Hagfish Books Is Exalting the Obscure

Their latest release? Joan Silber’s 1987 novel "In the City," out now.

Whenever I seem to venture out of my home, I must buy a book. I try to keep myself in check but more often than not, it fails the moment I enter a bookstore. I must touch, I must skim. I love having a little world in my hand. Last year, my wandering eye glimpsed a copy of Rosalyn Drexler’s To Smithereens last year. I cracked the spine and the words…caught me.

The promising paperback was published by Hagfish, a publisher, literary agency, and editorial studio co-founded by Naomi Huffman and Julia Ringo in 2025, with a focus on out-of-print and obscure books by women. Ever since that day I kept my eyes on their latest releases or projects they’ve touched, like Iphgenia Baal’s collection Man Hating Psycho and the reissue of Nettie Jones’ Fish Tales. Hagfish’s newest publication, out this week, is Joan Silber’s 1987 novel In the City, which Julia describes as “a grittier, more political Frances Ha if written in the late 1980s and set in the ’20s.”

You can subscribe to the Hagfish Newsletter here, become a member of their subscription program here, and get a copy of In The City here. The party for In the City is on May 26th at Solas Bar with an RSVP, with details on Hagfish’s Instagram.

Catherine Spino: What inspired the creation of Hagfish and why? Were there any inspirations that influenced you?

Naomi Huffman: In 2018, I began reading the late Katherine Dunn’s archive, which housed a collection-worth of unpublished short fiction and an unpublished manuscript. At the time, I was working at FSG, and I acquired both projects for publication there. That work — transcribing Dunn’s fiction, getting to know her son, realizing the breadth of the unpublished material — felt rare and special to me. It was charged by time and history and legacy, and by everything I learned about how Dunn and the kind of person she was. It was inspiring.

Most importantly, that work led me to consider the vast and innumerable unplumbed archives of other writers, and then the vast and innumerable works by writers who had never been invited, or lacked the resources to, archive their work. After Julia and I left FSG, we started Hagfish so we could read overlooked work with the purpose of ushering it back into print, or into print for the first time.

Why did you choose the name “hagfish” for your press?

Julia Ringo: It’s also known, charmingly, as the “slime eel.” We landed on the name while we were at FSG, which features three fish in its colophon, so sea life was on our mind. The hagfish felt like an appropriate mascot for a feminist project with a sense of humor and a taste for the grotesque. They’re mostly female (their reproductive process remains a bit of a mystery), they produce a slime of prodigious quantity and strength, and they’re environmental cleaners. That last bit led to the name of our members-only newsletter, Bottom Feeder.

How do you choose what to publish?

Julia: We’re guided by the idiosyncrasies of our own taste. We share a fondness for dark humor; writing that’s physical, gritty, bodily; that has a sense of vitality. We like writers who work across disciplines, who work other jobs, who feel of the world. The actual encounter with each title we’ve acquired has come about differently every time. Names pop up in conversation with friends and booksellers and other writers, or in obituaries, or lists of prizewinners from decades ago. We keep a perpetually-growing spreadsheet of writers we want to look into, so we’re just always reading, and every week we discuss what we’re excited about (or ready to set aside). Because we’re only publishing two books a year right now, the bar for selection is very high, so when one of us is genuinely psyched about a book it’s always obvious and always a thrill.

I’d love for you to speak about your process working and publishing Rosalyn Drexler’s To Smithereens, the first novel from your press. I absolutely loved reading it. It also received a lot of critical acclaim.

Julia: The book is a riot, so funny and timeless. We were initially drawn to who Rosalyn is as a person (I’m sorry, she was an Emmy-winning screenwriter and Obie-winning playwright and a prolific novelist and celebrated painter and a professional wrestler?), and we knew that the story of Rosalyn would in some ways be the story of the book — she would be the gateway for many readers. She’s irresistible, and we wanted her to be the center of our publication, which is one reason we love afterwords; they’re an opportunity for the writer to claim their story, explain how they came to it, and what happened to them after it emerged.

Is there anything you do to help your writers with publicity? I saw Rosalyn had an art exhibit at the Pollock-Krasner house.

Naomi: Last spring’s exhibit of Rosalyn’s paintings at the Pollock-Krasner House was a delightful coincidence; it was already planned when we reached out to Rosalyn’s estate about our interest in reissuing To Smithereens. It made sense to time the release of the book to the exhibit, and to host a couple collaborative events. We also screened Below the Belt, the film adaptation of the novel, in New York and Los Angeles, to celebrate its release.

The nature of publishing reissues means some of the authors we work with are in advanced age, and their ability to show up in person or participate in a Zoom call may be limited. Sometimes that means celebrating the release with a panel of other writers who were influenced by the author, or throwing a party with no readings and just vibes.

You worked with Nettie Jones on the re-release of her musical and gritty novel Fish Tales. Can you speak about your interest in reissuing older novels and the relevance of promoting these works in our current lit world?

Naomi: First and foremost, we reissue these books because they’re really fucking good and we want more people to know about them. There’s an inherent corrective effort to this; we’re trying to introduce these books and writers to the literary canon, and we’re asking contemporary writers to reconsider their influences.

It’s true our books are relevant to the Issues of Our Day; there’s nearly always a conversation to be had about social change (or staticity), particularly concerning class, gender and sexuality, and race. But it’s important to us that our books and authors aren’t solely defined by these issues. Ideally, they’re regarded as exceptional books, oddments of the literary landscape, beautifully written. Hagfish isn’t for everyone. It’s probably not for most readers? That’s what makes it special and worth supporting, I hope.

Are there more events for Hagfish readers in the future?

Julia: Most definitely. The Below the Belt screenings (we also held one at the Los Feliz 3 in LA) were especially exciting because they let us explore Rosalyn’s work across media, and with a different audience than the one that might turn up to a reading at a bookstore. We’re planning more fun, expansive events around our two (!) releases this fall, and we’re also thinking about gatherings for our members that feel a bit more curated and intimate.

What’s been the most surprising thing about being a small publisher?

Julia: Maybe just how encouraging many folks have been, whether readers or booksellers or other small publishers. There’s a hunger for a fresh take on publishing, and for books that feel outside the mainstream. That’s not a total surprise–it echoes how Naomi and I feel–but it’s gratifying.

Is there anything exciting you are working on at the moment?

Julia: This fall we’re taking the radical step of publishing two books instead of one, and they’re both sendups of modern romance from the 1970s that feel shockingly contemporary. First up is another book by Rosalyn Drexler, The Cosmopolitan Girl (1975), which is the story of a young woman who falls in love with a talking dog. Rosalyn passed away shortly after our publication of To Smithereens last year, so this feels like a chance to celebrate her fully — her gallery is hosting a major solo exhibition of her artwork, which coincides with what would have been her 100th birthday. We’re also reissuing Cynthia Buchanan’s 1972 novel Maiden, a truly audacious satire about a thirty-year-old virgin on a tragically misguided quest for romance in the sleazy singles scene of Los Angeles.

What advice would you give to other people wanting to start a small press?

Julia: Do it! Do it with your friends! And try to make it sustainable, whatever that looks like for you (for us: a small, highly curated list and a full schedule of the freelance editorial work that funds the press). The goal is to keep these books in print for a long time to come.