Graywolf Press is an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

located in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

. Graywolf Press publishes

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

, and

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

. Graywolf Press collaborates with organizations such as the

College of Saint Benedict The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University are two closely related Private college, private, Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts colleges in Minnesota. The College of Sai ...

, the

Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, commonly known as the Mellon Foundation, is a New York City-based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger ...

, and

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer P ...

. Graywolf Press currently publishes about 27 books a year, including the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winner, the recipient of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, and several translations supported by the

Lannan Foundation The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

History

Graywolf Press was founded by Scott Walker and Kathleen Foster in 1974, in a space provided by

Copper Canyon Press Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 by Sam Hamill, Tree Swenson, Bill O'Daly, and Jim Gautney, specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington. Copper C ...

Port Townsend, Washington Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,148 at the 2020 United States Census. It is the county seat and only incorporated city of Jefferson County. In addition ...

. The press was named for the nearby Graywolf Ridge and Graywolf River, and for the

canid Canidae (; from Latin, ''canis'', "dog") is a family (biology), biological family of caniform carnivorans, constituting a clade. A member of this family is also called a canid (). The family includes three subfamily, subfamilies: the Caninae, a ...

. The press had early successes publishing poetry heavyweights such as

Denis Johnson Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, ''Jesus' Son (short story collection), Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most succes ...

and

Tess Gallagher Tess Gallagher (born 1943) is an American poet, essayist, and short story writer. Among her many honors were a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts award, Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award. Biography ...

. In 1984, Graywolf Press was incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and moved to

St. Paul Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. For his contributions towards the New Testament, he is generally ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, in 1985 with the support of the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

. Fiona McCrae, formerly of

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

, became the director of Graywolf Press in 1994, following the departure of Scott Walker. In 2009, Graywolf Press moved its publishing operations to the historic

Warehouse District This is a list of notable warehouse districts. A warehouse district or warehouse row is an area found in many urban setting known for being the current or former location of numerous warehouses. Logistically, warehouses are often located in indus ...

of downtown

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, Minnesota.

Books and authors

The Graywolf publication list includes novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, and poetry by writers such as

Maggie Nelson Maggie Nelson (born 1973) is an American writer. She has been described as a genre-busting writer defying classification, working in autobiography, art criticism, theory, feminism, queerness, sexual violence, the history of the avant-garde, aest ...

Deb Olin Unferth Deb Olin Unferth (born November 19, 1968) is an American short story writer, novelist, and memoirist. She is the author of the collection of stories ''Minor Robberies'' and the novel ''Vacation'', both published by McSweeney's, and the memoi ...

Eula Biss Eula Biss (born 1977) is an American non-fiction writer who is the author of four books. Biss has won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the ...

, Elizabeth Alexander,

Kevin Barry Kevin Gerard Barry (20 January 1902 – 1 November 1920) was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier and medical student who was executed by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence. He was sentenced to death for his part in a ...

, Charles Baxter,

Sven Birkerts Sven Birkerts (born 21 September 1951) is an American essayist and literary critic. He is best known for his book ''The Gutenberg Elegies'' (1994), which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other tec ...

, Ron Carlson, Maile Chapman, Mark Doten,

Percival Everett Percival Leonard Everett II (born December 22, 1956) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Distinguished professor, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologicall ...

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has starred in numerous films, including Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002 film series), ''Spider-Man'' trilogy (2002–2007), ''Milk (2008 American film), Milk'' (200 ...

Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements w ...

Albert Goldbarth Albert Goldbarth (born January 31, 1948) is an American poet. He has won the National Book Critics Circle award for "Saving Lives" (2001) and "Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology" (1991), the only poet to receive the honor two times. He also won the Mar ...

Linda Gregg Linda Alouise Gregg (September 9, 1942 – March 20, 2019) was an American poet. Biography Gregg was born in Suffern, New York. She grew up on the other side of the country, in Marin County, California. Gregg received both her Bachelor of Arts, ...

Eamon Grennan Eamon JR Grennan (born 13 November 1941) is an Irish poet born in Dublin, Ireland. He attended University College Dublin where he completed a BA 1963 and an MA 1964. He has lived in the United States, except for brief periods, since 1964. He ...

Matthea Harvey Matthea Harvey (born September 3, 1973) is a contemporary American poet, writer and professor. She has published four collections of poetry. The most recent of these, ''If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?'', a collection of poetry and images, ...

Tony Hoagland Anthony Dey Hoagland (November 19, 1953 – October 23, 2018) was an American poet. His poetry collection, ''What Narcissism Means to Me'' (2003), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other honors included two grant ...

