Thoughts and Questions on Red Hen Press

In Kate Gale’s Hippocampus Magazine interview, one of the first points of discussion is Red Hen Press’ Pasadena, California location—far away from the traditional “literary meccas” of New York and Paris. Kate states that “Red Hen has a reputation of building literary community in a city best known for film,” and I am very interested to hear more about her take on the challenges and advantages of setting up a small, independent press in a location not traditionally renowned for its publishing presence. Literary agent Katie Garrick mentioned that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating and normalizing a shift out of New York City in the publishing world, and I would like to know whether Kate and Tobi feel that this shift has been taking place in the world of small presses in addition to the world of agenting.

I imagine that to an extent, a literary agent has a bit more flexibility in moving out of the New York sphere and working from home, particularly in our current environment, but I may be wrong. When I was interning for a literary agent this past spring, she mentioned to me that coronavirus has hardly affected her work environment at all—she was still negotiating with publishers, evaluating queries, and corresponding with her authors. For a small press like Red Hen that devotes a significant amount of energy to developing and maintaining an intimate and community-oriented approach to book publishing, has the imposition of remote work during covid made it more difficult to promote authors and stay involved in the Los Angeles community? I am particularly interested in Red Hen’s “Writing in the Schools” program, which perfectly represents Kate’s stated goal of “building literary community” in an unconventional publishing location. I want to ask Kate and Tobi how they see this program fitting into their larger community-building mission and how it helps them promote both Red Hen Press and its authors. “Literary Independence” and “Community Impact” go hand-in-hand in Red Hen’s mission statement, so it appears that the “Writing in the Schools” program is just as central to Red Hen as its adult publishing and promotional events.

On Red Hen’s Submission page, I notice that the guidelines for submissions are brief—Red Hen only identifies “a certain wildness” as the feature that all of its published work shares. The open-ended nature of the submission criteria is welcoming for writers of all backgrounds and work with all kinds of subject matter. This submissions pages certainly poses a contrast to the Shenandoah submissions page, which includes blurbs from all of the editors on what kind of work they are looking for. With that said, Red Hen does list several of its published authors whose work it suggests reading before submitting a manuscript to get a general sense of what the editors are looking for. I wonder if this is an additional means of promoting authors, as people who want to submit their work to Red Hen will certainly research them. What are the benefits of leaving submission guidelines brief and open-ended? Shenandoah presents people with the opportunity to get to know its editors on a more intimate level through its submission guidelines. Because Red Hen Press doesn’t do this, I want to know whether giving prospective authors the opportunity to get to know the Red Hen editorial staff is important, and if so, how they create this opportunity.