Small presses have a long history in Philly. In fact, publishing is one of the city’s oldest industries. Just three years after its founding, the city already had its first printing press. And by the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia had become the center for book printing and publishing in the entire country, surpassing New York and Boston.
Today, centuries later, small and independent presses continue to play a vital role in the city’s literary and intellectual landscape.
Much like publishers back then who helped shape political discourse when ideas like freedom of speech were central in conceiving independence from Britain, today’s publishing houses are increasingly committed to a socially engaged, thought-provoking mission.
To them, the mission does not compromise the quality of content, but rather redefines it, prioritizing voices that have long been unheard and ensuring that publishing remains a space for meaningful encounters and dialogue.
Billy Penn spoke with several small, independent publishers to learn how they are reshaping this legacy, each with their own approach but a shared commitment to promoting diversity, creativity and sustainability.
We are sharing our conversations with them as a series of articles. So far we have spoken to Josh O’Neill (Beehive Books), Linda Gallant (The Head and the Hand), and Doug Gordon (New Door Books).
This installment welcomes Alison M. Lewis, of Frayed Edge Press.
So, start the presses!
Alison M. Lewis, publisher of Frayed Edge Press
How did you start Frayed Edge Press?
We’ve been in operation for about nine years now. I was just looking back through some of my records and saw that our 10-year anniversary is coming up in April of 2026. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. I had been involved in some academic publishing and knew the ropes of book production, but I was doing very dry academic whatever. So I kind of felt like “Why can’t we do things that feel more interesting, that are more the kind of books I want to read?” So we started the press. It’s kind of a generalist press, but I would say that the throughline is trying to publish underrepresented voices. People who maybe haven’t been published as much in the mainstream or doing something a little different, experimental, and also we do translations. We’ve done several things from minority languages that aren’t translated as often, aren’t as well-known to an English language audience.
What are some titles you’ve published?
I will cheerlead our best seller from last year, which was “Blessed Hands” by Frume Halpern. It is a translation of short stories that were originally written in Yiddish and they appeared in the New York radical press. Some of the stories had individually been translated and had appeared in magazines, but this translator published the entire collection of her stories, which had never been done before. And they’re very moving. She’s very good at creating characters that are memorable, the stories that have kind of an emotional impact. And a lot of them are set in the Jewish community because that’s the community she came from, but it’s really wider than that. She’s talking about Irish immigrants and African-Americans …That book was named one of Kirkus Reviews Top 100 [Indie] Literary Fiction titles in 2024.
How does someone get published with you? What is the process for selecting what you publish?
If we are ready to start accepting manuscripts, we will have a call for manuscripts. It would be on our social media, on our website, and there’s places you can list that you’re open for calls for publications. We have a form that people can fill out, and describe their book and describe themselves and talk about what their book is about and why they think it’s a good fit with our press.
We’ll look more closely at things that seem like they could be a fit. So, we have a group of people who do an initial review of things that come through, and then we’ll follow up with people with any questions we have and ask to see complete manuscripts. And then we have people who will read the manuscripts and do reader reports. Then we’ll take it from there in terms of whether we want to make an offer to publish or if we’re going to then reject it at that stage.
How do you keep yourself financially sustainable?
Some books will make some money. Some books will lose money, some books will break even. Overall, I would say the press is operating at a loss, so it’s sustained by another business that we run … It’s kind of a tough business, so you do have to have some model like that. Either you’re subsidized through an organization or like us through another business, or you can apply for grants as a non-profit or do crowd funding.
[This other business] is in the same industry and the press is kind of an outgrowth of it because we were doing publishing support work. We were doing layout and indexing and editing … Providing services to other publishers or self-publishers who needed help. And then we thought, “Well, why don’t we just start doing this ourselves?”
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being based in Philly compared to other major cities?
I wouldn’t say that there’s any real disadvantages to being a publisher here. Some of the advantages are definitely a community to draw on. That we’re large enough to have other people doing similar things and have those interests and willing to share some ideas and advice and whatnot. And I feel maybe for us, as a small independent press, it’s probably easier here than some place like New York or LA, which could be too big, too overwhelming, too many big publishers kind of crowding out the space.
Do you have any upcoming publications?
We will have a book coming out in September of 2025 and it’s a historical novel that is set at Eastern State Penitentiary. So it’s for people who like reading things set in Philadelphia and may be interested in kind of a historic take on that.
