Photo by Luke Vlahos
Audio By Carbonatix
Small presses may well be the future of publishing. Not that it hasn’t been a strong and important part of its past and present, but with the consolidation of the big coastal publishers, and the shrinking of the literary markets, the role of small presses is becoming more and more distinct. Not to mention sorely needed.
Which is exactly what Kristen Gilligan and her new small Denver press Left Field Publishing are beginning to address. Left Field’s mission statement calls the new venture a “forward-thinking publishing company” that seeks to “combine the best attributes of traditional publishing with the best attributes of independent publishing.” The vision is one of reimagining, focusing on the amplification of “genre-defying voices across fiction, non-fiction, YA and kids books. Because great books aren’t defined by a category.”
Gilligan, with the support of her husband and author Len Vlahos, debuted the press with two books: Vlahos’ newest inventive novel “The Story of Oog: a New Thinkers’ Guide to the Forest”; and “The Dealmaker’s Will” by Walker Thrash, which is both novel and non-fiction, a thriller with some real-world business acumen to communicate. Four more books are set to be released this fall, with more on schedule and in process for 2027.
To support the launch of Left Field Publishing, a Kickstarter campaign has been established in order to help pay for some of the start-up costs involved. “Be a part of the story!” invites the crowdfunding effort, defining Left Field as a place “where bold, genre-defying stories come to life. And you can help make them happen.” The campaign ends on Sunday, Aug. 16, and still needs support to fulfill. (For more information, or to pledge to the cause, check out Left Field’s Kickstarter page.)
Gilligan and Vlahos are obviously no strangers to the active support of literature. Indeed, the couple met while working for the American Booksellers Association in New York, and came to Denver in 2015 in order to take the Tattered Cover reins from founder Joyce Meskis — an unenviable task perhaps, filling those shoes, but through yeoman’s work over years, they kept the Tattered Cover legacy alive and thriving. The duo sold during the confusing and sea-change years of the pandemic, but Gilligan says she remains proud of the work they did there, including significant outreach to local school systems, groups, and awards that she herself worked with her team to establish during that time.
But things have been changing, and quickly, in the literary landscape, and not just at the bookseller level. “There are so many inspired writers out there, so many voices that deserve to be heard. I’ve always tried to support that, but more recently, publishers and agents both have started saying no to worthy projects because they didn’t fit into a nice little single-market box.” Gilligan says that response confounded her: why wouldn’t publishers–notorious for always worrying the bottom line of financials rather than art — embrace a work that appealed to more than one segment of readers? She says she and her husband started talking about that, about what they could do, and the idea came: maybe they could just do it themselves?
It helped that Vlahos had been shopping his new novel “The Story of Oog” around a bit and been frustrated by the feedback — mainly that it didn’t fit into an existing genre. “So we thought, let’s test it out by putting out his book,” recalls Gilligan, “iron out the kinks, see how it goes.”
So far, it’s gone swimmingly. Gilligan gleefully mentions that one of the four books Left Field is publishing this October has already been recognized with a starred review in both Kirkus and Library Journal, a WWII spy novel by John Mutter called Fortune and Glass that focuses not only on the war, but also on romance and the preservation of identity even within a political era designed to erase you.
Left Field Publishing
The three other books are as diverse as they are intriguing: Matt Strollo’s werewolf noir set in Philadelphia called “The Crimson Traveler”; “What Not to Say at a Funeral”, Amy Havis’ warm, practical guide to showing up for people in grief; and the 10th anniversary edition of “The Art of Holding On and Letting Go” by Kristin Bartley Lenz, an award-winning YA novel about a competitive climber navigating ambiguous loss.
So it makes sense to some degree that Gilligan and Vlahos named their press Left Field. Aside from being baseball fans, the idiom itself recalls something surprising, which is an aesthetic purposefully invoked. “But it’s also something Len and I say a lot,” laughs Gilligan. “And then one day we were sitting on our back porch, looking out at our yard, and realized that the fence we can see from there is right up against a community ball field, touching — you guessed it — left field. It was just too perfect.”
“I love everything I do,” she adds. “Being able to work directly with authors whose dream is to publish a book? It’s so rewarding. So fulfilling. Worth every bit of work that I can provide to make that voice heard.”
Just like the Left Field mission statement says, “the right book at the right moment can change everything.”
To support Left Field Publishing in its startup efforts, check out its Kickstarter before it ends on Sunday, Aug.16. To read more about the current and upcoming releases from Left Field, see its website.
