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.
Hoda Mallone
Marketing + Media Manager
Hoda Mallone is the Marketing + Media Manager for Unnamed Press and Smith & Taylor Classics. Hoda holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Non Fiction from UCR Palm Desert MFA Program and an undergrad degree in Criminal Justice from California State University, Long Beach. An accomplished journalist, her work can be read in People Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, Press Telegram, and more. The lifelong Angeleno is a marketing and media expert, book lover and enthusiast, and indie book publishing champion.
Matthew Young
Shipping + Logistics Manager
Matthew Young is the Shipping + Logistics Manager for Unnamed Press and Smith & Taylor Classics.
Allison Miriam Woodnutt
Editor
Allison Miriam Woodnutt (née Smith) is an acquiring editor and Executive Editor for Smith & Taylor Classics which she co-founded with Brandon Taylor in 2024. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English & Creative Writing from USC 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
Editor-at-Large
Brandon Taylor is an Editor-at-Large at Unnamed Press and co-founder of Smith & Taylor Classics. He is the author of Minor Black Figures, 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.
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.