Our Mission

Today, a significant gap exists between literary publishers and strictly religious publishers. Literary publishers occasionally publish books of spiritual depth, but few, if any, set out to do so as a mission and raison d’être. Religious publishers, on the other hand, tend to publish work that offers little appeal to readers outside a particular ideological group. Orison Books is a non-profit literary press that aims to address this gap through its focus on the life of the spirit from a non-ideological standpoint.

 

Orison [“or-ĭ-sən”/“or-ĭ-zən”] is an archaic word that means “prayer.” We at Orison Books believe that the best spiritual art and literature call us to meditate and contemplate, rather than asking us to adopt any ideology or set of propositions. This type of art evokes the human experience of transcendence and explores the mysteries of being, and in so doing opens our minds and hearts to the divine and the possibility of becoming the fullest humans we can be. In our view, spiritual writing has little to do with subject matter. Rather, the kind of work we seek to publish has a transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience. Such work is not merely about spiritual contemplation, but itself leads the reader into profound contemplation. It is not merely about the sublime, but itself has a sublime effect on the reader. It is not merely about the mystery of being, but itself heightens the reader’s sense of the mystery underlying the fabric of our daily lives.

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Orison Books seeks to be broad, inclusive, and open to perspectives spanning the spectrum of spiritual and religious thought, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

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Orison Books will serve as a home for writers and readers of all backgrounds, religious or non-religious.

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We at Orison Books care deeply about the human impact on the environment. We print with a company that uses 100% solar and wind power, and our books are printed on paper made of 30% - 100% recycled material.

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Read recent interviews with Orison Books founder and editor Luke Hankins at The Curator and the Ploughshares blog.

 

Orison Books titles have been reviewed or featured in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, Foreword Reviews, Booklist, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Jewish Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, Poetry Daily, The Washington Independent Review of Books, Pleiades, River Teeth, Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and many other places. Our books have won The Chicago Review of Books Award for Poetry, The Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Essays, The Writers' League of Texas Award for Poetry, and The IPPY Silver Medal for Poetry, as well as being named finalists for The Kate Tufts Discovery Award, The National Jewish Book Award in Poetry, The William Saroyan International Prize, The Balcones Fiction and Poetry Prizes, The New Mexico Book Award in Poetry, and The Paterson Poetry Prize.

 

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