Melville House Publishing

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Melville House Publishing is an independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey, a location Johnson jokingly called "the Left Bank" of New York City.^[1] 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, popularly known as the "indie publisher of the year" award.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Melville House has published a variety of authors including Andre Schiffrin, Celia Farber, Stephen Dixon, Frank O'Connor, Renata Adler, Mark Danner, Randall Kenan, Lewis Lapham, French (then-)Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and others. The company has been adept at attracting well-known authors away from larger establishment presses. In late 2007, Johnson announced the company had lured Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertesz away from his long-time publisher, Knopf, with a three book deal. Soon after, he announced Paul Berman had left Norton to publish with Melville House.

The company is particularly noted for its books of leftist political reportage, French titles in translation, and avant-garde fiction. Among its most notable books are its 2003 bestseller "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?", by Bernard-Henri Levy, the first book to disclose the illegal trading of nuclear technology by U.S. ally Pakistan, and "Torture Taxi," by Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson, the first book on the CIA's rendition program. More recently, Melville House published "Collusion," by Carlo Bonini, the Italian journalist who uncovered the "Niger-gate" hoax behind the U.S. justification for going to war in Iraq, and "Learning to Live Finally," the final book by Jacques Derrida. Fiction writer Tao Lin has developed a large cult following for the house, and its quirky language books, such as "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog" by Kitty Burns Florey, have also developed large followings. ^[3]

Melville House has also gained a reputation for its attention to book design, and has won several AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artist) awards for its cover and interior designs.^[5] Unlike most small publishers, Melville House has an in-house designer. Until 2007, Dave Knopka designed all of the company's books. He left Melville House when his band, Battles, grew in popularity. Currently, the position is held by the design team of Kelly Blair and Carol Hayes.

The rapid rise of the company has been notable in that neither Johnson or Merians had any background in publishing. Johnson was a short story writer who had won numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize, but had never published a book; he was probably best known for founding what may have been the first book blog, MobyLives.com. Merians was a sculptor who showed her work at several notable New York galleries, including the Margaret Thatcher Gallery in Chelsea, and the Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, and although she studied poetry at the Iowa Writers Workshop, her work, too, had never been collected in a book. In an early interview, Merians told the New York Times that the company was formed as an impromptu reaction to the political climate of the moment that she thought would amount to no more than "an out-of-the-back-of-the-car kind of thing."

In 2008 Melville House moved to DUMBO, Brooklyn, to a location that combines a glass-wall bookstore with their offices, which are behind revolving bookshelves. The opening was on January 19th, 2008.

[edit] References

^ Beale, Lewis. "NEW JERSEY & CO.; When Publish or Perish Is More Than Just Words", The New York Times, July 28, 2002. Accessed October 24, 2007. "What makes us particularly lunatic is that we're starting off with a book of poetry and a book of literary criticism," said Dennis Loy Johnson, who, with his partner, Valerie Merians, is the driving force behind Melville House Publishing, which will release its first offerings in September. "Two big sellers. Absolute sure fire hits."
^ "MELVILLE HOUSE CO-PUBLISHERS DENNIS LOY JOHNSON AND VALERIE MERIANS ARE NAMED 2007 MIRIAM BASS AWARD WINNERS", Association of American Publishers press release dated February 6, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2007.
^ ^a ^b "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."
^ "OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS", MIRIAM BASS AWARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH by Dennis Loy Johnson, March 7, 2007. "I’m intensely conscious of winning this award in the immediate aftermath of the PGW fiasco .... Let me tell you, there are a lot of publishers out there right now who deserve an award for creativity by simply staying alive. I accept this in their honor, and with thanks to them for what they do."
^ AIGA 2006 winners list]