Soft Skull Press is an independent publisher of books that engage art, culture, and current events in new and radical ways. We publish every genre.

Explore Our Authors

The press began in 1992 in New York, when a student named Sander Hicks was working shifts at Kinko’s. He started photocopying his writing, tape-binding it into books, and handing these out to his friends. In the twenty-five years since, we have published works by Eileen Myles, Maggie Nelson, Noam Chomsky, Lydia Millet, Alain Mabanckou, and many more. Our books have been awarded numerous Lambda Literary Awards as well as the Quill Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction, and have been finalists for the Believer Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. You can read an article about our early history here.

The photographer William Eggleston once said that his work was “at war with the obvious.” In a recent tribute to Soft Skull author Lynne Tillman, Colm Tóibín borrowed Eggleston’s phrase to describe her work. Then again, Lynne Tillman has also said that one of her mantras is “Do the obvious.” Both seemingly opposite perspectives hold true, we think, for the books we want to publish. We want our books to offer a refuge from, an alternative to, and an argument against mainstream culture and mainstream thinking.

We’d be very happy if you bought our books at your local independent bookstore or ordered them from our site. Please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and we’ll do our best to entertain you. Sign up to our newsletter and you’ll receive a non-annoying frequency of emails about new books and fun events.

Thank you for reading!

Contact Us

Soft Skull Press
1140 Broadway, Suite 706
New York, NY 10001

Please send general comments and questions to contact@softskull.com

For publicity queries and review copies: publicity@softskull.com

For foreign rights queries: foreignrights@softskull.com

Our books are distributed by Penguin Random House. For orders, please contact your Penguin Random House sales representative, or contact their customer service team at customerservice@penguinrandomhouse.com.

Desk and exam copy requests can be made through Penguin Random House.
If you are looking for a desk copy, please click here.
If you are looking for an exam copy, please click here.

Download our Fall 2023 catalog here. Download our Spring 2023 catalog here.

For permissions:
If you are interested in reprinting part of a Catapult, Counterpoint, or Soft Skull book, please click here.


Masthead

Elizabeth Koch, Co-founder and CEO
Alyson Forbes, Publisher/COO

Dan Smetanka, Editorial Director, Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull

Mensah Demary, Editor in Chief
Cecilia Flores, Editorial Assistant
Sarah Lyn Rogers, Contributing Editor
Allie Wuest, Editor at Large

Nicole Caputo, Creative Director

Wah-Ming Chang, Vice President, Company Culture and Senior Managing Editor
Olenka Burgess, Production Manager
Laura Berry, Production Editor
Tracy Danes, Production Assistant

Megan Fishmann, Vice President, Associate Publisher and Senior Director of Publicity
Lena Moses-Schmitt, Assistant Director of Publicity
Selilah White, Publicist
Rachel Fershleiser, Associate Publisher, Executive Director of Marketing
Dustin Kurtz, Social Media Editor
Kira Weiner, Events Coordinator
Alyssa Lo, Marketing Assistant
Katie Mantele, Sales & Marketing Associate
Miriam Vance, Contracts & Rights Associate

Submissions

Soft Skull is currently closed to unsolicited submissions.

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