Ig Publishing

Ig was founded in 2002 with the release of Robert Lasner's novel For Fucks Sake. The press also released a series of Dive Bar guides to select cities – New York, Chicago and San Francisco – from 2002 to 2004. Ig also released several literary novels, including Grant Bailie's Cloud 8 and Richard Madelin's Careful!

Inspired by the rise of the progressive political blogosphere, Ig began publishing political non-fiction, along with literary fiction.[11] Among the blog books that Ig released were Confessions of a Former Dittohead (2006), Framing the Debate by Jeffrey Feldman, Moving A Nation to Care by Ilona Meagher, and Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right is Hijacking Mainstream Religion by John Dorhauer and Sheldon Culver (all in 2007).

During this time, Ig also re-published several non-fiction classics, including Edward Bernays's Propaganda, Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, and Empire As A Way of Life by William Appleman Williams.

Ig's political list continued to grow, as the press gained a reputation as an important voice in progressive political publishing. In December 2007, Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops was highlighted before Congress when its author was called to testify at a House Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing.[12] And, in the lead-up to the 2008 election, Ig published Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008, highlighting the vast electoral fraud in the 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections. The collection was edited by Mark Crispin Miller.

Other political highlights for the press were Jill Richardson's Recipe for America (2009) on the American food system; union activist Joe Burns on the need for the labor movement to bring back the production-halting strike, Reviving the Strike (2011), and its companion title, Strike Back (2014) on the rising public employee labor upsurge; Crow After Roe, on the state-level war against abortion; and Part of the Family, about the rising movement to gain rights for domestic workers.

In 2013, Ig released The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism by award-winning investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson.[13] An outgrowth of Aaronson's article for Mother Jones magazine, The Terror Factory exposed how the FBI, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror.

In 2016, Ig published Boy With A Knife by Jean Trounstine. Boy With A Knife tells the story of Karter Kane Reed, who, at the age of sixteen, was sentenced to life in an adult prison for a murder he committed in 1993 in a high school classroom. Twenty years later, in 2013, he became one of the few men in Massachusetts to sue the Parole Board and win his freedom.

Recent political/current affairs titles have included American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion by Stephanie Woodard, which offers the most comprehensive and compelling account of the issues and threats that Native Americans face today, as well as their heroic battle to overcome them; The Tribalization of Politics by Ian Reifowitz, which explores how the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh “tribalized” American politics through his racially divisive, falsehood-ridden portrayal of President Obama; an updated edition of Strike Back by Joe Burns; The End of Roe v. Wade by Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo; and Why America Needs Socialism by G.S. Griffin.

Ig is particularly known for its literary fiction. In 2012, the press released The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets by Diana Wagman, which was named a Barnes and Noble Discover pick. In 2014, Ig released Point of Direction by Rachel Weaver, which was named an Indie Next selection. Ig has had multiple titles reviewed by prestigious publications including The New York Times, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Oprah Magazine, Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. Damn Love, a short story collection by Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, received a PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention in 2014. In 2015, Tracy O'Neill's The Hopeful was named a 5 Under 35 pick by the National Book Foundation.[14] The press's fiction list has won several more awards since then.

In 2016, Ig launched its Bookmarked series, where an author writes on a book that had a profound impact on their writing and life.[15] The editor of the series is Kirby Gann, who also authored the first book in the series, on John Knowles' A Separate Peace. Other works in the series in 2016 include Curtis Smith on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Hobart editor Aaron Burch on Stephen King's The Body, and Paula Bomer on Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children. In 2017, the series will publish Jaime Clarke on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, David Ryan on Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, Steve Yarbrough on Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show and Micheal Seidlinger of Electric Literature on Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. 2018 will see Brian Evenson on Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and Charles Holdefer on George Saunders' Pastoralia.[16] Ig's latest Bookmarked title is Steve Almond's volume on John Williams's Stoner. Coming in 2020 will be volumes by Bernice McFadden and Sven Birkerts on The Color Purple and Nabokov's Speak, Memory, respectively.

• Villarosa, Linda. "Tiny Fort Greene Publisher Celebrates 10 Surprisingly Successful Years". The Local - Fort-Greene. Archived from the original on September 20, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
• Zipp, Yvonne (September 24, 2013). "Lizzie Skurnick Books Brings Back YA Classics". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 13, 2018.