collections, Novels
Titles per Year: 3
Website: http://www.goldenfoothillspress.com/

Gold Line Press

About: Gold Line Press is a small press run by students and alumni of the University of Southern California’s PhD Program in Creative Writing. It aims to promote the work of emerging poets and fiction writers, as well as to promote/elevate the chapbook form. The Gold Line Press editorial board does not adhere to any specific aesthetic approach. Overall, their goal is to showcase exceptional emerging writers and reward them not only with publication, but also with broad distribution of their work to reviewers and bloggers.

Genres Published: Poetry and Fiction
Representative Authors: Alisa Slaughter, drea brown, Julie Zhou and Gabrielle Civil
Book Types: Chapbooks
Titles per Year: 1-2
Website: http://dornsife.usc.edu/goldlinepress/

HINCHES Press

About: HINCHAS Press is a Los Angeles-based micropress that publishes zines, poetry, poetry in translation, and library science non-fiction. HINCHAS supports social justice initiatives, and advocates for bilingual literacy endeavors, especially along portions of the Américas that are monolingual. To that end, they seek to publish innovative, experimental work of a devastating caliber, regardless of format, dialect, or pedigree.

Genres Published: Poetry, Non-Fiction, Fiction, Translation
Representative Authors: Shonda Buchanan, Teresa Mei Chuc, Luivette Resto, Lynne Thompson, Yago S. Cura and Linda Ravenswood
Book Types: Chapbooks, Poetry Collections, Library Science Non-Fiction, Poetry in Translation
Titles per Year: ≈ 2
Website: https://www.hinchaspress.com/

Insert Press

About: Insert Press produces innovative art & literature in Los Angeles, CA. They endeavor to create dynamic conversations among various artistic disciplines and to support emerging artists and writers in the interest of contemporary arts and letters. General Projects, their modest 185 sq. ft. gallery in Lincoln Heights, serves as an extension of the press, exhibiting contemporary visual art and often generating artist books and editions.

Their Manifestoh! series, edited by Shook, publishes works in translation from the contemporary and historical avant-garde. The Insert Press catalog features a diverse assortment of books and print editions, from hardbound volumes to unique handmade editions.

Genres Published: Poetry, Plays, Non-Fiction
Representative Authors: Alee Peoples, Pablo Jofré
Book Types: Works in translation, Exibition Catalogs, Full-length Poetry Collections
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: https://insert.press

Jamii Publishing

About: Founded by Nikia Chaney, Jamii is all about the community. They know that poetry is greater than all its parts. They feel that it is truth from deep within and in its greatness, in its vastness, in its enormity they find that poetry is all encompassing and visionary—seeing deep into our history, the breadth of our present, and far into our future. The vision of Jamii Publishing is to broaden the scope of poetry to reach the masses in a messy, colorful bowl of creative artistry, pushing poets and artists against the glue of the envelope.

Genres Published: Poetry
Representative Authors: Peter Ho-Cheung Lee, Micha Tasakaa, Cindy Rinne, Ginget Galloway and Angela Peñaredondo
Book Types: Chapbooks, Full-length Collections, Anthologies
Titles per Year: 1-2
Website: http://www.jamiipublishing.com

Kaya Press

About: Kaya Press, founded in 1994, is a group of dedicated writers, artists, readers, and lovers of books working together to publish the most challenging, thoughtful, and provocative literature being produced throughout the Asian and Pacific Island diasporas. They believe that people’s lives can be changed by literature that pushes us past expectations and out of our comfort zone. They believe in the contagious potential of creativity combined with the means of production.

Genres Published: Poetry, Genre Fiction, Fiction and Memoir
Representative Authors: Sesshu Foster, Brian Castro, Casio Abe, Koon Woon and Ed Lin, and Andrew Leong
Book Types: Experimental Poetry, Noir Fiction, Film Memoir, Avant-garde Art, Performance Pieces, “Lost” Novels, and everything in between
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: http://www.kaya.com/

Los Angeles Poet Society Press

About: Los Angeles Poet Society Press is the publishing arm of the Los Angeles Poet Society, founded in 2020, and officially launched in 2021, the LAPS Press publishes voices that are honest, insightful, and socially conscious. A BIPOC Womxn run publishing house.

Genres Published: Poetry
Representative Authors: Karo Ska, Jessica M. Wilson, Juan Cardenas
Book Types: Anthologies, Chapbooks
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/los-angeles-poet-society-press

The Los Angeles Press

About: The Los Angeles Press publishes the best in art & literature from established & emerging artists, historians & political discoursers, from Southern California, the West, & Beyond.

