Unnamed is a small press with big aspirations

Founded in Los Angeles by Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith, we publish new and unexpected voices from the US and around the world. We're really sorry to miss you in person this year, but grateful to be able to connect virtually.

In 2019, Unnamed acquired a publishing partner: Ze Books. Ze Books creates literary mixtapes from visionary writers, artists, and musicians. Based in Houston, TX, Ze Books publishes art books, longform journalism, memoir, and hybrid works from artists and writers.

Please feel free to contact the publicity department directly: Olivia Taylor Smith (olivia@unnamedpress.com) or Kelsey Nolan (kelsey@zebooks.com) to be on our mailing list to receive advance review copies.

See below for recent and upcoming titles from Unnamed Press and Ze Books. Each title links to Edelweiss where you can find more information and download e-galleys. To receive a surprise grab-bag with some of our favorite titles in print, please fill out the form here.

Critically-Acclaimed Debuts by Women

Non-Fiction to Better See the World

Near Futures, Current Issues

The Confession of Copeland Cane by Keenan Norris has been selected as one of Publishers Weekly's 12 Best Novels of the Summer: "Norris has created a voice that cannot be ignored." (Starred Review). Hailed as "fiercely prophetic" and an "enthralling portrait of Black life," Norris's new novel shows us a terrifying, authoritarian near future, and a community trying to survive.

Jessica Gross, author of Hysteria, says: "In Milk Teeth, Helene Bukowski has created a world as eerie, unsettling and immersive as that of Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream. Her prose is as spare as the climate-change dystopia she depicts: harsh, unforgiving, and rife with social tension—but dotted with pockets of care. Come for the propulsive mystery, stay for the tenderness pulsing underneath it."

Cairo Circles selected for Indies Introduce!

"Cairo Circles is a deft meditation on how family and class can brighten and distort life's trajectory and force us to grapple with how closely origin and desire are intertwined." —Raven Leilani, author of Luster

Doma Mahmoud has been selected by a panel of American Booksellers Association members as a new voice to look out for this Fall. Here's what booksellers are saying:

“Every so often an author is just as good at plotting as they are at developing characters. Mahmoud has crafted a beast of a novel with woven points of view, topics that matter, and enough heart to bring on the feels. I can only hope that this debut is just the beginning.”—Carrie Koepke, Skylark Bookshop

“Sheero, a lapsed Muslim in NYC, is living a hedonistic life when everything changes. He's taken in for questioning because his estranged cousin committed a terrorist act in the city. From there, the story spirals out in circles as Sheero, his friends and family, and all their lives intersect. Shifting in time and place, from New York to Cairo, these lives are explored and you see these characters grow and shift. The effects of Amir's crime become tangential as time passes, just like most things in life. I gobbled this up in two sittings.”—Audrey Huang, Belmont Books

Ze Books

The ZE Books subscription series – literary mix-tapes by artists and writers – capture the conversation between the visual and the written works of creative individuals and their collaborators. Our subjects are fascinating, their visions are challenging and thoughtful.

Subscription series #1 includes: Intelligence for Dummies by Glenn O'Brien and Stay by Nick Flynn.
Subscription series #2 includes: The Ocean Is Closed by Jon Bradshaw and The Devil's Treasure by Mary Gaitskill.