Henriette Lazaridis and Anjali Mitter Duva had separate paths to writing, but after they became novelists and met via Boston’s writing community, they both realized they had the same desire to make other people’s stories come alive.
The two have done just that with their local publishing company, Galiot Press, which just marked its first anniversary. By November, they will have published seven books, including the forthcoming “Alice Sees Ghosts” and their first translation, “I’ll Look Myself In in the Eyes.”
From writers to publishers
Lazaridis is the Cambridge-based author of 2024’s “Last Days in Plaka” and two other novels. After years teaching local writing courses and workshops, she knew increasingly more writers whose “beautiful” books weren’t finding an audience or an agent.
“I began to joke around and say, ‘Oh, if I have my publishing company, I’ll do things differently,’” said Lazaridis.
She found a compatriot in Duva, the Arlington-based author of 2014’s “Faint Promise of Rain.”
“There’s a lot of very validated complaining going on in the writing world,” said Duva, of being ghosted by agents and editors and spurned by literary gatekeepers attracted to commercial sameness.
Duva and Lazaridis’ desire to bring other writers’ unique stories into the world was born out of their own experience as writers. The two women have life experiences that cross cultures, languages and origins. Lazaridis is “first-generation Greek” and grew up speaking Greek and French. Duva says she is “half Indian” and “half Jewish American” (with a father from Kolkata and mother from Brookline). She grew up in France and is multilingual. Both founders understand the difficulty of not being neatly categorized, personally and professionally.
“I’ve experienced having the book that editors say, ‘I love this book, [but] I don’t know where on the shelf it goes, I don’t have the editorial vision for it,’” said Duva.
Crossing genres and oceans
As writers, Duva and Lazaridis’ varied backgrounds have informed their novels. Now as publishers, they look specifically for books that similarly defy genre.
“There is beauty and richness to be found in these combinations [of identities], and those types of books are often being bypassed by publishers,” said Duva.
Trying to get a book in the world is like “chasing a moving target figuring out what publishing is working towards,” said Emily Ross, a writer in Quincy who was among Galiot Press’s first signed authors. Her book has been reviewed as a thriller, but Ross said her police procedural involves art and mythology and has a more “literary” style. “I was impressed with Galiot Press’ willingness to take books that they liked, looking specifically for books that crossed genres,” she said.
Daisy Rockwell, the Vermont-based author of the forthcoming “Alice Sees Ghosts,” says her novel is a “ghost story with a transnational family narrative.” She says she benefited from local publishers who were familiar with her story’s terrain.
Her novel is based in Massachusetts, but when it was originally published in India, it did not include names of local places. When Duva became Rockwell’s editor for the U.S. release, Duva wanted to infuse the novel with a sense of place and asked for more locations to be identified.
“Having a book rooted in its soil, and having editors who know the soil, is interesting and useful,” said Rockwell. “I hadn’t anticipated that angle until I worked with them.”
The “Galiot Way”
Ross and Rockwell both say they sensed a difference working with a smaller, local publisher.
To combat the ghosting problem, which leaves writers ignored by large publishers, the Galiot co-founders accept queries from writers whether they have agents or not, and promise a response within days. Once they decide to sign a writer, they share their rationale about different publishing decisions.
“Writers have so little access to information about how the industry actually works … and how it’s structured financially,” said Duva. She says that she and Lazaridis try to be “very transparent” in explaining to writers how the mechanics of publishing affect the press’ creative decisions. For example, how the cost of paper may determine the length of a manuscript.
Galiot Press notably prints on demand, and forgoes the industry’s standard of printing books before the publication date, which its co-founders say is financially risky and environmentally wasteful. Its co-founders note that if books don’t sell after a print run, sellers ship them back to publishers to be pulped, resulting in tons of waste a year.
“Would you be a cafe that made 200 lattes in the morning and then hoped that everyone who came into the store wanted a latte, and then if they didn’t, at the end of the day, you just pour them all down the drain?” asked Lazaridis. “We don’t want to be taking that financial risk.”
That financial cost of fronting a print run is what makes publishers conservative about what they do publish, says Lazaridis. She says the “Galiot way” of printing on-demand and selling directly to book shops and readers — allows the pair to take more artistic risks.
Taking a leap
Even for novelists whose stories came to life at Galiot, printing books on demand can still feel scary.
“It was definitely a risk for me,” said Ross of signing on with Galiot. “[My book] might not be picked up by any bookstores or be put on the shelf. People were going to have to go in and order it.”
But Ross appreciated how readily the Galiot team embraced her work.
“[My editor, Lazaridis,] really got my book, but also saw ways that I could expand it and lean in toward aspects that were different,” said Ross. “She gave me the courage. I knew by working with her, I was going to have the chance to make it a better book.”
In the end, working with Galiot felt like taking a stand against things that had long frustrated her.
“I really wanted to be part of changing things,” said Ross. “I was excited by the idea of taking a chance with them. To be part of making publishing better if they took off.”
Even though books published by Galiot are available on platforms like Amazon and large retailers like Barnes & Noble, Ross notes that the key challenge for all writers — selling books — still remains.
“That’s still a challenge with a smaller publisher,” said Ross, who has learned a lot about marketing and promotion because she’s done more of it on her own. “It’s pushed me way out of my comfort zone.”
For their second year of publishing, Galiot Press will release at least six new books in 2027. To support their publication, Lazaridis and Duva plan on expanding their offerings of local literary events. They include a series of fireside chats with authors at Cambridge Common House, a hotel outside of Harvard Square, and an already-established book karaoke night, where attendees read famous literary passages aloud at Juliet in Union Square.
Duva says the press is trying to be creative in the way it presents writers — to do something different than a bookstore reading, which is a more common way to promote titles from a larger publisher.
At least among local writers, their efforts are drawing attention.
“I’ve been watching the books they’re choosing. They’re choosing a very impressive slate of books that are very different from each other,” said Ross, who is at work on a new mystery.
“They’re building a lot of credibility within the local literary community … It’s helpful for me to say [my novel] was chosen by Galiot Press. I think they’re developing a recognition here.”
A stronger
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