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| Carmen Giménez (photo: Jason Gardner) |
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Carmen Giménez is joining Graywolf Press as executive director and publisher, effective August 8. She succeeds Fiona McCrae, who retired in June after serving as director and publisher for 28 years. Associate publisher Katie Dublinski continues as interim director until August 8.
Graywolf said Giménez is "a queer Latinx poet and editor, and founder and current publisher of Noemi Press," a nonprofit literary arts organization and publisher in Blacksburg, Va. Giménez started Noemi Press in 2002 to publish and promote the work of emerging and established writers and artists, who have included Douglas Kearney, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Khadijah Queen. Noemi authors have been winners or finalists for the National Book Award, the Lambda Literary Awards, the Whiting Award, and the PEN America Awards.
Giménez has also been a Professor of English in Virginia Tech's MFA program in creative writing since 2017. In 2019, Graywolf published Giménez's most recent collection, Be Recorder, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry, the PEN Open Book Award, the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is the author of five other collections of poetry, including Cruel Futures and Milk and Filth, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of the lyric memoir Bring Down the Little Birds, which won an American Book Award. She was awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2020, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Hermitage Foundation.
Kathleen Boe, Graywolf board member and chair of the search committee, said, "We are honored that Carmen Giménez will be Graywolf's next executive director and publisher. Carmen came forward through our broad, international search for a leader whose experience and passion for publishing would expand Graywolf's strong reputation in new and exciting directions. As we got to know her, it seemed to us that Carmen has been preparing for this role her whole life. We found her vision for the future of Graywolf compelling and are excited to begin working with her."
Giménez said Graywolf "has been a vital force in literature and as a mission-driven organization led by the transformative Fiona McCrae. I hope that we will build on that legacy while continuing to evolve, taking risks, engaging directly with the current moment, and serving our local, national, and international community of readers and writers."