Meet Our Grantee-Partner: Noemi Press
Noemi Press values the daring, nurturing, guerilla, and extra nature of poetry, prioritizing publishing poetry that challenges, teaches, develops, and nourishes.
Co-publisher Anthony Cody, managing editor Mariah Bosch, and poetry editor Diana Arterian at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference & Bookfair. Photo courtesy of Noemi Press.
Mission: Noemi Press strives to introduce voices that might otherwise be marginalized by mainstream presses to a broader audience. Noemi provides writers with support and guidance through extensive editorial collaboration. We have been a historically brown and queer press since our founding in 2002.
Noemi Press was founded in 2002 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, by Carmen Giménez and Evan Lavender-Smith as a nonprofit committed to publishing innovative writing. Under 20 years of Giménez’s leadership, it evolved from serving primarily as a chapbook press to publishing full-length books in poetry, prose, and hybrid forms. Throughout its more than two decades of publishing, Noemi Press has been brown and queer-led and has focused on publishing BIPOC, queer, and/or women authors, introducing voices often marginalized by mainstream presses to a broader audience. In 2022, Noemi Press relocated to Tucson, Arizona, and Anthony Cody and Suzi F. Garcia took the helm to continue Noemi Press’s legacy as co-publishers.
Noemi Press serves writers and readers who gravitate toward and believe in books that disrupt the status quo. It values the daring, nurturing, guerilla, and extra nature of poetry, prioritizing publishing poetry that challenges, teaches, develops, and nourishes. It also takes on books that have visual elements or physical shapes that may be challenging to publish, allowing for diversity of genre and avenues for writers who don’t fit the traditional mold.
The press prides itself on its model for editorial collaboration. Staff provide extensive guidance and support, working with authors on developmental edits over the course of several years. This has helped shape more than 120 manuscripts from inception into award-winning publications.
Noemi Press’s catalog includes the Akrilica Series. Originally founded as a co-publishing venture alongside Letras Latinas, the Akrilica Series showcases innovative Latinx writing. The name honors the groundbreaking, bilingual book by Chicano writer, Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recipient, and United States Poet Laureate Emeritus, Juan Felipe Herrera. In 2022, Noemi published a new translation of Akrílica as part of the series.
The Infidel Poetics Series is a venue for shorter critical works by poets in which they address the overlap between poetry and politics, often interrogating notions of identity and their work. Noemi Press also publishes a chapbook series and prose series of essay collections, short story collections, novellas, plays, and more from winners and finalists from its annual contest, along with editorial selections.
Noemi Press titles. Photo courtesy of Noemi Press.
In addition to publishing, Noemi Press offers three awards. For the annual Noemi Press Book Award, editors choose an outstanding book of poetry for publication and the author receives a $2,000 prize. In 2025, it started facilitating the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, which is awarded to a first or second book by an author of Arab heritage. Hayan Charara and Fady Joudah serve as editors and founders of the prize, which is named in honor of the world-renowned poet, novelist, essayist, and artist Etel Adnan. Noemi Press partners with United Kingdom-based OutSpoken Press to publish recipients of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize internationally.
In 2026, Noemi Press became the home of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, which was established in 2004 to support the publication of a first full-length book of poems by a Latinx poet residing in the United States.The prize is named after Andrés Montoya, the late Chicano poet from Fresno, California, and honors Montoya’s enduring literary legacy. It is awarded every other year, and comes with a $2,000 monetary award as well as publication.
Noemi Press is a Poetry Foundation 2025-2028 Sustainable Futures grantee-partner. Receiving multi-year funding from the Poetry Foundation has been instrumental for Noemi Press during a challenging few years in the literary landscape. After the sudden shutdown of Small Press Distribution (SDP) in 2024, grant funding helped establish a new distribution avenue along with Itasca Books.
Support from the Poetry Foundation has also allowed Noemi Press to pay editors and authors directly. Expanding staff helped address capacity around publicity and made the press more sustainable. Additionally, as Noemi Press prepares for its 25th anniversary in 2027, grant funds will be used to host in-person readings and celebrations across the United States, highlighting authors published by the press throughout its history.
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