small publishers

Publisher Highlight: Ayin Press

Posted on November 11, 2025November 10, 2025 by Bee Lehman

Founded in 2020 in New York, the independent publisher Ayin Press (website) offers a fascinating range of literary publications including poetry, novels, and more. Through the material, the press presents “polyphony of voices from within and beyond the Jewish world.”[1]

You can find more about the press’ activities on Instagram.

Recent Titles

Daniela Naomi Molnar, Protocols: An Erasure (2025).

Cover for As a Burning Flame — Noa Mishkin, As a Burning Flame: The Dream of Regina Jonas (Somewhere, 2023).

Cover for The Secret That Is Not a Secret — Jay Michaelson, The Secret That Is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales (2023).

Cover for the Necessity of Exile — Shaul Magid, The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance (2023).

Cover to Golden Threads — Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Golden Threads (2024).

Cover for the Secret is not a Secret — Jay Michaelson, The Secret That Is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales (2023).

For More at UC Berkeley

Check out these titles and others from Ayin Press at UC Berkeley through our UC Library Search. Some of the titles above are listed as Somewhere Press on account of collaborative work.

End Notes

[1] “About,” accessed July 16, 2025, https://ayinpress.org/about/.

Publisher Highlight: Dopamine Books

Posted on October 27, 2025October 27, 2025 by Bee Lehman

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:

Cover for How to Fuck Like a Girl — Vera Blossom, How to Fuck Like a Girl, 2024.

Cover for New Mistakes — Clement Goldberg, New Mistakes, 2024.

Cover for Sluts — Michelle Tea (ed.), SLUTS: Anthology, 2024. (on order)

Cover to Days Running — Shawn Stewart Ruff, Days Running: A Novel, 2025.

Cover for Self-Romancing — L. Scully, Self-Romancing , 2025.

Cover for Witch: Anthology — 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.

EndNotes

1 “About,” DOPAMINE, accessed July 10, 2025, https://dopaminebooks.org.

2 Sophia Stewart, “Michelle Tea Launches Dopamine Books,” PublishersWeekly.Com, August 18, 2023, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/93015-author-michelle-tea-launches-dopamine-books.html.

3 “SLUTS: Anthology,” Bookstore, Bookshop.org, May 7, 2024, https://bookshop.org/p/books/sluts-an-anthology-michelle-tea/20356857?ean=9781635902129&next=t.

Celebrating 21st-century African Literatures online exhibit live!

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Bee Lehman

arcgis screenshot of cover for exhibit — Screenshot of opening image in online exhibit

To my delight, we’ve made our online exhibit Celebrating 21-century African Literatures exhibit live online through an ArcGIS StoryMap!

map of Africa with aggregated publisher points — Thumbnail associated with publisher map, displaying some of the publishers we collect from. Link goes to interactive map on ArcGIS.

Alongside the celebration of the many, phenomenal books we display, we’ve also made material available about what kinds of publishers UC Berkeley Library has been collecting from across the continent.

Let me (Bee, the Lit Librarian) know if you have questions or note that there is information missing. Our thanks for to the many artists, authors, and magazine editors who’ve made this possible.