Brendan Dowling Author Archive
Email: bdowling@ala.org

Lisa Cooper And Bremond Berry MacDougall On Influencing The Literary Canon With Quite Literally Books
Lifelong friends Lisa Cooper and Bremond Berry MacDougall turned their shared passion of reading into Quite Literally Books, a publishing company designed to draw attention to critical works by authors who have not enjoyed the lasting critical attention they deserve. Their first three books—Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset, The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and The Pink House by Nelia Gardner White—are all terrifically engaging novels primed to be rediscovered by readers. With the reissuance of these books, Cooper and MacDougall hope to spark a conversation among readers about who gets included in the literary canon and who gets left out. We spoke to MacDougall and Cooper about how their company came about, plans for future books for the company, and how reading gives people permission to talk about difficult topics.