A self-described Black/Brown female-led press, 2Leaf Press seeks manuscripts that “inform, entertain, educate, inspire, and connect to readers everywhere,” says founder and editor Gabrielle David, who is particularly interested in submissions with “well-written and tight presentation that also consider the audience.” A little more than a decade ago, David launched 2Leaf as an imprint of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars (IAAS), a New York City–based nonprofit dedicated to advancing literature for diverse readers. David’s work editing the nonprofit’s quarterly publication, Phati’tude Literary Magazine, led her to book publishing, and in 2012, 2Leaf issued its first title: Hey Yo! Yo Soy! by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, a founder of the Nuyorican poetry movement. Since then 2Leaf has published dozens of poetry collections, memoirs, travelogues, works of political nonfiction, and the occasional fiction title.
Today David leads a volunteer editorial staff of five that aims to release between four and ten titles each year. No longer affiliated with IAAS, 2Leaf now operates as an independent nonprofit press with offices in New York City. No-fee submissions are accepted year-round via e-mail. Recent titles include Claire Millikin’s Dolls (2021), a poetry collection David described as “a scathing confrontation of gendered and racial oppression, with the emotional center of the book an elegy for Sage Smith, an African American trans woman who disappeared from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2012.” In 2020, 2Leaf published Carolyn L. Baker’s An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility, which explores a woman’s awakening to white privilege and her road to becoming an ally in the cause against racism. Ray DiZazzo’s Tropic Then, a collection of poems and short fiction to be released in April, takes readers from the Brazilian rain forest to the streets of Los Angeles in a meditation on humans’ relationship with nature.
