***NEW PRESSES & BOOKSTORES AS OF 12/8/09***

Certain websites may be selling the newest Dan Brown novel for half price, but it’s not the best bargain out there this holiday season. A book published by an independent press and purchased from an independent bookseller supports two indie businesses and makes a more unique gift. Your loved ones will thank you. So will your community.

If your community is Southern California , you’re in luck. Our region is fertile ground for locally grown organic literature. Check out these presses and bookstores:

Southern California-based Presses:

• Ammo Books (www.ammobooks.com): one-of-a-kind titles featuring amazing design, thoughtful writing, and exquisite printing
• Angel City Press (www.angelcitypress.com): nostalgic yet cool illustrated books
• Arktoi Books (www.arktoi.com): poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that give lesbian writers access to “the conversation”
• Beyond Baroque (www.beyondbaroque.org): books by local, emerging, overlooked, and previously out-of-print poets
  
• Cahuenga Press (www.cahuengapress.com): poetry that honors creative freedom and cooperation
• Cloverfield Press (www.cloverfieldpress.com): books as visually beautiful as they are intellectually and emotionally stimulating
• Dzanc Books (www.dzancbooks.org): literary fiction that falls outside the mainstream
• Gorsky Press (www.gorsky.razorcake.org): risk-taking books that encourage readers to re-examine society
• Green Integer (www.greeninteger.com): essays, manifestos, speeches, epistles, narratives, and more
• Les Figues Press (www.lesfigues.com): aesthetic conversations between readers, writers, and artists, with an avant-garde emphasis
• Make Now Press (www.makenow.org): contemporary works of constraint and conceptual literature
• Otis Books/Seismicity (www.otis.edu/academics/graduate_writing/seismicity.html): contemporary fiction, poetry, essays, creative non-fiction and translation
• Perceval Press (www.percevalpress.com): art, critical writing, and poetry 
• P S Books (www.psbooks.org): micro-press that publishes conceptually motivated series on a project by project basis
• Red Hen Press (www.redhen.org): works of literary excellence that have been overlooked by mainstream presses
• San Diego City Works Press (www.cityworkspress.org): local, ethnic, political, and border writing
• Santa Monica Press (www.santamonicapress.com): offbeat looks at pop culture, lively how-to books, film history, travel, and humor
• Tebot Bach (www.tebotbach.org): strengthening community and broadening the audience for poetry
  
• Tsehai Publishers (www.tsehaipublishers.com): literary fiction and serious nonfiction, with an emphasis on first-time authors and writers from under-served communities
• What Books Press (www.whatbookspress.com): books by L.A.-based writers whose work spans the full scope of the past quarter century

Independent Bookstores:

Book Soup, West Hollywood (www.www.booksoup.com)

Beyond Baroque, Venice (www.beyondbaroque.org)

Chevalier’s Books, Larchmont Village (www.chevaliersbooks.blogspot.com)

Diesel, Brentwood and Malibu (www.dieselbookstore.com)

Equator Books, Venice (www.equatorbooks.com)

Eso Won Books, Leimert Park (www.esowon.booksense.com)

Family, Fairfax District (www.familylosangeles.com)

Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, La Cañada (www.flintridgebooks.com)

IMIX Bookstore, Eagle Rock (www.imixbooks.com)

Metropolis Books, Downtown (www.metropolisbooksla.com)

Portrait of a Bookstore, Studio City (www.portraitofabookstore.com)

Sierra Madre Books, Sierra Madre (www.sierramadrebooks.com)

Skylight Books, Los Feliz (www.skylightbooks.com)

Small World Books, Venice (www.smallworldbooks.com)

Stories, Echo Park (www.storiesla.com)

Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore (www.tiachucha.com)

Village Books, Pacific Palisades (www.palivillagebooks.com)  

Village Bookshop, Glendora (www.villagebookshopglendora.com)

Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena (www.vromansbookstore.com)

 

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Happy holidays from the Future of Publishing Think Tank*!