“There is something about independent publishing that works anywhere. I think that once people find that out, it opens up the whole world for them. It’s not like publishing is just six buildings in New York City. It’s a lot broader than that. It includes a lot more people.”
Quick Facts
Education: UNC Wilmington
Years of experience: 11 Years
About
The art of bookmaking has been a passion for Meg Reid’s for as long as she can remember. She found her love for the publication process in The Publishing Laboratory at the University of North Carolina Wilmington while working toward her M.F.A. From that experience, Meg moved on to Hub City Press, where she has served as the Executive Director for the last decade.
Originally from Maine, Meg realized that being involved in the publishing world did not have to be defined by one or two major cities alone. After being in Spartanburg with Hub City, she has become an advocate for independent and non-profit publishing. “It’s become really important for us as part of our mission,” she says, “to remind people that they don’t need to feel like they need to leave their home or their region or wherever to in order to do publishing. That doesn’t exist only in one place.
Meg is a huge proponent of “decentralizing publishing” in order to make it accessible for everyone. She prides the driving mission of Hub City Press, which is to highlight and represent writers of the American South, all the way from the top of Virginia, to the coasts of Texas, and everything in between.
She stresses the importance of patience in the publishing industry, detailing the eighteen-month long process it takes for a book to be born into the world. Meg remarks that, “if you like that feeling of assembling something with the team, that’s really the skill that you need, along with interest and love of books, in order to do well and succeed in publishing.”
