Counterpoint LLC was a

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

company distributed by

Perseus Books Group Perseus Books Group was an American publishing company founded in 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. Perseus acquired the trade publishing division of Addison-Wesley (including the Merloyd Lawrence imprint) in 1997. It was named Publisher of the Ye ...

launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses:

Perseus In Greek mythology, Perseus (Help:IPA/English, /ˈpɜːrsiəs, -sjuːs/; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus ...

' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent

Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company distributed by Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent S ...

. The company published books under the Counterpoint Press and Soft Skull Press imprints. Counterpoint also entered into an agreement for the production, marketing and distribution of approximately eight Sierra Club book titles each year. Both

Wendell Berry Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of ...

and poet

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...

were investors in Counterpoint, with both of their works currently being published by the Counterpoint imprint. Jack Shoemaker, Vice-president and editorial director of Counterpoint, had worked with both authors in other companies for more than thirty years. Counterpoint published some works by Albanian author

Ismail Kadare Ismail Kadare (; spelled Ismaïl Kadaré in French; born on 28 January 1936) is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a leading international literary figure and intellectual. He focused on poetry until the pu ...

, including '' A Girl in Exile'', ''The Traitor’s Niche'', and '' The Doll: A Portrait of My Mother''. Counterpoint merged into fellow publisher Catapult in 2016.

Soft Skull Press

Soft Skull 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 the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

book publisher founded by

Sander Hicks A sander is a power tool used to smooth surfaces by abrasion with sandpaper. Sanders have a means to attach the sandpaper and a mechanism to move it rapidly contained within a housing with means to hand-hold it or fix it to a workbench. Woodwo ...

in 1992, and run by

Yuka Igarashi Yuka may refer to: *Yuka (music), an Afro-Cuban style of music *Yuka (mammoth), mammoth specimen found in Yakutia, Russia *Manshu Yuka Kogyo K.K. Ssuningkai, a Japanese-German pre-WWII industrial co-operation People *Yuka (name), a Japanese perso ...

since 2017. In 2007, Richard Nash, who had taken Soft Skull over from Hicks in 2001, sold Soft Skull to Counterpoint, who closed Soft Skull's New York operation in 2010. Counterpoint merged into fellow publisher

Catapult A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored p ...

in 2016; subsequently, Soft Skull reopened its New York office with Yuka Igarashi as editor-in-chief, and began to reissue backlist books, including ''The Amputee's Guide to Sex'' by

Jillian Weise Jillian is both a feminine given name and a surname. A spelling variant of Gillian, it originates as a feminine form of the given name Julian, Julio, Julius, and Julien. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Jillian Armenante (b ...

and ''Something Bright, Then Holes'' by

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, aes ...

and

Wayne Koestenbaum Wayne Koestenbaum (born 1958) is an American artist, poet, and cultural critic. He received a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University and is a 1994 Whiting Award recipie ...

's 2004 novel, ''Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes'' with a new title, ''Circus'', and to acquire and publish new works.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Official website

Soft Skull Press
Book publishing companies based in Berkeley, California Publishing companies established in 2007 American companies established in 2007 {{publish-company-stub