The founder of Noemi Press will be succeeding Fiona McCrae, who helped transform the publishing company into a cultural force during her nearly 30-year-tenure
Carmen Giménez will join Graywolf Press as executive director and publisher beginning August 8. She will be succeeding Fiona McCrae, who served as director and publisher for 28 years.
“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,” said Kathleen Boe, Graywolf board member and chair of the search committee. “As we got to know her, it seemed to us that Carmen has been preparing for this role her whole life.”
Giménez is a queer Latinx poet and editor, and founder and current publisher of Noemi Press, a nonprofit literary arts organization and publisher based in Virgina. She is also an English Professor at Virginia Tech.
Giménez is more than qualified to take the torch from McCrae, who helped Graywolf authors attain a multitude of Pulitzers, National Book Awards, and Booker Prizes. 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 Lord Award for Lesbian Poetry, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
“[Graywolf Press] has been a vital force in literature and as a mission-driven organization led by the transformative Fiona McCrae,” Giménez said. “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.”
Giménez is also 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. In addition, she was awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2020, and received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the Hermitage Foundation during her career.