History
Milkweed was co-founded in 1979 by Emilie Buchwald and R.W. Scholes. Buchwald initially started Milkweed as a journal called The Milkweed Chronicle as a venue for local writers and artists in Minneapolis. By the mid-1980s the project evolved into Milkweed Editions and gradually grew into a nationally known independent publishing company.
Milkweed combined forces with Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Loft Literary Center to purchase an old warehouse in downtown Minneapolis to house each organization. They named the warehouse the Open Book. Ruminator, an independent bookstore, also called Open Book home until 2003 when it closed the Open Book store. Open Book has been fondly referred to as a "literary incubator."
In 1993, Milkweed initiated a program for young readers to reach out to elementary school children and encourage reading habits. The program provides books, teachings guides, and writing activities.
Buchwald retired in 2003 and H. Emerson Blake was hired as editor-in-chief to work alongside managing editor Hilary Reeves. Blake stepped down in June 2005 for personal reasons and was succeeded by former Harcourt editor Daniel Slager. Slager was named Publisher and CEO in 2007.
Milkweed publishes between 15-20 books each year. It is estimated that there are currently more than one million Milkweed books in circulation.
The Milkweed Prize Milkweed Editions periodically awards two prizes for fiction writing: the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature. The prizes are awarded for the best general fiction and for the best fiction for middle-grade readers, ages 8 to 13, by a writer not previously published by Milkweed.
Read more about this topic: Milkweed Editions
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)