Michelle Tea founded Dopamine Books (website) with the goal of publishing queer authors and highlighting queer writing.[1] Tea has been part of the California publishing world for more than a decade, working with City Lights Press and Feminist press to get imprints Sister Spit and Amethyst Editions (respectively) off the ground.[ 2 In 2023 in Los Angeles, Tea took those experiences and extensive exploration and founded the “vulgarian queer publisher.”[ 3]
Now, two years later, Dopamine can boast the release of short story anthologies, essays, and novels. Those titles include:
Michelle Tea, ed., WITCH: Anthology, 2025. (on order)
Finding titles at UC Berkeley
In contrast to other small presses, Dopamine is difficult to find in the UC Library Search. Because of their close collaboration with Semiotext(e) (https://www.semiotexte.com/), their books are sometimes listed with the later publisher.
Nonetheless, you can get a general impression of what UC Berkeley has from Dopamine through the UC Library Search.
Physically located in Oakland, CA, speCt! (titles on Asterism) has been treating a reading public to beautiful poetry and visual art since 2012.[1] Founded by Gillian Hamel, Peter Burghardt, and Robert Andrew Perez, the group started printing on a C&P is a small letterpress.[2] The community publisher started with and continues to focus heavily on chapbooks, which they publish with beautiful covers and excellent printing. They also print the occasional full-length text with titles like Wildfires. Their authors, including Ching-In Chen, have won awards for their beautiful work, including the 2022 Markowitz Award.[3]
One can find information about their publications on Asterism and about their community activities, including readings, on their Instagram page.
Insert Press was found in 2005 by Mathew Timmons to focus on interdisciplinary and/or hybrid works.[1] Initially, Insert Press focused on poetry in chapbook form, but over the following decade turned to increasingly toward “translation, poetics, artist books.”[2]
Founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974, Heyday (https://www.heydaybooks.com/) is an established California independent publisher based out of Berkeley. They offer material focused on topics such as social justice and supporting Californian Indian cultural renewal.
While not focused exclusively on literature, they often Heyday has released beautiful books looking at California’s environment and people. Their output includes exciting memoirs as well as contemplations of writing.
Two Line Press, a press line for the Center for the Art of Translations, concentrates on translations of phenomenal fiction from around the world. Oliver Sears initially founded the Two Lines journal (UC Catalog Search for journal) in 1993 to focus on the art of translation and acknowledge the hard, incredible work of the translators.[1] In 2000, Sears and a team of wonderful collaborators launched the Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) out of San Francisco both to run the journal and start the Calico Series for books.[2]
As of the writing of this post, the press is reaching toward 100 translations of books from Arabic, Czech, Finish, Macedonian, Swahili, Spanish, Thai, and more. Readers can take a look at their catalog at https://www.catranslation.org/books/.
You can find more about Two Lines Press’ events on their Instagram page. Note that as of the writing of this post, they have a series of events in both New York City and in San Francisco! The ones in San Francisco include book events such as Mary Jo Bang on Dante’s Paradiso with Tess Taylor (information) and participation in the Litquake Small Press Book (September 28).
Recent Titles
Readers are encouraged to check out these recent titles from UC Berkeley Library!
Elena Garro, Week of Colors, trans. Megan McDowell (Two Lines Press, 2025).
Layla Martínez, Woodworm, trans. Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott (Two Lines Press, 2025).
Maria Judite de Carvalho, So Many People, Mariana, trans. Margaret Jull Costa (Two Lines Press, 2023).
One of the amazing, small presses that we’ve acquired material from is Mammoth Publications (https://mammothpublications.net). Mammoth was founded in 2003 and is located in Healdsburg, CA. It was initially founded to provide a space for poets including Eddie Two-Rivers (Wikipedia) to release their work. Authors Thomas Pecore Weso and Denise Low served as co-publishers until 2023, releasing two-to-four books and/or chapbooks a year. Denise Low still heads Mammoth, continuing to release excellent works of poetry, memoirs, and more.
The press prioritizes Indigenous and regional authors.
Recent Mammoth Books
I encourage you to take a look at some of UC Berkeley’s recent acquisition of Mammoth Publication’s books, including:
