 | |
| Founded | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Giancarlo DiTrapano |
| Headquarters location | New York City; Rome |
| Publication types | Books, magazines |
| Official website | nytyrant |
Tyrant Books is an independent book publisher based in Rome, Italy and New York, New York. It was created in 2009 by Giancarlo DiTrapano as an offshoot of New York Tyrant Magazine, which was also founded by DiTrapano, in 2006.
Tyrant Books was created to publish books less suited to large publishing houses, often because of their non-mainstream appeal. Giancarlo DiTrapano is quoted in the Los Angeles Review of Books as saying: "It would have taken forever for me to do anything I wanted to do [working for a traditional publishing house], but I had a little money, so I started a press."
In 2006, he founded New York Tyrant Magazine, which published "writers the big houses refused to touch". The magazine was put on hiatus until December 2016, when it was brought back as an online journal, with Jordan Castro as editor. [1] [2] [3]
In 2009, the magazine marked the beginning of the publication's transition to book publishing when it published 500 copies of the novella Baby Leg by Brian Evenson. [4]
In 2013, Tyrant Books partnered with Fat Possum Records after DiTrapano met with Matthew Johnson, owner of Fat Possum Records. Johnson developed an interest in saving the publishing house — which was struggling financially — and became 50 percent owner. He took over the business aspects of Tyrant Books while DiTrapano was freed to focus more on the editorial side of the business.
In 2014, Tyrant Books published Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish, winner of the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Prize for fiction. As of January 2015, the book had sold 15,000 copies. [5]
DiTrapano, a native of Charleston, West Virginia, died in March 2021, at the age of 47. [6] [7]
In 2022 family and friends of Giancarlo DiTrapano launched The Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature and the Arts. Its stated mission is "to extend the legacy of our namesake, publisher Giancarlo DiTrapano, by funding and hosting creative residencies, fostering communities of creativity through readings and other events, and maintaining an editorial archive at our 17th-century villa and cultural center in Sezze Romano, Italy." [8] [9]
The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The National Book Awards were established in 1936 by the American Booksellers Association, abandoned during World War II, and re-established by three book industry organizations in 1950. Non-U.S. authors and publishers were eligible for the pre-war awards. Since then they are presented to U.S. authors for books published in the United States roughly during the award year.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Judges read citations for each of the finalists' works at the presentation ceremony in Washington, D.C.. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country." The award was first given in 1981.
Mormon fiction is generally fiction by or about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are also referred to as Latter-day Saints or Mormons. Its history is commonly divided into four sections as first organized by Eugene England: foundations, home literature, the "lost" generation, and faithful realism. During the first fifty years of the church's existence, 1830–1880, fiction was not popular, though Parley P. Pratt wrote a fictional Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. With the emergence of the novel and short stories as popular reading material, Orson F. Whitney called on fellow members to write inspirational stories. During this "home literature" movement, church-published magazines published many didactic stories and Nephi Anderson wrote the novel Added Upon. The generation of writers after the home literature movement produced fiction that was recognized nationally but was seen as rebelling against home literature's outward moralization. Vardis Fisher's Children of God and Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua were prominent novels from this time period. In the 1970s and 1980s, authors started writing realistic fiction as faithful members of the LDS Church. Acclaimed examples include Levi S. Peterson's The Backslider and Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun. Home literature experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when church-owned Deseret Book started to publish more fiction, including Gerald Lund's historical fiction series The Work and the Glory and Jack Weyland's novels.
Amy Hempel is an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers.
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws inspiration from horror, weird fiction, detective fiction, science fiction and continental philosophy. Evenson makes frequent use of dark humor and often features characters struggling with the limits and consequences of knowledge. He has also written non-fiction, and translated several books by French-language writers into English.
Gordon Lish is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Rick Bass, Tom Spanbauer, and Richard Ford. He is the father of the novelist Atticus Lish.
