We are proud to be headquartered in Oakland, California. We strongly believe in supporting local authors, publishers, and printers and growing together. We distribute our books with a local distributor and every week—multiple times a week—feature local writers, musicians, and artists in our diverse events across the Bay Area, Philadelphia, PA, and Xalapa, Mexico.

Through publications, events, and active community participation, Nomadic Press collectively weaves together platforms for intentionally marginalized voices to take their rightful place within the world of the written and spoken word. Through its limited means, we are simply attempting to help right the centuries’ old violence and silencing that should never have occurred in the first place and build alliances and community partnerships with others who share a collective vision for a future far better than today.

Thank you for visiting and supporting your small, community-focused non-profit publishing organization.

 
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FEATURED NEWS

  • The Town: A Poetic Anthology [Calls for Invitations]

    ATTENTION, OAKLAND POETS: Oakland Poet Laureate Ayodele Nzinga and Nomadic Press seek invitations to read your work for The Town: A Poetic Anthology.

    To love Oakland is to love tectonically—to love a shifting landscape with a monumental, earth-shattering energy and culture.

    Oakland is more than just a place with a constellation of zip codes. What, who, where, why, when is Oakland to you? We are looking for poems that drop us into Oakland as you see, feel, and breathe it. We want the boombox song that you hold up to Oakland’s window on a moonlit night. We want to ride from the Deep East to the West with you on BART. We want your Lake Merritt memories; your love letters, your gentle musings; your hurt and your rage; your poems of protest; your poems as bricks themselves. All who have experiences of any kind in Oakland are welcome to submit. Give us your best tales of The Town.

    INVITATION GUIDELINES

    Invite us to read up to 3 pages of previously unpublished poetry between 11/1–11/30/2022 for consideration.

    Open to all current and former residents of Oakland. Selected poets will receive 1 contributor copy of the published anthology. *Proof of residency must be sent along with your poems.

    Anthology will be published in 2023.

    Send us your Invitation

  • Flores en la arena

    ¡Únete a nuestro tercer evento de Nomadic Press Xalapa!

    Próximamente tendremos más información sobre nuestros participantes.

    Entrada libre. Habrá transmisión en vivo vía Zoom (abajo encontrarás la liga).

    Tendremos venta de libros de nuestro sello editorial. (Nos ayudarías muchísimo adquiriendo alguno de nuestros títulos.)

    Join us to the third Nomadic Press Xalapa Event!

    More information about our readers and musician coming soon!

    Free for all. This is a hybrid event (in person at Café Jasón and live streamed on Zoom—link below).

    We will have our Nomadic Press books for sale. Please support our work by purchasing a book (or 3)

    Find out more Here

  • Painting the Streets Book Tour

    Starting on April 29, 2022, we will be touring the Bay Area with Painting the Streets. 10 events with more to come. Stay tuned and hope to see you soon. In the meantime, grab your copy below.

    Buy Your Copy

  • Nomadic Press Philadelphia Launches

    We are ecstatic to announce that Raina J. León will be heading up our Nomadic Press Philadelphia node starting in March 2022. Our Philadelphia weaving will include the following to start:

    • A monthly Two Rivers Reading Series (every first Thursday), featuring 8 writers reading never-before-read material + live music + a community feature. The first one is on March 3 (check out our events page for more info)!

    • Acentos is becoming an imprint of Nomadic Press! We are still working out what this will look like but we do know that we are launching a Philly-based chapbook cohort this year for publication in 2023. Stay tuned!

    Attend the Inaugural Event

  • Nomadic Press Wins the Inaugural CLMP Constellation Award Underwritten by Penguin Random House

    We are honored to receive the inaugural $10,000 CLMP Constellation Award underwritten by Penguin Random House as a recognition of our work over the last decade. We are very grateful to be in such wonderful company—finalists included FlowerSong Press, BLF, and La Impresora.

    Read the Press Release

FUNDS

  • On Juneteenth (June 19) 2020, Nomadic Press launched the Nomadic Press Black Writers Fund (NPBWF), a forever fund that will be directly built into the fabric of our organization for as long as Nomadic Press exists and puts additional monies directly into the pockets of our Black writers at the end of each year.

    Donate Now

  • Right before Labor Day 2020 (and in response to the effects of COVID), Nomadic Press launched its Emergency Fund, a forever fund meant to support Nomadic Press-published writers (and in some cases Nomadic Press contractors) who have no income, are unemployed, don't qualify for unemployment, have no healthcare, or are just generally in need of covering unexpected or impactful expenses.

    Donate Now

  • The Nomadic Press Painting the Streets Fund was launched in February 2022 to support visual arts programs in Oakland flatlands’ schools. Its launch coincided with the release of Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion. Your donations here will go directly into a separate bank account overseen by J. K. Fowler (Nomadic Press), Elena Serrano (Eastside Arts Alliance), Leslie Lopez (EastSide Arts Alliance), Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith (BAMP), and Andre Jones (BAMP).

