History
Imprints
BrickHouse Books (formerly New Poets Series, Inc.) is Maryland’s oldest continuously operating small press. Founded in 1970, with Clarinda Harriss as its editor since 1973, BrickHouse publishes works of poetry, fiction, drama, or artistic nonfiction. BrickHouse Books continues to publish excellent, fresh, nontrendy, literate, intelligent material in any form or style.
After over 50 years of publishing, BrickHouse Books briefly closed for submissions in 2024 in preparation for the next phase of its evolution.
All of us here at BrickHouse Books are grateful for our authors, readers, designers, vendors, staff, interns, and all of those who helped host or support BrickHouse and our authors throughout the years.
Special imprints under BrickHouse Books included New Poets Series, Stonewall, Chestnut Hills Press, and Side Streets.
New Poets Series was devoted to the publication of first books by promising poets who have never had a collection of poems of over 30 pages published.
Stonewall was dedicated to publishing poetry from an LBGTQIA+ perspective. In addition to publishing book-length manuscripts, Stonewall also ran an annual chapbook competition. The prize was publication of the chapbook.
Chestnut Hills Press was reserved strictly for the top 10 percent of manuscripts rejected by BrickHouse. It was an author-financed division devoted to those who had to be turned down due to budget constraints. It was not a vanity press. Authors could not submit directly to Chestnut Hills Press.
Side Streets was reserved for submissions BrickHouse was fascinated by but simply could not figure out any way to categorize or even describe. Books published under this imprint may or may not have been author-financed. Authors could not submit directly to Side Streets.