For Immediate Release
December 22, 2005
Contact: Judith Platt
Ph: 202-220-4551
Email: jplatt@publishers.org
Soft Skull Press’ Richard Nash is Miriam Bass Award Winner
Washington, D.C., December 22, 2005: The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced today that Richard Nash, Publisher of Soft Skull Press is the recipient of this year’s Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. The award will be presented on March 15 in New York at the AAP Annual Meeting for Small and Independent Publishers.
The award, given annually, was created in memory of Miriam Bass to honor her many contributions to the book publishing community and is co-sponsored by AAP, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, and National Book Network (NBN). It carries a $5,000 cash prize, which is fully funded by Rowman & Littlefield and NBN.
A judging committee representing a cross-section of the publishing industry selected Mr. Nash based on his tireless and visionary work at Soft Skull Press. Mr. Nash single-handedly took a struggling company and turned it into one that has become synonymous with excellence in literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Mr. Nash has demonstrated a remarkable ability to find and publish exciting and challenging new works as well as skill and creativity in getting his titles noticed, reviewed and publicized. Soft Skull titles have been featured and reviewed by national publications including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly and Vanity Fair, and on television programs such as “The Today Show,” “20/20” and “48 Hours.” The Neighborhood Story Project, a community documentary program in New Orleans, garnered national attention as well when Mr. Nash and other printers donated printing services and published books by four young authors.
“I think of an award like this as a symbol of something much larger than the individual recipient. It's a celebration of the remarkable ecology that is independent publishing and it is an honor to be, for a moment, representative of that beautiful ecology,” Mr. Nash said of the honor. Jed Lyons, President of Rowman & Littlefield commented, “Miriam Bass loved creativity in people, especially when it was in service to the book business. Miriam would have heartily approved of the selection of Richard Nash who is one of the most talented and audacious people in our industry.”
Nominees for this award may be engaged in any area of book publishing provided their publishing house is independent. The Award Committee judges consider a company's extraordinary creativity over the past year in any publishing role, including editorial, marketing, sales, finance, or production. This year’s judging committee was composed of Peter Burford (Burford Books), Tom Dwyer (Borders Group, Inc.), Francine Fialkoff
(Library Journal), Ron Powers (Ingram Book Company), John Whitman (Turtle Books) and Marcella Smith (Barnes & Noble).
AAP is the national trade organization of the U.S. book publishing industry. Its approximately 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. The protection of intellectual property rights in all media, the defense of intellectual freedom, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among AAP’s primary concerns.
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