Jeffrey Lependorf Named Executive Director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses

New York City— The Board of Directors of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), America¹s only membership organization devoted to serving independent literary publishers, has announced the appointment of Jeffrey Lependorf as its new Executive Director.

Lependorf has a long history working in the field of literary arts. From 1996­1998, he served as the Development Director of the Poetry Society of America. There he played an instrumental role in the national expansion of the Poetry in Motion program, which brings poems to subways and buses. More recently, Lependorf worked as Development Director for Creative Capital, an innovative foundation providing direct grants to experimental artists working in a variety of disciplines. He has also served as a consultant to a number of CLMP member publishers, including The Hudson Review, African Voices, and Open City, helping them secure foundation grants and develop individual donor campaigns.

Paul Yamazaki, Buyer for City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and CLMP¹s Board President, says "CLMP is very fortunate to have Jeff join us at this important time in the organization's history. Jeff's fundraising and program development experience will allow the organization to sustain excellence in programming as well as create dynamic new programs for the field."

Lependorf is thrilled to be leading CLMP at an exciting and challenging time for the organization and its membership. "The publishing industry is hurting right now," he says, "but I think that independent presses and magazines will benefit by not being beholden to purely corporate notions of success. CLMP can affect change by helping members reach new audiences. We can also find new ways to combine and share resources and expertise. And, as a united community, we can better articulate the importance of what literary publishers do so that potential funders develop stronger commitments to the field."

CLMP was founded in 1967 as the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, adding presses to its constituency in 1991. For nearly 35 years, CLMP has supported the country's diverse literary culture by nurturing the business and organizational capacities of literary magazines and presses. CLMP's membership includes emerging magazines such as Third Bed, presses such as Manic D Press, and on-line publishers such as Poetry Daily, as well as such well-known and established publishers as Graywolf Press, Dalkey Archive Press, Paris Review, and POETRY. Its diverse membership includes publishers with operating budgets of from less than $10,000 to more than $1 million, publishers in both rural and urban communities across the country, and publishers of every conceivable literary genre and aesthetic.

CLMP provides members with marketing and organizational conferences and workshops, one-on-one consulting opportunities, on-line and in-person discussion forums, and information services such as its Monograph series, on-line Newswire, and tri-quarterly newsletter. CLMP also informs funders, other arts groups, and the public-at-large about literary publishing's role in American culture; conducts and disseminates research on the field; and ensures that literature has a voice in the politics of cultural policy.

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