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From Coffee House Press:
 Miniatures
by Norah Labiner
Handmade Museum
by Brenda Coultas
Grasshopper King
by Jordan Ellenburg
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Coffee House Press
Where Good Books Are Brewing
In Fall 1984, Coffee House Press launched its first season. As they approach their twentieth anniversary, they can look at their 225-title backlist with a sense of real accomplishment.
Coffee houses have always welcomed insiders and outsiders alike. Teachers and students, beats and business executives, artists and accountants, all have traditionally been welcomed at an ever-expanding table. At Coffee House Press, they have always felt the same way about their writers and readers.
Coffee House's origins date back to 1970, when Allan Kornblum launched a mimeographed magazine called Toothpaste. In 1972, he began publishing handset letterpress poetry books and pamphlets on a 1929 Chandler Price printing press under the imprint of the Toothpaste Press, in West Branch, Iowa. But, by the end of 1983 the tube had been squeezed dry, and then it was "time for coffee."
Located in the historic Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis, Coffee House Press has a staff of six dedicated to upholding the traditions of their letterpress heritage. The staff works together in pursuit of excellence, as they edit, design, produce, and promote award-winning literary titles that commercial publishers overlook.
Coffee House Press looks for authors with vision; and writing that stretches the possibilities of literary craft; they constantly look for texts that take the world apart and put it back together in a way no one has ever imagined.
They also look back with pride at the high regard their authors have received from reviewers, from awards panels, and from readers. Just within the last year Norah Labiner's novel Miniatures was named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association, Jordan Ellenberg's debut novel The Grasshopper King was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, and Brenda Coultas's A Handmade Museum was awarded the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award.
In easy chairs near the living room fire, bumping along on a seat in a bus or a car, on the sand at the beach, in a secluded corner of the library, or propped up on one elbow in bed at night, people are reading books. And some of those books have the power to change people's lives. And as they say at Coffee House Press, "it is our mission to publish such books."
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