Melville House Books

This year marks the 15th anniversary of anarchist publisher/distributor AK Press, says Katie Renz in a profile in the current issue of Clamor (article not available online). AK Press, which is described as a “collectively run, worker-owned, bi-continental publisher of radical media” publishes and distributes some 2,600 titles, including “books, magazines and zines, pamphlets, videos, and DVDs.” The company was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1990, when a group of booksellers decided to professionalize their punk distribution operation and tie it to an interest in anarchist literature. Charles Weigl, of the AK Press collective, notes in an interview with Clamour: “We tend to see our main job as providing practical and intellectual tools to help people organize.” Ramsey Kanaan, who has sold anarchist literature and music since he was 13, notes, “I guess to have existed as a viable anarchist organization for this long is pretty coolŠ. Here’s to the next 15 and a revolution or two.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.