Over the six years that Kaggsy has hosted Reading Indies in February (previously she hosted with Lizzy, who passed away last year), the definition of ‘independent press’ has been much discussed.

The details matter in a celebration of those publishers that don’t have the financial security of the Big Five—Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan—it’s important to understand influence and motivation, leverage and power.

It’s also worth remembering the definition of ‘independence’ itself, worth remembering that there are many places in the world where the media is government-controlled, where propaganda substitutes for art, where independent expression equates with a death sentence.

Supporting presses that embody this ideal—self-governing and free—is a powerful choice.

And an increasingly urgent one. If your nose hasn’t been buried in a book lately, you’ll have noticed that independent American journalists have been arrested for covering the protests in Minneapolis, MN in the United States. That a federal government agency digitally altered the image of a MN protestor, after she’d been taken into custody and cuffed in three places. And the court case continues about whether/how public media can report on Pentagon activity (after the current administration declared that governmental approval would be required in advance of publication).

Acts of global aggression, in this context, remind us to not take freedom for granted.

Which is why I’ve postponed my first Reading Indies post, beginning this February celebration instead in Minneapolis, Minnesota, some 1200 kilometres southwest of me.

(Note: People throughout Minnesota and not only in the capital cities—and not only in MN either, but throughout the U.S.—are actively resisting the slide into autocracy. So, in some ways, highlighting MN is symbolic; but, it also happens to be a hotbed of independent thinking—a remarkable threat to autocracy.)

Coffee House Press is one of the first independent presses I recognised on bookshelves, its snazzy little logo appealing even before I was a coffee-drinker myself. Founded by Allan Kornblum in Minneapolis in 1972, they’ve consistently made “experimental, creative choices rather than react solely to sales algorithms and trends.” And there’s a delightful “Brewed for You” quiz that matches you with a good read.

In the past, I’ve fallen hard for Sam Savage’s novels, including The Cry of the Sloth (2010) and Firmin (2006), and Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan’s verses (although I don’t write often about poetry here). Indie presses often commit not just to manuscripts and stories but to authors themselves, publishing book after book, year over year. Their landing page welcomes you like this: “Adventurous readers, arts enthusiasts, community builders, and risk takers—join us.” Even though their catalogue, you can spot some of these enduring relationships.

More recently, I’ve read Omar Khalifah’s satirical novel Sand-Catcher (originally published in 2020 in Arabic, translated by Barbara Romaine and published by Coffee House in 2024). It won the 2025 National Translation Award in Prose, and it’s smart and witty, swift and incisive.

Graywolf Press landed in my reading log via Georgia Savage’s The House Tibet, published in Australia in 1989 and by Graywolf Press in 1991. Founded in 1974 by Scott Walker, the press started out in St. Paul before moving across the river to Minneapolis. “Graywolf Press publishes risk-taking, visionary writers who transform culture through literature.”

Their “Art of…” series on writing is fabulous (Sven Birkerts’ The Art of Time in Memoir and Maud Casey’s The Art of Mystery, for instance, which I wrote about on my writing site). And they’re the folks who bring us Claudia Rankine: “When writers are free to do their most ambitious work, their books serve as portals to new possibilities and enable deeper understanding between people.”

More recently, I’ve read Edwidge Danticat’s essay collection, We’re Alone (2024). Anyone who’s enjoyed her fiction (her short stories are consistently good) or 2010’s outstanding Create Dangerously would enjoy these eight pieces as well. “They Are Waiting in the Hills” is particularly bookish, considering Paule Marshall, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, James Baldwin and others—but the collection is best read as a whole.

Also based in Minneapolis is the independent review magazine Rain Taxi which was first published in 1996. It now publishes on a quarterly basis in print, but also publishes reviews online through the year, and hosts both a festival and a reading series. They list their core values as: Community Driven, Thoughtfully Curated, Intellectually Rigorous, Artistically Inclusive, and Print Focused. They do cover mainstream publications and interview authors with books housed there, but there is abundant coverage of publications from independent publishers throughout the United States. (There are at least five in each issue which are new-to-me, as a Canadian reader.)

If anyone is curious about the bookselling scene in Minneapolis, here’s a peek; it’s just fabulous, seeing how many people are coming together in the book-world.

And if anyone would like to donate to the courageous individuals on the frontlines in MN, check out this amazing list of resources: you can contribute to grocery deliveries for families who are afraid to leave the house, donate to court costs, and help with fostering and supplies for pets left behind (and more).

New-to-you, or familiar favourites? Graywolf Press | Coffee House Press | Rain Taxi Magazine 

Next week: an Australian indie, a university press on a Latin American sensation, and a book about books from a Canadian indie #ReadIndies