About The Permanent Press

Begun in 1978 by Martin and Judith Shepard, The Permanent Press committed itself to publishing works of social and literary merit and has, over the years, gained a reputation as one of the finest independent presses in America.

Since our inception, individual authors and titles have gained over 50 literary honors, including the American Book Award, Small Press Book Awards, New American Writing Awards, and the Colorado Book Award. They have also been National Book Award, Edgar Award, and Hammett Prize finalists. We've published Halldor Laxness, a 1955 Nobel Prize winner, and have 12 novels in print from Berry Fleming, who, in 1990, was a Nobel Prize nominee.

The press itself has been cited on three separate occasions for its editorial excellence. In 1988, The Permanent Press was a Grand Prize Finalist for The Boston Globe Literary Press Awards. In 1997 we were honored with the Poor Richards Award given by the Small Press Center for "having done much to advance the cause of small press publishing over a period of at least two decades." 1998 marked the culmination of prizes, as we won the equivalent of a publishing "Oscar" for the previous year's list: Literary Market Place's LMP Award for Editorial Achievement - a prize open to every publisher, large and small, in America, and voted on, nationally, by our colleagues in the book industry.

The vast majority of our books are new, and these are published under The Permanent Press imprint. Our sister imprint, Second Chance Press, reprints books of merit that had been out-of-print, for at least 20 years. Under that imprint, we've published not only Berry Fleming and Halldor Laxness, but novels by Richard Lortz, William Herrick, and Joseph Stanley Pennell.

Unlike most publishers, we have kept almost all of our titles in print, for we feel that these books have a timeless quality and will always be rewarding reading experiences.
 

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