Ten years ago this month, we founded Ashland Creek Press.
We began with two humans and one feline general manager, Theo…
…and despite several staff changes over the years (below are office managers Teddy, Harlan, and Gideon), we are still only two humans, with a small feline staff and a wonderful group of freelance editors and designers and interns. And we’re celebrating our anniversary on the cusp of publishing our 30th book.
Ashland Creek Press titles range from young adult novels to nonfiction narrative to literary fiction to eco-thrillers, all with environmental themes. And we have exciting plans for what’s still to come.
Over the past ten years, we’ve also branched out into literary notecards and apparel, which has been a lot of fun, especially sharing them alongside our books at conferences such as AWP, ASLE, and many others where we meet fellow writers and eco-enthusiasts.
We love publishing environmental literature, but we also love celebrating environmental and animal-themed books we don’t publish. We sponsor the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (along with The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and, in the past, Playa Summer Lake) — and we launched EcoLit Books, an online gathering spot for all who love environmental literature; the site features book reviews, writing opportunities, and more.
We’re immensely proud of our amazing authors, who have not only written groundbreaking work but have been winners and finalists for numerous literary awards — including the Chautauqua Prize, the Lambda Literary Awards, the Nautilus Book Awards, and Siskiyou Prize, among others.
And at the end of 2020, we began our first writing program, Writing for Animals, which we are continuing into 2021, and we hope this is just the beginning of more offerings for writers who are breaking into writing for the planet and its creatures.
It’s been a magnificent ride so far, and we thank our authors, readers, and all those who have supported us over the last decade…we couldn’t have done it without you!
Below is a blast-from-the-past photo taken for a news article written in the Mail Tribune (one of our local newspapers) about the founding of the press, which reminds us of just how far we’ve come…
…and how much we’re looking forward to the next ten years.
Thanks for being with us along the way!