The Galileo Press was founded in 1979 long before desktop publishing became a household word. Editors Julia Wendell and Jack Stephens conceived of a venue for contemporary literature based not upon a school of critical thought, but upon quality alone. Broad-ranging in taste, the editors inaugurated Telescope magazine, which became one of the first magazines in the country to publish thematic issues. “Freud and Literature,” “Cinema and Literature” “Women and Literature,” and “Art in the Atomic Age,” were examples of Telescope’s finest thematic issues, publishing such notable writers as Michael Burkard, Chase Twichell, Richard Lyons, Richard Cecil, David Wojahn, Tony Hoagland, Lynda Hull, Maura Stanton, Ira Sadooff, Eric Pankey, Dean Young, John Repp, Bob Shacochis, Rita Dove, Norman Dubie, and Fred Chappell.

Unique to Telescope was a survey conducted for each of the special issues. Questions such as “Is the translation of the word into the cinematic image and vice versa a concern of yours?” ... “Freud has argued that anatomy is destiny. Has your work, directly or indirectly, addressed that argument?” ... “Can a man be a feminist?”. ... were examples of the probings that the editors engaged in during the compilation of the issues. Almost as notable was the fact that the first galleys of Telescope were laid out on windowpanes!

Graduate students in the process of migrating from mentors Norman Dubie and Pamela Stewart at Arizona State University, to the University of Iowa, Writer’s Workshop (1980-82), editors Wendell and Stephens finally settled in the Baltimore area, where the press became incorporated and where the editors’ two children, John and Caitlin were born and raised.

In 1983, Galileo Press launched its book series with a national book contest, receiving over 1000 submissions. Judges David St. John and editors Wendell and Stephens selected John Engman’s poetry collection, Keeping Still, Mountain, Jonathan Penner’s novella, The Intelligent Traveler’s Guide to Chiribosco, and L.W. Michaelson’s On My Being Dead and Other Stories, which were published the following year.

The press earned its non-profit 501(c)(3) in 1985 and received several national and state grants. The press continued to publish such well-received poetry collections as Steven Cramer’s The Eye that Desires to Look Upward (1989), Mark Irwin’s The Halo of Desire (1987), Jim Simmerman’s Once Out of Nature (1989), Matthew Graham’s New World Architecture (1985) and 1946 (1991), Sarah Gorham’s Don’t Go Back to Sleep (1989), Robert Long’s What Happens (1988), David Fenza’s The Interlude (1989), and Joe Bolton’s posthumously-published Days of Summer Gone (1990).

Additionally, the press continued its commitment to the publishing of non-commercial literary fiction, including John Dranow’s collection of novellas, Life in the Middle of the Century (1988), as well as his novel, The Magic Step (1991), Robert Long’s novella The Four Wheel Drive Quartet (1986) and Patricia Grossman’s novella, Inventions in a Grieving House (1991).

The press branched out to non-fiction with such works as Dan Rodricks’ Mencken Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1989), Hal Gardner’s Those Years (1990), and Carl Pohlner’s A Feather Short of Flying (1989), as well as children’s literature: Nikia Leopold’s Sandcastle Seahorses (1988), Robert Pack and Nancy Willard’s The Octopus Who Wanted to Juggle (1990), and Galileo’s last published title until now, Nikia Leopold’s and Jack Stephens’ The Ballerina and the Gargoyle (1996), which was inspired by the editors’ and their small children’s family trip to Paris and Notre Dame Cathedral, and their two-year-old daughter’s fascination with the mythical creatures that adorn the cathedral.

As a family-run operation, the press crashed when the family did, and the editors went their separate ways. Or rather, the press went into hibernation. Wendell, meanwhile, felt compelled to keep the published titles circulating. To that end, Galileo’s distributor, Ernest Peters at Pathway Book Distribution, came to the rescue and has, in the almost 15 intervening years until now, kept Galileo titles on their distributor’s list and available to the reading public.

As a non-profit organization and as a matter of principle, Wendell and Stephens remained committed to furthering the careers of writers whose manuscripts might otherwise have difficulty getting attention in the commercial publishing market. Their aim never was to promote their own work through the press. That is, until the publication of Finding My Distance, which Galileo is publishing as a fundraiser for three-day event rider Kim Meier, who was paralyzed from the shoulders down in a freak riding accident in 2007.

An international rider who completed the Burghley Four Star Three-day International Event in 2004 aboard her partner, Test Run, Kim devoted her life to her farm and horses, to the sport of eventing, and to teaching its devotees, including Wendell.

Initially, Wendell came up with the idea of re-vitalizing the press, as a way of controlling the proceeds from book sales of Finding My Distance and directing them to Kim and her daughter, Kelly, to help offset staggering medical costs and other living expenses.

In the process of jump starting the press for this project to benefit Kim – designing Galileo’s website in this amazing new age of the computers, and flexing her old, stiff editing muscles after such a long hiatus – has made Wendell realize how important the press still is to her, and how unhappy she was abandoning those young, first-book Galileo authors who were forced to find other publishers for their subsequent books, if they were so lucky – without Galileo’s help. Plus, the aging three-day event rider realizes she’s got to plan for the time when she can no longer jump four-foot obstacles at 27 mph.

Several Galileo authors went on to stellar careers with other publishers. For instance, Steven Cramer, director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., is the author of four poetry collections and the recipient of numerous fellowships. Goodbye to the Orchard is Cramer’s latest collection of poetry. Sarah Gorham has published three collections of poetry, the latest being The Cure in 2003. She is the founding editor and publisher of the acclaimed literary press, Sarabande Books. Mark Irwin’s most recent title is Bright Hunger (BOA 2004). He, too, is the recipient of several fellowships and awards. Jim Simmerman’s Galileo title, Once Out of Nature, was a “Best of the Small Presses” feature at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Recipient of many grants and awards, Simmerman was the author of five poetry collections and taught at Northern Arizona University for twenty-eight years until he took his own life in 2006.

To pick up where we long ago left off, Galileo Press would like to extend an invitation to those Galileo authors who are searching for a home for a new manuscript. If you have a manuscript you would like us to consider for publication, please email Julia Wendell at JAWendell@aol.com (She does most everything on her Dell laptop now!).

As for the rest of the writing community: Be patient. Wait. Hone your writing skills. And check back to see what other new directions Galileo takes...