Jack Shoemaker, founding editor and senior v-p of Counterpoint Press, has retired from his full-time position. He will continue with selected projects as Counterpoint’s editor-at-large.
Shoemaker began his career as a bookseller in 1965 and went on to manage such California–based bookstores as Unicorn Bookshop, Serendipity Books, and Sand Dollar.
In 1979, Shoemaker cofounded North Point Press, in Berkeley, Calif. In 1991, he joined Pantheon, where he served as the west coast editor of the Knopf Publishing Group, and three years later he cofounded Counterpoint Press in Washington, D.C.
Over the course of his career, Shoemaker published such authors as Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, MFK Fisher, Guy Davenport, James Salter, Barry Lopez, Anne Lamott, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Robert Hass, Banana Yoshimoto, and more.
In 1981, PW gave him the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing, and in 2013, PubWest awarded him the Jack D. Rittenhouse Award for lifetime achievement and contributions to the Western book community. In addition to his various publishing endeavors, Shoemaker chaired the National Endowment of the Arts and was on the board of the Western States Arts Foundation.
“Jack Shoemaker is a legend who has brought some of our most essential American voices into print," said Catapult book group publisher Alyson Forbes. Counterpoint merged with Catapult in 2016. "His influence on both California-based publishing and the publishing industry as a whole is incalculable.”
