Bradbury Press publishes a small number of books a year and gives each the whole weight of a house. Most of what is worth knowing about us follows from that sentence.
The name has history. In 1968, the editors Richard Jackson and Robert Verrone founded a house under it and, over two decades, published books that outlasted almost everything around them. An editor pulled a manuscript out of the slush pile and began the career of Judy Blume. Its list included early work by Paula Fox, Paul Goble, Gary Paulsen and Cynthia Rylant. That original imprint operated until 1994, when it was absorbed into Macmillan and later Simon & Schuster. Today’s Bradbury Press is a new, independent house with no corporate continuity with that imprint and no rights to its backlist — we take the name as a tribute and a standard, not an inheritance.
We publish under the name again because that combination — an editor’s trusted judgment and the willingness to stand behind a book completely — has become rare. Bradbury returns as a deliberate correction: we would rather do a few books completely than many adequately.
What “completely” means
An editor who argues with the manuscript until it is the book it was trying to be. Design and production treated as part of the authorship, not a wrapper applied afterward. And a plan for the whole life of the book — before publication and long after — rather than a single week of noise.
How we publish
We acquire a few books each season, from agented and unagented writers and illustrators alike. An editor works with each one from the first draft to the finished book.