Jane Kenyon Jane Kenyon (May 23, 1947 – April 22, 1995) was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subj ...

, William Kittredge, J. Robert Lennon,

Ander Monson Ander Monson (born April 9, 1975) is an American novelist, poet, and nonfiction writer. Life He was raised in Houghton, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Upper Peninsula. His mother's death when he was seven years old is reflected in ...

Per Petterson Per Petterson (born 18 July 1952 in Oslo) is a Norwegian novelist. His debut book was ''Aske i munnen, sand i skoa'' (1987), a collection of short stories. He has since published a number of novels with good reviews. ''To Siberia'' (1996), set i ...

Benjamin Percy Benjamin Percy is an American author of novels and short stories, essayist, comic book writer, and screenwriter. Career Benjamin Percy has published four novels, ''The Dark Net'', ''The Dead Lands'', ''Red Moon'', and ''The Wilding'', as well as ...

Carl Phillips Carl Phillips (born 23 July 1959) is an American writer and poet. He is a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his '' Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.'' ...

, Catie Rosemurgy, Tracy K. Smith, A. Igoni Barrett,

Nuruddin Farah Nuruddin Farah (, ) (born 24 November 1945) is a Somali novelist. His first novel, '' From a Crooked Rib'', was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". Farah has also written ...

, William Stafford,

David Treuer David Treuer (born 1970) is an American writer, critic, and academic. As of 2019, he had published seven books, and his 2019 book, '' The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present,'' was a National Book Award Finalist. H ...

, Brenda Ueland, and Binyavanga Wainaina.

Awards

Graywolf Press won the 2015 AWP Small Press Publisher Award given by the

Association of Writers & Writing Programs The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is a nonprofit literary organization that provides support, advocacy, resources, and community to nearly 50,000 writers, 500 college and university creative writing programs, and 125 writers' c ...

that "acknowledges the hard work, creativity, and innovation" of small presses and "their contributions to the literary landscape" of the US.

Graywolf Press Prizes

The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, founded in 2005, "seeks to acknowledge – and honor – the great traditions of literary nonfiction” by publishing “the boldest and most innovative books from emerging nonfiction writers" (Robert Polito). Submissions of finished books to the Nonfiction Prize are welcomed from previously unpublished U.S. authors. The winner is announced in April of each year. Graywolf also oversees publication of winners of the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outrea ...

' Walt Whitman Award, as well as every third winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winners

* 2020: ''Voice of the Fish'' by Lars Horn * 2018: ''Zat Lun'' by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint * 2017: '' The Collected Schizophrenias'' by Esmé Weijun Wang *2014: ''Riverine'' by Angela Palm * 2013: ''Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight'' by Margaret Lazarus Dean * 2011: ''The Empathy Exams: Essays'' by

Leslie Jamison Leslie Sierra Jamison (born June 21, 1983) is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of the 2010 novel ''The Gin Closet'' and the 2014 essay collection ''The Empathy Exams.'' Jamison also directs the nonfiction concentration in writ ...

* 2010: ''

The Grey Album ''The Grey Album'' is a mashup album by Danger Mouse, released in 2004. It mixes an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z's '' The Black Album'' with samples from the Beatles' self-titled ninth album, commonly known as "The White Album". ''The ...

'' by Kevin Young * 2008: '' Notes from No Man's Land'' by

* 2007: ''Black Glasses Like Clark Kent'' by Terese Svoboda * 2006: ''Neck Deep and Other Predicaments'' by

* 2005: ''Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles'' by

Kate Braverman Kate Braverman (February 5, 1949 – October 12, 2019) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Los Angeles was the focus for much of her writing. Formative years Kate Braverman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 5 ...

Graywolf Press Africa Prize winners

Since 2018, Graywolf Press has also awarded a prize for "a first novel manuscript by an African author primarily residing in Africa." The winners include: * 2019: ''American Girl and Boy from Shobrakheit'' by Noor Naga * 2018: ''The House of Rust'' by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

References

External links

* {{Official, http://www.graywolfpress.org/
''Graywolf is turning readers into donors'' > by Marianne Combs > Minnesota Public Radio December 29, 2006

Lannon Foundation Profile of Graywolf Press

''Minnesota: land of long-lasting small presses''
by Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio October 8, 2004
Profile of Graywolf Press
Poets.Org
mnartists.org > ''Thinking Souls: An Interview with Mary Matze''
by Shannon Gibney > August 17, 2006 Book publishing companies based in Minnesota Companies based in Minneapolis Culture of Minneapolis Non-profit organizations based in Minnesota Publishing companies established in 1974 1974 establishments in Minnesota