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Dear Friends:
Happy holidays, and welcome to the latest installment of the Other Press newsletter. Year's end is a time for looking back, taking stock, and planning for the future.To that end, Judith Gurewich reflects on her evolution as a publisher and as a reader, and arrives at a new mission statement for Other Press--one that invokes the notion of "shock therapy."
What else does year's end bring? Gifts, of course. If you're reading this newsletter, surely you'll be giving or getting books as gifts during the upcoming holidays. Check out the sidebar before compiling your shopping list or wish list, or both.
Now, we hope you'll join us with a book, a blanket, and a spiced cider or hot toddy (with or without a nip of the hard stuff) to find yourselves, like us, quite cheered indeed.
Best wishes,
Terrie Akers Paul Kozlowski
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On A Mission
 by Judith Gurewich
I always agree with my books. It wouldn't cross my mind to publish works whose perspectives or stories I can't embrace. This feels particularly important when it comes to politics, economics, social issues or even philosophy, but fiction is no exception. Publishing is, to me, a very intimate enterprise. My books represent me as much as I represent them.
But there is something else at work that I have become aware of only recently. My books reflect less who I am, as I think I know myself, than they introduce me to who I have become--sometimes behind my own back. I had no idea, for example, that I could be passionate about a book about Cambodia during its direst years. I had to overcome not only my squeamishness, but also my conviction that the banality of evil knows no borders and therefore doesn't require particular scrutiny. (Horrors are the same everywhere.) But that is the transformative power of literature: The Elimination, the fascinating autobiography of the Cambodian director Rithy Panh, who escaped the Khmer Rouge camps, is written with such intelligence, sensitivity, and style that it allows you to both bear the worst and surrender to a world you understand nothing about. It made me realize that while the mechanisms of evil are universal, what triggers the awful processes of dehumanization, and the rationale that is constructed to carry it through, are never the same.
Lamb shortlisted for the
Flaherty-Dunnan Prize
 Bonnie Nadzam's debut novel Lamb has been shortlisted for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in New York on December 6.
The Flahery-Dunnan First Novel Prize is awarded to the best debut novel of the year. The author of the winning book receives $10,000 and the other shortlisted authors receive $1,000 each. The award is given annually at The Center for Fiction's Benefit and Awards Dinner. The Prize was originally established in 2005 as the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize.
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