    Donate Now

  • The Xalapa Fund was started in May of 2022 to help offset the airfare costs of Nomadic Press authors to travel to our new retreat space in Xalapa, Veracruz in Mexico. Funds of up to $350 will be dispersed to any Nomadic Press published author who wishes to travel to Xalapa. The funds are kept in a separate bank account and disbursements are overseen by three (3) Nomadic Press authors and Founding Publisher J. K. Fowler.

    Donate Here

Award Spotlight: Nomadic Press

Nomadic Press is the 2022 recipient of CLMP’s inaugural Constellation Award, given to honor an independent literary press that is led by and/or champions the writing of people of color, including Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals, for excellence in publishing. 

We spoke with J. K. Fowler, founder and executive director of Nomadic Press, in this special spotlight.

Read the Interview
Our last publication is a love letter to Oakland titled The Town. It is an anthology of 65 contributors who live (or have lived) in Oakland and was a collaborative editorial labor of love between J. K. Fowler and Ayodele Nzinga. You can preorder yo
We are so excited that over 100 Nomadic Press titles will join the existing Black Lawrence Press catalog on June 1 of this year. There are lots of events and happenings on the horizon so stay tuned and be sure to follow @blacklawrencepress, as well,
Over 100 Nomadic Press authors’ titles are migrating to Black Lawrence Press! Stay tuned for more collaborations and events celebrating and featuring titles from both houses. [note the portrait collection is not meant to be comprehensive of eve
From J. K. Fowler, Nomadic Press Publisher: As of June 1, 2023, we are extremely excited to announce that the vast majority of Nomadic Press titles will be migrating to a new publishing house—Black Lawrence Press! Over 100 of our authors will
Congratulations to Lourdes Figueroa on the release of her chapbook VUELTA—out now! A long poem, Vuelta draws upon the author’s background as an oral poet, as well as her migration-influenced sense of language and the world. “It is a
The poems in SOFT ARMOR by Michal "MJ" Jones will transform how you see love. Praised by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Nefertiti Asanti, Mimi Tempestt, Daniel B. Summerhill, and Kay Ulanday Barrett—SOFT ARMOR encapsulate the experience of lov
Congratulations to Danny Thanh Nguyen on being awarded the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Fiction! Danny has won $5000 for her short story “Return to Sender”. Follow Danny on social media and join us in cele
Congratulations to Nen G Ramirez on the publication of their poetry collection, ALL WOMEN ARE BORN WAILING. Winner of The Acentos Book Prize, early praise of ALL WOMEN ARE BORN WAILING are calling Nen’s debut “an anthology of infinite nua
Join us in congratulating Christell Victoria Roach, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry! Christell has earned $5000 for a cycle of three poems presented together as “Bluesing by the Bay”.
Spotted out in the wild: hardcopies of ALL WOMEN ARE BORN WAILING by Nen G. Ramirez! 👀📖🥳 Winner of the Acentos Book Prize, Nen’s debut has been praised for being “filled with shards of violence woven with threads of memorable beauty [t
Congratulations to Vania Gutierrez, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry! Vania as won $5000 for two sample poems from their project “A Name Unearthed”. Follow Vania on social media and joi
Join us in congratulating Carla Schick, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry! Carla has earned $5000 for their poem “Rent Control”. Comment with your congrats and give Carla (who is new to
Congratulations to Nefertiti Asanti, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry. Nefertiti won $5000 for three poems from a larger body of work titled “the present is a small child”. Join us in c
Early reviews of ALL WOMEN ARE BORN WAILING by Nen G. Ramirez are calling this powerful debut “sparse but razor-sharp, every gentle line disguising the poem's feral snarl [with] kindness and grace [and] wit that threads its way through the coll
Celebrating Nia McAllister, winner of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry! Nia won $5000 for three poems—”Consort of the Spirits”, “In the Day Diamonds Are In the Water”, “Say H
Congratulations to Linda Norton, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Nonfiction. Linda won $5000 for “Something Close” excerpted from a longer memoir book manuscript. Post your congratulations to
Congratulations to Joshua Merchant, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry! Joshua has won $5000 for their poem “The First Fall”. Follow Joshua online, where you can read their recent publish
Join us in congratulating Julián Delgado Lopera for winning the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Fiction! Julián will receive $5000 for their novel-in-progress, PAPI—which blew away judges with its bol
Congratulations to Mimi Tempestt, recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award for Poetry. Mimi will receive $5000 for the title piece excerpted from her second book “the delicacy of embracing spirals”&mdash