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Jack Shoemaker (b. 1946) is an American editor and publisher of notable literary works, currently serving as editorial director and vice-president at
Gary Nabhan, Jane Vandenburgh, Carole Maso, and Robert Aitken. Shoemaker’s reputation rests on steadfast support of author-driven literary publishing ventures that have withstood major shifts in American book-publishing models and the rise of big-chain bookstores. Shoemaker’s literary signature is a West Coast progressive influence, and the assumption that worthy publishing entails mindfulness and political awareness. For example, Shoemaker was the first American publisher of Thich Nhat Hanh, and he has been the lifelong publisher of world-renowned activist and environmentalist Wendell Berry
. Shoemaker’s literary interests in publishing continue as he explores history, biography, science, philosophy, natural history, landscape writing, and most especially work on behalf of the environment and sustainable agriculture.
Background
A native Californian, Jack Shoemaker began his literary career as a bookseller in 1963 in Santa Barbara. Over the course of forty years he has owned or managed several influential independent literary bookshops, including The Unicorn Bookshop, Serendipity Books, and Sand Dollar Booksellers & Publishers. His approach to running a bookstore was somewhat unorthodox, in that his inventory had a longer shelf-life than was common practice in bookselling, and that he conducted a voluminous correspondence with writers such as Gary Snyder, Robert Duncan, and Guy Davenport, which enabled him to stock his store with titles they recommended. “I had good instincts, I had enormous presumption, and most of all I had good advisors,” Shoemaker has said of that time. “I was, still am, an autodidact. I did not go to college, so for me the correspondence and reading formed my path in education.” [1]
Publishing
Jack Shoemaker’s entry into publishing evolved from bookselling and his early presses were extensions of independent bookstores he operated. An early publishing venture, Unicorn, evolved from a bookstore in Isla Vista, near the campus of University of California-Santa Barbara operated by Shoemaker from 1967 to 1968. In that capacity, Unicorn published in 1968 a book of poems, The Cry of Vietnam, by
Boston Globe lists, including Beryl Markham’s West With the Night and Splendid Outcasts, Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star, and Barry Lopez’s Crow and Weasel. [4]
When North Point closed in 1991, Shoemaker’s stable of fiercely loyal writers traveled with him to Pantheon, where he served as West Coast editor of the
Soft Skull Press. At that time Counterpoint Press also formed an operating agreement with Sierra Club Books.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page
).
American Buddhism
As an editor and publisher Shoemaker has exerted a considerable, steady influence on
Dogen, Hakuin, Muso, Senzaki, and several others. Shoemaker first became interested in Zen Buddhism through the work of Gary Snyder and Kenneth Rexroth. Shoemaker was a student of Robert Aitken and published several books of Aitken's including, Taking the Path of Zen, thought by many to be the best practical introductory guide to the study and practice of Zen. Later he co-edited with Aitken's senior Dharma heir, Nelson Foster, The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, a widely celebrated anthology of Zen texts. “As a Buddhist, I’m simply a beginner,” Shoemaker told an interviewer in 2005. “There are many of us trying to discover if there can be an authentic American Buddhism, oriented toward lay practitioners.”[7]
Awards, Honors, and Service
Shoemaker served from 1974–1978 on the Literature Panel of the
National Endowment of the Arts, serving his last eighteen months as that panel’s chairman.[8] He has also served on the California Arts Council, the Western States Arts Foundation panel, the North Carolina Arts Council literature panel, and several other boards and awards panels devoted to literature, the visual arts, and dance. Shoemaker was a co-founder of Small Press Distribution, a distributor for the work of dozens of small independent American presses, which is today the largest and most successful operation of its kind.[9]
Together with Jack Hicks and Gary Snyder, he founded The Art of the Wild, a summer program in Squaw Valley, California, devoted to the practice and study of writing related to environmental concerns and natural history. Shoemaker also serves on the advisory board of Fishtrap: Writing and the West, a literary non-profit in Wallowa County, Oregon, that offers workshops, conferences, and residencies to develop writing talent among Western writers.[10] In 1981 Publisher’s Weekly named Shoemaker the recipient of the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing. PubWest awarded him the 2013 Jack D. Rittenhouse Award for lifetime achievement and contributions to the Western book community.[11]
Personal
Jack Shoemaker married the former Vicki Guerin in 1965. They had two children, Sean Shoemaker, and Demian Shoemaker. The marriage ended in divorce in 1991. In 1996 he married California novelist
^"William Turnbull Dies at 64; Co-Founder of North Point Press. New York Times, march 18, 1991; B8; Edwin McDowell, Publishing: a Best-Seller for Connell," New York Times, Dec. 29, 1984; C32
^Edwin McDowell, "Book Notes: New Job for Executive," New York Times, May 29, 1991; C18.
^Wendy WErris, "PbuWEst Award Lifetime Achievement Award to Counterpoint's Jack Shoemaker," Publishers Weekly, June 18, 2013; "Congratulations Jack Shoemaker," Counterpoint Press, 2013; http://counterpointpress.com/congratualtions-jack-shoemaker/
