I was pretty psyched about Emily Books when it was launched in 2011 by Emily Gould and Ruth Curry. I’ve long been a fan of Emily’s writing, and I liked the idea of a Book-of-the-Month Club for the 21st century.

I interviewed Emily and started what I think might have been the first non-NYC Emily Books book club. Later, Emily interviewed me for the Emily Books blog, and she rightly called me out for not having any women writers on my nightstand. (I have six now!)

Needless to say, I was glad to contribute a soundbite to the video for the first Emily Books Kickstarter campaign. Emily and Ruth are seeking 40 large to reboot the Emily Books website, both to foster a more interactive community and to move towards their goal of publishing original books. Contributor rewards range, appropriately, from e-books to coffee talk.

The buried lead in the campaign, though, is that Emily Books is partnering with Minneapolis publisher Coffee House Press to create a new imprint for original books to be acquired by Emily and Ruth, published both online and on paper. The first title will be Problems, a debut novel by Jade Sharma.

The goal, says Emily in the Kickstarter video, is to make “these sometimes transgressive books more available to more people. We’re doing it…but we could be doing it better.”

– Jay Gabler