With its first books appearing in 2023, Atopon Books is a newer press based out of Santa Monica. This not-for-profit press focuses on “poetry and literary fiction,” releasing new literary publications as well as releasing new editions of classic novels. Building its catalog, the Atopon is more interested in literature that “demystif[ies] moral as well as aesthetic concern[s]” than in worrying about genre distinctions.[1]
Atopon Books does have a Facebook page, but this Literatures Librarian does not and cannot say what’s on it.
Founded in 1992 in Los Angeles by Scott McAuley and Paddy Calistro, Angel City Press (https://acp.lapl.org/) focuses on non-fiction with an emphasis on Southern California’s space, history, art, and music.[1] Under their leadership, the press published more than 100 volumes including Hollywood du Jour (1993, link to UC Library Search).
In 2023, the co-founders decided to retire and donated the press and its catalog to the Los Angeles Public Library.[2] Under the LAPL, the press publishes seven books a year on diverse topics, but each focused on the LA area. Between the volumes, the books offer not only an exploration of the LA area, but an amazing look into some of the LAPL’s collections, drawing on images, illustrations, and more.
Readers can find information about their new releases and book talks on Angel City Press’ Instagram page. The press also posts phenomenal historical photographs and other LA-related ephemera from LA Public Library’s special collections (About the collections). For more digitized material, check out TESSA, the digital collections of the Los Angeles Public Library.
UC Berkeley’s Doe and Bancroft Libraries as well as UC Los Angeles collect heavily from across Angel City Press’ topical coverage. You can find most of their catalog through the UC Library Search.
Notes
[1] Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library. “Our Story.” Accessed January 28, 2026. https://acp.lapl.org/about-us/.
In 2015, Publishers Weekly declared that Unnamed Books was “Creating Home For Contemporary Authors.”[1] At that point, the small, LA-based publisher was still only getting off the ground. In the early 2010s, Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith decided to go into independent publishing. In 2013, the two started with the name Ricochet Books, but USC had already claimed the name “Ricochet” in 2012. In 2014, they chose to rebrand as Unnamed Press, with the intention of providing a space for international literature. Their early titles included works like Deji Olukotun’s Nigerians in Space and Rocío Cerón’s Diorama.[2]
Since then, the press has expanded to become “general interest.”[2] In 2024, that included the creation of their Smith & Taylor Classics imprint with titles such as Vernon Lee’s Hauntings: And Other Stories. To continue pushing literature and providing spaces for experimental literature, in 2025 the press started a poetry line. That line often includes audio components on vinyl (https://www.unnamedpress.com/vinyl) with titles such as Emma Ruth Rundle’s The Bella Vista: Poems.[3]
Readers can find more material through a publisher focus in our UC Library Search. Select titles are available for circulation in Doe’s Main Stacks while others are in our special collections in Bancroft (UC Library search limited to special collections). See individual catalog entries for location.
Seven Seas Entertainment (website) is a Los Angeles based publishing house. In 2004, Jason DeAngelis founded the House with the intention of providing English language translations of manga (i.e., Japanese comics/graphic novels). A fan of the genre and a translator thereof, they decided to fill a significant gap in the market.[1] Since then, the House has released thousands of titles translated into English as well as expanded into print editions of serialized web comics.
Over the last two decades, Seven Seas Entertainment has expanded with several imprints including:
Readers can find more material through a publisher focus in our UC Library Search. Readers can also find limited titles from the imprint Seven Seas Ghost Ship (UC Library Search). Readers should be aware that the comics collection in Doe Library is in the PN section – and that there is another comic collection in the East Asian Library!
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]
