Interview With Canary Publishing Editor-in-Chief Howard Lovy On Publishing Jewish Voices

 

1.  What type of books/genres does Canary Publishing publish? Adult fiction and nonfiction by Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist writers — literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, mostly. We don’t publish children’s books, poetry, or academic work. I want good stories. Writers keep asking me, “Is my book Jewish enough for Canary Publishing?” My answer is a question: What was Jewish enough to have been canceled by the mainstream? A name. A setting. A character who wouldn’t apologize. If it was Jewish enough for them to say no, it’s Jewish enough for us to say yes. It’s a broad tent — religious, secular, Israeli, diaspora, right, left. The one thing we won’t do is ask you to make it less Jewish. You’ve got the rest of the industry for that.  

2.  What is your publishing mission? Canary Publishing is a home for authentic Jewish voices, bringing their stories to readers everywhere. We are a nonprofit trade press, and we are unapologetically Jewish and Zionist. Since October 7, 2023, publishers and agents have told too many Jewish writers that “now is not the time” for their stories. We believe now is exactly the time. We can say yes when they say no. We take our name from the canary in the coal mine. How a society treats its Jews is the warning sign: when our voices go quiet, the air has turned dangerous for everyone. Our fiction and nonfiction will reflect the breadth of Jewish thought and experience, valuing literary merit over political conformity.  

3.  What is your background -- how did you come to run a publishing company? I’ve spent 40 years in journalism and publishing — as a reporter and editor, and now as a developmental editor and novelist. After October 7, I decided to focus my editing on Jewish and Israeli manuscripts. So, I had a front-row seat as Jewish voices were sidelined in the literary world. I learned it firsthand, too. When I was shopping my own novel around, I kept reading on agents’ websites that they welcome marginalized voices. It didn’t take me long to learn that they did not mean Jews. I’m a journalist, so my instinct is always to document it. I wrote about the marginalization of Jewish writers for three years, anywhere that would have me. Authors would come up to me after panels to thank me for everything I was doing, and in the back of my mind I’d think: but I haven’t actually done anything. I’ve just pointed out the problem. These writers didn’t need another article about why they couldn’t get published. They needed a publisher. The problem was never a shortage of attention. It was a shortage of yes. In June I published a wish list of what I’d do if I ran a Jewish-friendly publishing company. An organization that shared that vision backed me, and Canary Publishing launched on September 2 under the fiscal sponsorship of Chai Mitzvah, a 501(c)(3).  

4.  What challenges do you believe you will have as a smaller press? The same ones every small press has, plus one of our own. Mainstream publishing houses reach readers through review coverage and bookstore placement, and those doors are largely closed to us. Fine. Our readers didn’t stop reading. They’re organized — in book clubs, Substacks, newsletters, synagogue reading groups, the Jewish Book Council world — and they know where to find each other. That’s not just a community. That’s a distribution network. The other challenge is volume. We received scores of submissions on launch day and hundreds since, and I promised every author a personal reply. We’re a small team, and we’re a nonprofit, so we’re also looking for funding partners who want to build this with us.  

5.  Which books do you plan on publishing first -- and by when? We’re close to signing our first authors. The plan is to launch with two titles, one fiction and one nonfiction, announce them before the end of the year, and publish in 2027. I’m not naming names until the contracts are signed.  

6.  How do you hope to combat anti-Semitism? By publishing. I don’t say that with anger; I say it with clarity. This isn’t only about antisemitism in publishing. It’s about what’s not being written, because writers have been told there’s no support for it and no one agrees the problem exists. A century ago, when Jews were shut out of medical education, we built our own hospitals, and they became so good they became mainstream. That’s not fleeing. That’s Jews doing what we’ve always done. Canary Publishing is a piece of that — a place where a Jewish character isn’t there to apologize for existing. If Philip Roth or Saul Bellow were starting out today, shopping a manuscript full of unapologetically Jewish life, they’d be rejected. Not because the writing wasn’t brilliant. Because now is not the time. We exist so that isn’t the end of the story.  

7.  What can be done to increase book readership and the literacy rate in the United States? I can only speak to my corner of it. The conventional wisdom in publishing is that Jewish books don’t sell, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the books don’t get bought, so they don’t get published, so there’s nothing to sell. Jews buy books. When Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s and Eli Sharabi’s books hit the New York Times bestseller list, that wasn’t a fluke — and neither one was a Holocaust memoir. If you want people to read, publish what they want to read and keep it in print. When readers can’t find it on the local shelf, they head straight into the arms of Amazon.  

8.  As America celebrates 250, where do you feel we are in terms of book bans and free speech? The book bans that make the news are the loud ones — a school board, a library, a list. The ones I deal with are quiet. Nobody announces that a book has been banned. An agent stops returning calls. A publisher backs out. A manuscript is quietly shelved. I’ve seen a book’s promotional copy list “Zionism” among its trigger warnings, right alongside domestic violence and suicide. That’s a ban without the paperwork. Jewish writers have been woven into the fabric of American culture for most of those 250 years. That place is no longer secure. Doors that were open have quietly closed, and books that would once have found a publisher now go unread. We are witnessing the erasure of Jewish perspectives from the marketplace of ideas — a disaster not only for Jewish literature but for society as a whole. 

9.  Where do you feel the book industry is heading? The old publishing model is slow by design. I spent years working with independent authors through the Alliance of Independent Authors, and what I saw there is where the industry is going: writers who move quickly and stay close to their readers. Canary Publishing is built that way — print-on-demand, no big print runs, no warehouse, no waiting for a bookstore to decide whether to take a chance on a Jewish book. We can keep books available, respond to demand, and build momentum title by title. The other direction is the one I’m betting on: readers organizing themselves. The grassroots Jewish literary world — the book clubs, the Substacks, the newsletters — didn’t exist in this form three years ago. The mainstream decided these readers didn’t matter. They found each other anyway.

 

Fr more information, please consult: https://www.canarypublishing.org/

 

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About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 10, 850,000 page views. With over 5,700+ posts over the past 15 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2026, 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully) and (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/10-things-my-dog-taught-me-about-marketing-books). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, three times at BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, five times at Morgan James Publishing Red Carpet, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

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