S1E124 - Chris Heiser - Inside a Small Press
Why does this press call itself unnamed, how has it succeeded and what are the challenges of being an independent press? Along with asking about the role of multimedia, the vision of challenging the status quo and how the impact of published books is measured, those were the opening questions posed by Michael Krasny to publisher Chris Heiser. A dialogue followed related to the publishing of poetry and the importance of how a book looks and feels and Chris Heiser spoke of bookcases as embodiments of personal histories. A discussion of social media, marketing and book selling challenges then moved forward along with a question from Michael Krasny about a series from Unnamed Press on contemporary women's writing and what Chris Heiser believes the effects Artificial Intelligence will have on the book business and recent actions toward book censorship. What followed was a discussion of five unnamed books Chris Heiser felt were "truly representative" of the literary press he runs, including the classic imprint of an Edith Wharton novel and four other books all, as Michael Krasny pointed out, by academic authors with PhD degrees. Krasny then brought up the essential importance for readers of engagement and the size of different genres as well as John Barth's declaring the death of the novel. Heiser spoke of the diluting power over books of other media, whereupon Krasny asked him what it means to be literary and a rich conversation followed about the role of the reader. This vital and deeply informed and informative conversation concluded with Krasny asking about the role of translation, the influence on Heiser of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and how and why Heiser sought out a career in publishing.
Biography
Chris Heiser is the publisher and co-founder of LA-based Unnamed Press. Started in 2014, Unnamed has quickly become one of the country's leading independent publishers of contemporary literature. The press releases approximately 25 titles a year, across a variety of categories, including fiction, memoir, poetry and classics, though it has made a particular name for itself as a publisher of new contemporary writing by women, among them celebrated authors like Esmé Weijun Wang (The Border of Paradise), Chelsea G Summers (A Certain Hunger), Jennifer Croft (Homesick) and Bethany Morrow (Mem). In 2023, Unnamed Press partnered with LA-based publisher Rare Bird to launch North Figueroa Bookshop, a community bookstore and event space in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. In late 2024 Unnamed Press launched a classics imprint, Smith & Taylor, created by two of its editors, Allison Smith and Brandon Taylor, that seeks to broaden the discourse around old books. Previously, Chris was deeply involved with starting up nonprofit translation press Phoneme Media (now an imprint of Deep Vellum) and worked at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Before that he worked at The New Press and John Wiley & Sons in New York. He holds an MA in Comparative Literature from NYU, and a BA in English from Occidental College.
Conversation recorded on April 18, 2025.