Four Walls Eight Windows was an American independent book publisher in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Known as 4W8W or Four Walls, the company was notable for its dual commitment to progressive politics and adventurous, edgy literary fiction.

History

Four Walls debuted in the fall of 1987, under the direction of two young editors, John G. H. Oakes and Daniel Simon. (Simon had previously had an imprint under the same name at Writers and Readers Publishing.) In 1995, Oakes and Simon parted ways. Oakes remained as publisher and Simon went on to found Seven Stories Press. In 2004, Four Walls Eight Windows was acquired by the Avalon Publishing Group. Its entire list was incorporated into the Thunder's Mouth Press imprint of Avalon, of which Oakes became publisher. Thunder's Mouth Press itself was acquired in 2007 by the

Perseus Books Group Perseus Books Group was an American publishing company founded in year 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. Perseus acquired the trade publishing division of Addison-Wesley (including the Merloyd Lawrence imprint) in 1997. In 2005, Perseus acquired ...

. (Oakes then became executive editor at Atlas & Company under James Atlas; he is now publisher of ''The Evergreen Review''.) Perseus stopped publishing books under the Thunder's Mouth imprint in May 2007.

Authors

Among the more significant contemporary authors published by Four Walls were

Steve Aylett Steve Aylett (born 1967 in Bromley, United Kingdom) is an English author of satirical science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream. According to the critic Bill Ectric, "much of Aylett’s work combines the bawdy, action-oriented style of Voltaire w ...

, Ed Ayres, Michael Brodsky,

Octavia Butler Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to recei ...

, Jerome Charyn, Andrei Codrescu,

Richard Condon Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were writte ...

, Sue Coe, R. Crumb, Paul Di Filippo,

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...

Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen sol ...

Brian Evenson Brian Evenson (born August 12, 1966) is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws ins ...

, Annie Ernaux,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the ...

, Margo Howard-Howard, Kathe Koja, Gordon Lish, Gary Lutz, Jim Munroe, Harvey Pekar, Tito Perdue,

Rudy Rucker Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (; born March 22, 1946) is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known f ...

, John Ralston Saul,

Lucius Shepard Lucius Shepard (August 21, 1943 – March 18, 2014) was an American writer. Classified as a science fiction and fantasy writer, he often leaned into other genres, such as magical realism. Career Shepard was a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, wher ...

, Sasha Sokolov and Edward D. Wood, Jr. It also had a line of "modern classics," which included authors such as Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, George Plimpton and

Sloan Wilson Sloan Wilson (May 8, 1920 – May 25, 2003) was an American writer. Reporter Sloan was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the grandson of U.S. Navy officer and Arctic explorer John Wilson Danenhower. Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. ...

.Archived website for Four Walls Eight Windows
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References

External links

archived Four Walls Eight Windows websiteThunder's Mouth Press website
Defunct book publishing companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1987 {{US-publish-company-stub