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Who

Formerly the head of the DUMBO-based indie publishing house Soft Skull Books, Nash stepped down from the company in 2009.

Backstory

A native of Southern Ireland, Nash left home for Harvard in 1988 and never looked back. After years as a performance artist and experimental theater director, in 2001 he took over Soft Skull Press from its punk rock founder (and erstwhile mayoral candidate) Sander Hicks. Nash had his work cut out: The company had been run into the ground, and there was debt to the tune of $250,000. Over the following five years, he managed to raise the profile of Soft Skull by continuing to publish writers from the radical left—David Rees' comic book satire Get Your War On was a big seller in 2003—and by bolstering the press's reputation for breaking out literary fiction overlooked by the mainstream. But Nash's willingness to publish the edgy and un-commercial meant never quite getting into the black. Consequently, no one was very surprised when, in May 2007, it was announced that the press had been bought by Winton Shoemaker LLC, which also acquired Counterpoint Press from Perseus Book Group. Nash spent the next two years responsible for the editorial direction of Soft Skull and worked as the executive editor of Counterpoint, before stepping down from the company in 2009.

Of note

Nash had a few moderate hits in his last few years at Soft Skull. After he published Oh Pure And Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet in 2005, the novel's paperback rights were snapped up by Harcourt imprint Harvest, and Millet signed a separate contract with HarperCollins Canada. The Sleeping Father by Matthew Sharpe in 2003 was rejected by 20 other houses before Soft Skull put it out to great acclaim, including selection for the Today Book Club. Sharpe's latest novel, Jamestown, was published in hardback by Soft Skull with a Harvest paperback deal negotiated by Nash.

Personal

Nash lives with Brooklyn with his second wife Zoë, an intellectual property lawyer.