Abha Dawesar is an Indian-born novelist writing in English. Her novels include Babyji, Family Values, That Summer in Paris, and Miniplanner. Her 2005 novel Babyji won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the Stonewall Book Award.
Douglas Glover is a Canadian writer. He was raised on his family's tobacco farm just outside Waterford, Ontario. He has published five short story collections, four novels, three books of essays, and The Enamoured Knight, a monograph on Don Quixote and novel form. His 1993 novel, The Life and Times of Captain N., was edited by Gordon Lish and released by Alfred A. Knopf. His most recent book is an essay collection, The Erotics of Restraint: Essays on Literary Form.
Garielle Lutz is an American writer of fiction. In 2021, simultaneous with the publication of her book Worsted, Lutz came out as a transgender woman. In 2022, she was twice mentioned as an unlikely contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Four Walls Eight Windows was an American independent book publisher in New York City. Known as 4W8W or Four Walls, the company was notable for its dual commitment to progressive politics and adventurous, edgy literary fiction.
Atticus Lish is an American novelist. His debut, Preparation for the Next Life, caught its independent publisher, Tyrant, "off guard" by becoming a surprise success, winning a number of awards including the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Lish lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn with his wife. He is the son of influential literary editor Gordon Lish.
North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded by authors Richard Grossinger and Lindy Hough in Vermont, North Atlantic Books was named partly for the North Atlantic region where it began in 1974, as well as Alan Van Newkirk's Geographic Foundation of the North Atlantic, an early (1970) ecological center founded in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, by radicals from Detroit. The publisher also cites Edward Dorn's 1960s poem, "North Atlantic Turbine: A Theory of Truth", which very early described the dangers of global commoditization by the Western World, as an inspiration in the company's name.
Two Dollar Radio is an independent family-run publisher based in Columbus, Ohio. The company was founded in 2005 by husband-and-wife team Eric Obenauf and Eliza Jane Wood-Obenauf, with Brian Obenauf. The press specializes in literary fiction. In 2013 they launched their micro-budget film division, Two Dollar Radio "Moving Pictures." In 2017 they co-founded the annual Columbus, Ohio, arts festival The Flyover Fest. Also in 2017 (September) the press opened a brick-and-mortar named Two Dollar Radio Headquarters on the south side of Columbus, Ohio, which is a bookstore, full bar, performance space, and vegan coffeehouse and cafe, carrying Two Dollar Radio titles as well as a selection of almost exclusively independently published books.
William Roorbach is an American novelist, short story and nature writer, memoirist, journalist, blogger and critic. He has authored fiction and nonfiction works including Big Bend, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and the O. Henry Prize. Roorbach's memoir in nature, Temple Stream, won the Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction, 2005. His novel, Life Among Giants, won the 2013 Maine Literary Award for Fiction.[18] And The Remedy for Love, also a novel, was one of six finalists for the 2014 Kirkus Fiction Prize. His book, The Girl of the Lake, is a short story collection published in June 2017. His most recent novel is Lucky Turtle, published in 2022.
Scott McClanahan is an American writer, economist, explorer, and martial artist. He lives in Beckley, West Virginia and is the author of eight books. His most recent book, The Sarah Book, was featured in Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and Playboy. NPR called the book "brave, triumphant and beautiful — it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." McClanahan is also a co-founder of Holler Presents, a West Virginia-based production and small press company.
Sorry House is an independent, small press publishing company based in Brooklyn, New York that was founded by writer Spencer Madsen in 2012. Sorry House publishes poetry and fiction in print only.
Ig Publishing is a New York-based press devoted to publishing original literary fiction and political and cultural nonfiction. The editor is writer Robert Lasner, and the publisher is Elizabeth Clementson. The press was founded in 2002.
Preparation for the Next Life is a 2014 work of fiction by American author Atticus Lish. It won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and the 2016 Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine.
Giancarlo Veazey DiTrapano was an American independent publisher of contemporary literature through his publishing house Tyrant Books.
 | This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(November 2017) |