“The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) will be welcoming Les Figues Press as an imprint of LARB Books. ‘We look for every opportunity to help support the literary community in Los Angeles, and so we are very happy to be part of Les Figues’s continued success,” said Tom Lutz, Los Angeles Review of Books editor-in-chief . ‘Les Figues Press has been documenting Los Angeles literary experimentalism for a dozen years, and we are glad to do our small part to help it continue breaking new ground.’ Les Figues will continue to produce four to five innovative works per year, with the support of LARB Books.
“Established in 2005, Les Figues is an award-winning, non-profit publisher focused on feminist work that pushes boundaries of genre and form. With an emphasis on writing as performance, engagement, and a point of participation, Les Figues also curates and hosts literary events, including readings, conversations, performances, and art salons. They have published the work of acclaimed writers such as Urs Allemann, Myriam Moscona, Dodie Bellamy, Colin Winnette, Sawako Nakayasu, Amina Cain, Frank Smith, and Matias Viegener. ‘This promising partnership allows Les Figues Press’s base of operations to stay solidly rooted in Los Angeles, under the management of fantastic additions to our editorial team, Kim Calder and Evan Kleekamp,’ said Teresa Carmody, editor of Les Figues Press. ‘As publishers of queer, feminist, highly experimental books of poetry and prose—including many works in translation—we’re optimistic that LARB’s larger platform and international presence will help bring new readers to these excellent but often overlooked books.’
“Carmody is a writer and editor who co-founded Les Figues with artist and writer Vanessa Place in 2005. Both she and Place have moved to the East Coast to embark on new opportunities, even as they retain their roles as editors-in-chief. In addition to her role at Les Figues, Carmody is now the director of Stetson University’s low-residency creative writing program, the MFA of the Americas. Place is a conceptual artist and criminal defense attorney, and the first poet to perform in the Whitney Biennial [2012]. Her most recent book is After Vanessa Place, with Naomi Toth, from Ma Bibliothèque.
“The Los Angeles Review of Books is a nonprofit, multimedia magazine of literature and culture that combines the great American tradition of the serious book review with the evolving technologies of the web. We are a community of writers, critics, journalists, artists, filmmakers, and scholars dedicated to promoting and disseminating the best that is thought and written, with an enduring commitment to the intellectual rigor, the incisiveness, and the power of the written word.
“Les Figues Press is a nonprofit literary organization and award-winning publisher of poetry, prose, visual art, conceptual writing, and translation. Based in Los Angeles, our mission is to create aesthetic conversations between readers, writers, and artists. Les Figues Press publishes five to seven books a year and favors projects which push the boundaries of genre, form, and general acceptability. We also curate and host literary events, including readings, conversations, performances, and art salons. Les Figues Press embraces a feminist criticality and editorial vision. We are interested in work that is aware of itself as a textual body within a history and culture marked (like physical bodies) by constructs of gender, race, class, and sexuality.”