We’re committed to uplifting & focusing on Voices Yet Heard, including Women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, as well as traditionally under-represented & marginalized artists & writers.

The Los Angeles Press is a Print and Online Publishing House & Imprint, first introduced by The Los Angeles Review of Books and the LARB/USC Publishing Cohort. We are devoted to community engagement, and to the pursuit of social, economic, and environmental justice.

Genres Published: Poetry, Short Stories, History, Political Discourse
Representative Authors: Peggy Dobreer, Terry Wolverton, Brian Sonia Wallace, Aruni Wijeinghe, Sheyla Martinez and Stacy Kadomasu
Book Types: Literary Journal, Anthology, Zines, Poetry Collections, Broadsides
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: https://thelosangelespress.com/

Los Nietos Press

About: Los Nietos Press is dedicated to the countless generations of people whose lives and labor created the world community that today spreads over the coastal floodplain known simply as Los Angeles.
They take their name from the Los Nietos Spanish land grant that was south and east of the downtown area. In doing so, they seek to honor all who have contributed to the history and present culture of this region – from the early Tongva and Gabrielino people to the diverse millions who have come from around the world to build a life here.

Their purpose is to serve local writers so they may share their words with many, in the form of tangible books that can be held and read and passed on. This written art form is one way they realize people’s common bonds and help each other discover what is meaningful in life.

Genres Published: Poetry, Fiction
Representative Authors: liz gonzález, Lorine Parks, Frank Kearns and Thomas R. Thomas
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Poetry Anthologies, Story Collections
Titles per Year: 1
Website: http://www.losnietospress.com/

El Martillo Press

About: Founded by local poets Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, El Martillo Press publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo Press proactively publishes writers looking to pound the pavement to promote their work and the work of their fellow pressmates.

Genres Published: Poetry
Representative Authors: Ceasar K. Avelar, Margaret Elysia Garcia and Donato Martinez
Book Types: Poetry collection
Titles per Year: 5
Website: https://www.elmartillopress.com/

Moon Tide Press

About: Moon Tide Press was founded in 2006 by journalist and poet Michael Miller. For a decade, the press published full-length collections, anthologies, and featured a Poet of the Month on their website—always bringing new and necessary voices to the forefront of the Southern California poetry scene and beyond.

In January 2017, Moon Tide Press was passed on to Eric Morago. Moon Tide continues to focus on new, diverse, and/or daring voices. They are in search of well-crafted poetry that is smart, imaginative, honest, and engaging—poetry that invites its audience to come back for seconds and thirds.

Genres Published: Poetry
Representative Authors: Alexis Rhone Fancher, Peggy Dobreer, Eric Morago, John Brantingham, Gustavo Hernandez
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Poetry Anthologies
Titles per Year: 6-7
Website: https://www.moontidepress.com/

Nervous Ghost Press

About: Founded in 2019 and inspired by a group of writers (the Citizen Poets) that all share one belief: writing saves lives. It’s a nonprofit independent publisher committed to publishing quality work regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, or education. Art and trauma, the human experience, and their ability to gather those things and create something powerful is what they’re passionate about. Through literary excellence, music, education, art, and media, Nervous Ghost Press exists to bring all of their immediate and extended communities together. They look for poems and stories that were written to save the life of the writer; raw, unadulterated, fearless. They seek established and emerging voices and provide a platform for otherwise marginalized people.

Genres Published: Poetry and Fiction
Representative Authors: Sara A. Leman and Amanda Korz
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Novels, Anthologies
Titles per Year: ≈ 2
Website: http://www.nervousghostpress.org

Not A Cult

About: Started in 2016, by Daniel Lisi and hollis hart, Not a Cult publishes books that challenge, inspire, and inform. They collaborate closely with their artists to create finely tuned, intentional experiences designed to enrich, not waste.

Genres Published: Poetry (focus on spoken word poets), Art Books
Representative Authors: Alyesha Wise, Beau Sia, Matthew Cuban Hernandez, Yesika Salgado and Dante Basco
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Art Books
Titles per Year: ≈ 4
Website: https://notacult.media/

Pelekinesis

About: Pelekinesis is an independent book publishing company, located in Claremont, CA, focusing on the development of literary-minded authors and artists by embracing the evolving publishing paradigm and creatively supporting the skills of these talented individuals.

