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Front cover of the 1940 issue Anvil by John C. Rogers showing a muscular man in bold red strokes.

Anvil, the Forgotten Magazine of Heartland Marxism

Anvil's popular vision for a multiracial socialism in the heart of the US could hardly be more urgent today.
by Marc Blanc via Jacobin on February 23, 2025
Burgundy leather book cover with "Published By The Author" written in gold.

Self-Publishing and the Black American Narrative

"Published by the Author" explores the resourcefulness of Black writers of the nineteenth century.
by Tim Brinkhof, Bryan Sinche via JSTOR Daily on December 11, 2024
Painting of Benjamin Franklin reading a manuscript, while a boy operates a printing press behind him.

Benjamin Franklin, Man of Letters

The inventor, philosopher, and elder statesman of the American Revolution never gave up on his first love — publishing.
by Eric Weiner via The Saturday Evening Post on November 12, 2024
Sanora Babb

The Woman Who Would Be Steinbeck

John Steinbeck beat Sanora Babb to the great American Dust Bowl novel—using her field notes. What do we owe her today?
by Mark Athitakis via The Atlantic on October 10, 2024
The original cover sketch of "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," by Richard Scarry, with cartoon animals in vehicles.

On Richard Scarry and the Art of Children's Literature

Scarry’s guides to life both reflected and bolstered kids’ lived experience, and in some cases even provided the template for it.
by Chris Ware via The Yale Review on September 9, 2024
Jason Epstein.

The Man Who Created the Trade Paperback

On the life and times of Jason Epstein, cofounder of “The New York Review of Books.”
by Michael Castleman via Literary Hub on July 18, 2024
Illustration of a literary rejection letter.

There Is No Point in My Being Other Than Honest with You: On Toni Morrison’s Rejection Letters

Autopsies of a changing publishing industry; frustrations with readers' tastes; and sympathies for poets and authors drawn to commercially hopeless genres.
by Melina Moe via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 26, 2024
Title page of the "Manual of the Corporation of The City of New York."

The Bittersweet Legacy Of David T. Valentine

Valentine devoted his time to writing the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. These were annual compendiums of data about the city.
by Claudia Keenan via The Gotham Center on March 6, 2024
Blanche and Alfred Knopf

Toward the Next Literary Mafia

Understanding history can help us understand what will be necessary if we’re serious about finally having a more diverse, less exclusionary publishing industry.
by Josh Lambert via Public Books on November 21, 2023
Illustration of multiple people drawing the same cover of a book

Big Publishing Killed the Author

How corporations wrested creative control from writers and editors—to produce less interesting books.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on November 15, 2023
Illustration of a book reading "A-Z" with a laptop features as the pages.

Life Is Short. Indexes Are Necessary.

In 1941 an ambitious Philadelphia pediatrician, the wonderfully named Waldo Emerson Nelson, became the editor of America’s leading textbook of pediatrics.
by Fara Dabhoiwala via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Woman standing on a wall of books, holding a megaphone, 1919.

Choice Reading

Nineteenth-century New York City was filled with books, bibliophilia, and marginalia.
by Denise Gigante via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 21, 2022
Invisible Man book cover with Ralph Ellison on the back

Broke and Blowing Deadlines

How Ralph Ellison got Invisible Man into the canon.
by Anne Trubek via Notes From A Small Press on June 29, 2022

9/11 was a Test. The Books of the Last Two Decades Show How America Failed.

The books of the last two decades show how overreacting to the attacks unmade America’s values.
by Carlos Lozada via Washington Post on September 3, 2021
Lady with black hair tied up in a bun

Dickinson’s Improvisations

A new edition of Emily Dickinson’s Master letters highlights what remains blazingly intense and mysterious in her work.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on June 12, 2021
Portrait of Sophia Thoreau

Sophia Thoreau to the Rescue!

Who made sure Henry David Thoreau's works came out after his death? His sister.
by Matthew Wills, Kathy Fedorko via JSTOR Daily on May 28, 2021
Richard Jean So and the cover of his book "Redlining Culture"

The History of Publishing Is a History of Racial Inequality

A conversation with Richard Jean So about combining data and literary analysis to understand how the publishing industry came to be dominated by white writers. 
by Richard Jean So, Rosemarie Ho via The Nation on May 27, 2021
Coffee table with books

A Brief History of Coffee Table Books: Origin, Precursors, and Popularity

Ever look at the tome on a coffee table and wonder why coffee table books are a thing? Consider this brief history of coffee table books.
by Addison Rizer via Book Riot on April 13, 2021
A printed advertisement for "The Bookman" depicting a fish reacting to "The Bookman" on a hook.

The Power of Flawed Lists

How "The Bookman" invented the best seller.
by Elizabeth Della Zazzera via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 27, 2020
Protests at the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, with an image of Robert E. Lee edited in the sky behind them.

How Northern Publishers Cashed In on Fundraising for Confederate Monuments

In the years after the Civil War, printmakers in New York and elsewhere abetted the Lost Cause movement by selling images of false idols.
by Harold Holzer via Smithsonian on July 7, 2020
An young African American man speaking at a podium with a sign "SDS: Black Power and Change"

Friends of SNCC and The Birth of The Movement

The Friends of the SNCC published the story of the struggle for freedom in the 1960s.
by Ethan Scott Barnett via The Metropole on December 10, 2019
Glowing white "No" against a red background.

“Perhaps We’re Being Dense.” Rejection Letters Sent to Famous Writers

Some kind, some weird, some unbelievably harsh.
by Emily Temple via Literary Hub on June 19, 2019
Cover of Orwell's "1984."

Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years

(And what everyone read instead.)
by Emily Temple via Literary Hub on November 27, 2018

What of the Lowly Page Number

Far from being a utilitarian afterthought, an astonishing number of design choices go into pagination.
by Marlon Ettinger via The Outline on April 23, 2018
An open book.
partner

Periodicals Are Reassessing Their Pasts. It’s Time for Publishers to Do the Same

For decades, book publishers regularly rejected authors on the basis of their race and religion. Their voices deserve to be heard.
by Yuliya Komska via Made By History on March 22, 2018
Eleanor Kirk

How to Pitch a Magazine (in 1888)

Eleanor Kirk's guide offered a way to break into the boys’ club of publishing.
by Paul Collins via The New Yorker on September 4, 2014
Toni Morrison holding a manuscript.

She Was the Greatest Author of Her Generation. She Should Be Remembered for More Than Her Writing.

Toni Morrison was an editor for 12 years, even as she wrote her own masterpieces. I spoke to her authors about being edited by an icon.
by Dana A. Williams via Slate on June 17, 2025
partner

Not Just the Dog-Eared Pages

Considering a novel as a whole, rather than as the sum of its parts, was an approach favored by mid-20th-century literary critics. It was also useful for fighting book bans.
by Anthony Aycock via HNN on June 3, 2025
Cover of the book Under Cover by John Roy Carlson depicts english language nazi newspapers.

The First Rough Draft of the United States’ Homegrown Nazis

On the renewed relevance of “Under Cover,” Arthur Derounian’s 1943 exposé of the United States’ Nazi underworld.
by Michael Bobelian via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 3, 2025
Science fiction landscape.

75 Years Ago, "The Martian Chronicles" Legitimized Science Fiction

On Ray Bradbury’s underappreciated classic.
by Sam Weller via Literary Hub on April 28, 2025
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