On the third floor of Martino Hall at Lincoln Center, a handful of offices are reserved for Fordham University Press staff who acquire, edit, publish, and promote 60 books a year—a remarkable feat for just 13 employees.
“People always say Fordham punches above its weight,” said Kate O’Brien-Nicholson, associate director and marketing and sales director. “We put out a lot of books for the team that we have.”
Historically, the award-winning, 118-year-old press—the oldest Catholic university press in the nation—focused on subjects central to Fordham such as religion and philosophy. Over the last two decades, it has built upon its legacy by carving out new areas of expertise.
A New York State of Mind
FUP Director Fredric Nachbaur arrived in 2009 via NYU Press, where he learned of the strong retail interest in Fordham’s New York-centric titles. Seeing the opportunity to better market those books, he launched Empire State Editions (ESE). Today it is recognized as the “premier New York imprint,” he said, with a “rich, robust list in New York history and culture.” One of its recent books, Movement: New York’s Long Battle to Take Back Its Streets from the Car by Nicole Gelinas, won the Gotham Award this year.
The success of Empire State Editions has attracted more recognition, and authors, for Fordham University Press. “We have to turn away so many [ESE] manuscripts at this point, because we can only print so many books,” said O’Brien-Nicholson, who has served 24 years at FUP.
New imprints have followed. Cutaways, a film studies book series launched this year by Tom Lay, senior acquisitions editor, focuses on one cinematic feature per volume, such as props, hotels, and blur. “It’s starting to take off,” said Nachbaur.
Ambassadors for Fordham
Fall is the busiest season for the press, when big book conferences crowd the calendar along with new releases. Together with her team, O’Brien-Nicholson plans, promotes, and attends multiple book events a month with the support of her team—such as the standing-room-only crowd that gathered in Greenwich Village on Friday, Oct. 17 for the launch of Miriam Chaiken’s Creative Ozone: The Artists of Westbeth, an insider’s portrait of the world’s largest, longest-running artists’ residence.
FUP participates in upwards of 150 book events like these a year—all of which helps to burnish the Fordham brand, said O’Brien-Nicholson.
“We’re the ambassadors for the press, and for Fordham, too,” she said.
Freedom of the Academic Press
Each FUP book is peer-reviewed and then approved by a board of 10 Fordham faculty members. Together they span a dizzying number of subjects. The African American memory of the Civil War; the queer, Gilded Age photographer Alice Austen (recently featured by NBC News); and a poetry collection about Nigeria’s turbulent past and present are just a few 2025 titles.
This range reflects FUP’s ability to pursue topics that commercial publishers shy away from. While sales on Amazon and to public and academic libraries generate a large share of FUP’s revenue, the University supplements its operations financially so it can focus on producing important work.
“We’re mission-driven and I’m grateful for that,’ said Nachbaur. “I feel the support is there for the books that we publish.”
Further Reading
More recent FUP titles to add to your list:
Grace of Ghosts by Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Ph.D., professor of theology
An Ordinary White by David Roediger
Here Down on Dark Earth, by Larry Racioppo
Giving an Account of Oneself by Judith Butler