Genres Published: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Art, Poetry, Young Adult
Representative Authors: Jo Scott-Coe, Ruthie Marlenée, P. David Ebersole, Kareem Tayyar and T. Anders Carson
Titles Per Year: N/A
Website: https://www.pelekinesis.com

Rare Bird

About: Rare Bird is the parent company of Rare Bird Lit and Rare Bird Books, two Los Angeles-based book industry firms founded by former Book Soup marketing and publicity director Tyson Cornell. Rare Bird also releases vinyl audiobooks, as well as singles, EPs, compilations, and full-length records with music artists, including: Mark Lanegan (Queens of the Stone Age, The Screaming Trees), Joe Cardamone (The Icarus Line), Speedbuggy USA, Christian Martucci (Corey Taylor, Stone Sour). Rare Bird Books, the publishing wing, is a PGW-distributed independent publisher that includes the imprints A Barnacle Book, A Vireo Book and Rare Bird Books.

Genres Published: Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Translation, Photography
Representative Authors: Jerry Stahl, Joe Donnelly and Laurie Ochoa, David Kukoff and Gary Phillips, Chip Jacobs and William T. Vollmann
Book Types: Novels, Short Story Collections, Mysteries, Music, Sports, LGBT, Politics, Self-Help, Culinary, Politics
Titles Per Year: 50 books and records
Website: http://www.rarebirdbooks.com/

Red Hen Press

About: Red Hen Press is an American non-profit press founded in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull, located in Pasadena, California. They are committed to publishing works of literary excellence, supporting diversity, and promoting literacy in local schools through their Writing in the Schools program. The press also publishes the literary journal Los Angeles Review. They are also home to seven imprints—Arktoi Books, Boreal Books, Crooked Hearts Press, DJS Books, Pighog Press, Story Line Press, Xeno Books—and two publishing series—Letras Latinas and Quill. Red Hen holds the belief that it is essential to our society to promote a readership that remains open and critically engaged in reading a variety of well-written, thought-provoking works.

Genres Published: Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry
Representative Authors: David Compos, Brian Doyle, Camille Dungy, David Mason, Peggy Shumaker, Douglas Kearney, Eloise Klein Healy, Cris Mazza, Brendan Constantine, Blase Bonpane, Rob Roberge, Ellen Meeropol, Gaylord Brewer, Katharine Coles, Michael Quadland, and Pete Fromm
Book Types: Novella, Short Story Collections, Essay Collections, Cross-Genre, Autobiography/Memoir, Humor, Literary Fiction, Narrative Nonfiction, Feminist, LGBTQIA, Pop Culture
Titles per Year: ≈ 25
Website: http://redhen.org/

Ricochet Editions

About: Ricocet Editions is a sibling press of Gold Line, and was founded in 2012. Their mission is to publish innovative, non-traditional, trans-genre, and/or genre-less works that have a hard time finding homes in journals, competitions, and with other publishers.

Genres Published: Poetry, Fiction and anything in-between
Subgenres: Non-traditional, Trans-genre, and/or Genre-less
Representative Authors: Matthew Kirkpatrick, Harmony Holiday, Arielle Greenberg, and Danielle Pafunda
Book Types: Non-traditional, Trans-genre and/or Genre-less Small Chapbooks to full-length Books
Titles per Year: 2-3 (if budget allows)
Website: https://dornsife.usc.edu/goldlinepress/ricochet/

Riot of Roses Publishing House

About: Riot of Roses Publishing House was established in the autumn of 2021 when author and founder, Brenda Vaca, decided to publish her first poetry collection.​ It became not just important to publish her own work, but to also create space for other storytellers to create their books. Riot of Roses Publishing House was founded specifically to amplify the stories of historically silenced voices. Xicana owned. Mujerista focused. For the people.

Tia Chucha Press

About: Tia Chucha Press (TCP) is one of the country’s leading small cross-cultural presses for poetry, focused on socially engaged poetry work and literature that matters. It began in 1989 with the publication of Luis J. Rodriguez’s first book, the 13-poem collection “Poems Across the Pavement.” TCP poets have won such recognition as a PEN Josephine Miles Literary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award, a Carl Sandburg Book Award, a Paterson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Fellowship in Poetry, and a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Genres Published: Poetry, Anthologies
Representative Authors: Terrance Hayes, Patricia Smith, Chiwan Choi, Michael Warr, Afaa Michaael Weaver, Luivette Resto, Melinda Palacio, David Hernandez, Luis J. Rodríguez and Louis Pérez
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Poetry Anthologies
Titles per Year: 2
Website: https://www.tiachucha.org/tia_chucha_press

Unnamed Press

About: Founded in 2014, Unnamed Press publishes literature from around the world. Whether it’s fiction, memoir or something in between, they are always interested in books and voices that challenge conventional perspectives while appealing to a broad general audience: exciting, radical, urgent. We nurture emerging talent and partner with more established authors to help their platform grow.

