Pasadena-Based Red Hen Press Acquires Award-Winning British Publisher

Red Hen Press, the largest independent press in Los Angeles, recently acquired the rights and catalog of Pighog, an award-winning publisher from the United Kingdom. Founded in 2002 by John Davies, Pighog has since published over 50 books and anthologies of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction from regional, national and international voices.

They have been shortlisted for the prestigious Michael Marks Publishers’ Award in 2012 and 2013. Several of their books have been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award including Charlotte Gann’s The Long Woman in 2012 and Sarah Jackson’s Milk in 2008. They have also won a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice Award for Lorna Thorpe’s Dancing to Motown.

With this recent acquisition, Red Hen will adopt titles from Pighog as their latest imprint, which will focus on writings from UK authors. The merger comes complete with ISBN list and stock and a superb roster of authors.

With over a thousand Twitter followers and Facebook fans, Pighog has established themselves as a powerhouse that succeeded in representing local and up-and-coming talent. Red Hen Press hopes to continue this tradition of publishing high quality work and aims to spread Pighog’s reach to a more international audience.

Red Hen Press was founded in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull. Each year, the Press publishes roughly twenty titles a year of fiction, poetry, and literary non-fiction by authors both emerging and established. In addition, Red Hen has established itself as a significant cultural presence in Southern California and beyond through diverse public programs: Writing in the Schools, started in 2003, which conducts writing workshops for over 250 low-income, K-12 students each school year; several ongoing reading series in New York City and greater Los Angeles; three literary awards conferring $5,000 to emerging writers annually; and the semi-annual publication of The Los Angeles Review, a literary journal.

For more information, please call the Press at (626) 356-4760, or contact william.chen@redhen.org.