Be A Part of Our Generous Community

Generous Press is a dream and a portal to joy you can help me build, alongside one of my dearest friends. Elaina Ellis and I share a vision of building a publishing house founded on the integrity, commitment to equity, and bountiful creativity that we see reflected in our communities (that’s you). We published our first book in partnership with another publishing house, but with a little help from our friends, we plan to go *fully independent* in June of 2025! Thank you for contributing whatever amount is meaningful to you—let’s do a beautiful thing together.

"I have an idea—can we talk?"

When she texted me nearly two decades after we met as baby poets at Bent, a queer writing community, I didn't know what new project Elaina had in mind. Recalling the colorful ways we’d come together over the years, for everything from impromptu duets to massive multimedia shows to emergency heartbreak healing sessions, I knew I was ready for the invitation. We were years into a global pandemic at this point, and Elaina had been sick—really sick—since March 2020. When I answered her call, her first question made me laugh.

“How do you feel about romance fiction?”

I told her I’d been reading romance since I was a Christian kid sneaking around with my grandmother’s Harlequin paperbacks. Elaina shared how contemporary romance fiction had been her go-to as she was literally stuck in bed during the early days of quarantine, unable to access the emotional energy to read poetry, and physically too weak to hold up heavy books in bed. She found joy and comfort in romance fiction at a time when both were hard to come by. It was her next question that got me excited.

"What if your favorite poet wrote a romance novel? And what if we published it?"

And so, Generous Press was conceived: a literary romance press reimagining and decolonizing the publishing industry by sharing gorgeous love stories written by our favorite voices—BIPOC, LGBTQI+, and disabled romance authors, brilliant writers of all stripes, and yes, our favorite poets foraying into the romance genre. Just as important as the idea of publishing poetic prose, is the idea of publishing stories by and for our people, with equity and radical joy at the heart of all we do.

Our first book, an anthology of 22 new romance fiction writers, Someplace Generous, came into the world in May of 2024, after we launched as an imprint under Row House Publishing. In 2025 we’ll publish books by Tati Richardson, Kate Bornstein & Caitlin Sullivan, and another yet-to-be-announced brilliant author. Now, with a little help from our friends, we plan to go independent in June of 2025! In the next two months, we need to raise the money that will allow us to move our NEXT three books into production—as an independent publishing house committed to lush, literary romance fiction. With a little help from our friends, we can make something beautiful, someplace generous.

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Generous Press publishes lush, high-caliber romance fiction with radical inclusivity at the heart of our mission. Let's imagine a world in which all people are cherished and free. Visit our website here