Genres Published: Fiction, Nonfiction
Representative Authors: David L. Ulin, Dan Lopez, Julie Shigekuni, Esmé Weijun Wang, Alex Espinoza and Keenan Norris
Book Types: Novels, Memoir, Debuts by women, Underrepresented voices and People of Color
Titles per Year: 8-17
Website: http://www.unnamedpress.com/

What Books Press

About: What Books Press was founded in 2009 by a small group of like-minded writers and artists in Los Angeles. They came together in order to create an outlet for groundbreaking fiction and poetry, with extraordinary art on the cover. Since then, they have published a long list of titles by known and unknown authors. Their authors have gone on to win awards and to be named Poet Laureates. Each year What Books publishes works that thrill them with a bending of literary expectations, a striking use of language, or a poignant portrayal of the current human condition or ideally, all three.

Genres Published: Poetry and Fiction
Representative Authors: Gail Wronsky, Kevin Cantwell, Ramón García, Chuck Rosenthal, Bill Mohr, Lynn Thompson and Rich Ives
Book Types: Poetry Collections, Novels, Short Story Collections, Novellas
Titles per Year: 2-4
Website: http://www.whatbookspress.com/index.html

Wild Librarian Press

About: Wild Librarian Press is a solo-woman adventure created by Stacy Russo in 2021.

After many years of working as a writer with traditional publishers, Russo decided to start an independent press to publish her debut novel, Stella Peabody’s Wild Librarian Bakery and Bookstore and the work of other writers in the future. Russo chose the name Wild Librarian Press to keep her work in the spirit and universe of her novel-in-stories, her children’s picture book Wild Librarian Bakery and Bookstore, and her career as a librarian. The name Wild Librarian Press speaks to freedom, passion, discovery, and the magic that comes from a life of reading, books, and serving others.

Russo, as a writer who knows first-hand about the impersonal and sometimes difficult world of publishing, promises to treat all writers with respect. She will read submissions mindfully and seriously.

Wild Librarian Press titles are distributed globally through Ingram and available through all major online retailers. Books are published in e-book and print paperback formats.

Genres Published: A variety of genres yet to be determined
Representative Authors: Stacy Russo
Book Types: N/A
Titles per Year: N/A
Website: Wild Librarian Press

World Stage Press

About: World Stage Press is a publishing house in Leimert Park, Los Ángeles dedicated to the creation and proliferation of African-American Literature. The World Stage Press began as a small publishing arm to literary workshops and the open mic, Anazi Writers Workshop, at the historical World Stage Performance Gallery. In 2013, Hiram Sims and Conney Williams were inspired to grow the mission of the World Stage and create a full time press dedicated as a place for the community to access its own stories.

World Stage Press continues to pay homage to its history and roots by identifying, supporting, and promoting creatives within the community by providing resources and a platform for community based literature. The Press does so through education (Community Literature Initiative), publication (World Stage Press), and preservation (The Sims Library). The press also runs the Living Writers Series, bringing local writers who have published with World Stage, to visit LAUSD classrooms, and perform their works for students.

Genres Published: African American literary classics, poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Representative Authors: Cynthia Guardado, Erika Ayón, Nadia Hunter Bey, Imani Tolliver, Jaha Zainabu, V. Kali, Wyatt Underwood, Astrid and Conney Williams
Book Types: Full-length poetry collections, novels, short stories, memoir
Titles per Year: 12
Website: http://www.worldstagepress.org/

Writ Large Projects

About: Writ Large was established in 2007 to publish emerging Los Angeles authors under our Writ Large Press label.

Writ Large Projects is all the things Writ Large has done and done successfully, whether it’s publishing books or producing events, plus new experiments and endeavors. It will include all the different elements below, with more additions to come as necessary.

• Writ Large Press: The indie publisher you know & love continues with unique and stunning books.
• Writ Large Books & Collaborative: Physical bookstores & community centers around the country.
• Writ Large Lab & Studio: Research, develop & distribute projects for radio, podcast, television & new technologies.
• Writ Large Events: Collaborate with partners & clients to produce literary & cultural events.

Genres Published: Poetry, Experimental, Fiction
Representative Authors: Mike Sonksen, Tanzila Ahmed, Traci Kato-Kiriyama and bridgette bianca
Titles per Year: 2-5
Website: https://www.writlargeprojects.com/