Unnamed Press is a Los Angeles-based independent book publisher. Co-founded in 2014 by Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith (now at Simon & Schuster), the press started with an interest in global literature and a desire to feature international and underrepresented voices. Since then, we have grown into a general interest publisher that remains committed to publishing a kaleidoscope of works that challenge the status quo. In 2024, we launched a new imprint, Smith & Taylor Classics, which aims to bring a curated list of underappreciated and progressive classics back into conversation.
We are driven by urgency, courage, and deep curiosity.
Our books have been widely praised and featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, NBC, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Review of Books, Playboy, VOGUE, Oprah Daily, and the Los Angeles Review of Books to name a few. Our authors include Man-Booker, Granta Best American Novelist, Lambda Literary, Philip K Dick and Pulitzer Prize award winners, including finalists across many other prizes. You can find out more about us in the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, or Poets & Writers.
Unnamed Press is proudly distributed by Publishers Group West.
Staff
Chris Heiser
Publisher & Co-founder
Chris Heiser has been publisher of The Unnamed Press since its founding in 2014. He is also an acquiring editor, seeking fiction and nonfiction titles. Previously, he was deeply involved with starting up nonprofit translation press Phoneme Media (now an imprint of Deep Vellum) and worked at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Before that he worked at The New Press and John Wiley & Sons in New York.
Jaya Nicely
Art Director
Jaya Nicely is the Art Director for the Unnamed Press. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design in 2014. She is the co-creator and art director for Compound Butter magazine, a publication of art inspired by food which ran for ten years, as well as the author of Offline Journal (2019). Her illustration work has appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair, GQ, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times and others.
Allison Miriam Woodnutt
Editor, Publishing & Publicity Manager
Allison Miriam Woodnutt (née Smith) is an Acquiring Editor and the Publishing & Publicity Manager for Unnamed Press as well as a co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and went on to earn her Masters in 18th & 19th c. Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Before Unnamed, she worked in libraries and bookshops.
Brandon Taylor
Acquiring Editor
Brandon Taylor is an Acquiring Editor at Unnamed Press and co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. He is the author of The Late Americans, Real Life, a finalist of the Booker Prize and the NBCC John Leonard Prize, and Filthy Animals, winner of The Story Prize and a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Cut, Vulture, and elsewhere.
Cassidy Kuhle
Publishing & Publicity Coordinator
Cassidy Kuhle is the Publishing & Publicity Coordinator for Unnamed Press. She studied at the University of Southern California, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Narrative Studies and a Master of Arts in Literary Editing and Publishing. In addition to her work at Unnamed, she is the Managing Editor for the queer literary arts publication Pornstar Martini Magazine, and previously worked at Rare Bird Books, where she ran the interview series Bird Is the Word.
Olivia Taylor Smith
Co-founder
Olivia Taylor Smith is Co-Founder of the Unnamed Press. She acted as its Executive Editor and Director of Marketing & Publicity from 2013 to 2022. She is currently a Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster.
She is also a certified silver pin sommelier with the North American Sommelier Association and translator of the graphic novel Panthers in the Hole, about the Angola 3.
K. Anis Ahmed
Founding Partner
K. Anis Ahmed is a Bangladeshi writer based in Dhaka. He is the founding partner of Unnamed Press and author of three works of fiction: The World in My Hands, Good Night, Mr. Kissinger, and Forty Steps.
Ahmed is a co-founder of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, the Dhaka Translation Center, and the Bengal Lights Literary Journal. He is also the publisher of Dhaka Tribune, a national daily newspaper, and its Bangla companion portal, Bangla Tribune. He is co-director of the Dhaka Lit Fest, and is also the President of PEN Bangladesh.
Ahmed has contributed to international journals including The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Politico, Daily Beast/Newsweek, India Today, Scroll.in, and BBC World Service. He has written literary essays for World Literature Today and Electric Literature. He has also co-edited the October 2015 "Bangladesh on the World Stage" edition of Wasafiri, and co-curated the Autumn 2013 "New Voices from Bangladesh" edition of Granta.