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OLGA GARDNER
GALVIN grew up in Moscow (then USSR), in the 1960s
and 1970s, the only child of a book editor and a
graphic designer who, between the two of them, could
conceptualize and produce any printed matter, from
a book to a theater poster — and did it all
the time, in a small apartment crammed with books.
By the late 1970s, Olga
developed a cool habit of reading forbidden literature
on public transportation, which resulted in her
parents’ decision to relocate to the USA as
soon as possible, since they found her attempts
at rebellion disturbingly dumb. (OK, so, looking
back now, they were right.)
After several half-hearted
efforts to get away from the ivory tower of her
background and try her hand in other careers —
from a production assistant to a film critic to
a barmaid to a journalist to a stand-up comedienne
to a translator — Olga gave up and, as soon
as her command of English permitted, followed in
her parents’ footsteps, making her freelancing
way into American mainstream publishing, where her
clients now include some of
the biggest publishing houses and literary agencies
in New York. Olga gained editorial experience
working on books by
such best-selling authors as Michael Crichton, Ursula
Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Steven Saylor, Matt Ruff,
Dennis Miller, Gao Xingjian, A.M. Homes, Lionel
Shriver, and Dan Simmons, to name just a few she
particularly likes.
ENC Press is a result of
Olga’s figuring out that she was finally in
possession of all the skills necessary to publish
books she’d like to read that don’t
make it to the big publishing houses’ rosters —
for reasons explained in more detail in Letter from the publisher and on
About ENC
page — because she still likes to make her
own decisions about what to read.
Read Olga Gardner
Galvin’s article, “A
Few Lessons Learned From Publishing in America,”
and listen to the podcast
of a two-part interview with her.
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