Meet Unbridled Books
Frederick Ramey
Frederick Ramey works in Colorado as Co-Publisher of Unbridled Books. Previously, he and Greg Michalson were founding editors of BlueHen Books—Putnam’s erstwhile literary imprint—and through the 1990s Ramey was Publisher and Executive Editor of MacMurray & Beck, an award-winning independent press in Denver. Prior to working with M&B, Ramey co-founded—in 1982—Arden Press, an independent publisher of scholarly titles in women’s studies and film studies. He also serves as Executive Director of LeapingMan.org, a not-for-profit publisher in the arts. He holds a terminal degree in modern literature from The University of Missouri (1990). He is the author of a novel, Comes a Time, a collection of poems titled Within the angles of solace, which is forthcoming from Fomite Press, and of a monograph on a Colorado artist titled Charles Parson Drawing. He is also co-author with Marc Estrin of an editorial conversation: The Insect Dialogues (Leaping Man, 2017).
Greg Michalson
Greg Michalson is, with Fred Ramey, co-publisher of Unbridled Books. Previously they both founded BlueHen Books, an imprint of Penguin/Putnam. Greg was the General Editor of fiction at MacMurray & Beck (now McAdam/Cage), which developed a prize-winning novel series. He was the Managing Editor of The Missouri Review for almost 20 years, where among other duties he served as a fiction editor and for several years as poetry editor. He is the author of numerous prize-winning short stories and articles, his work has been mentioned in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prizes, and he is co-editor of a number of selected books including Conversations With American Novelists and For Our Beloved Country: American War Diaries.
The Lineage of Unbridled Books
Foremost, Unbridled Books is editorially driven. And we are known for providing real commercial support to the most gifted authors we know—throughout their careers. And, as we did at MacMurray & Beck, we maintain strong, supportive relationships with booksellers across the country, with the same consistency that marked our lists at M&B and at BlueHen Books. Readers will recall that in the past we brought to them such books as:
* Susan Vreeland’s bestseller, Girl in Hyacinth Blue
* Steve Yarbrough’s The Oxygen Man
* William Gay’s debut, The Long Home
* Susann Cokal’s Mirabilis
* Marc Estrin’s remarkable Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa
* Debra Magpie Earling’s award-winning Perma Red
* Elizabeth Dewberry’s compelling Sacrament of Lies
* Patricia Henley’s National Book Award finalist, Hummingbird House
* Rick Collignon’s widely acclaimed Guadalupe trilogy
* And many other equally notable books.
Through M&B and BlueHen, we published a great many titles lauded by reviewers and honored by prize committees, including books that won or were short-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN Hemingway Award, the Book Sense Book of the Year Award, several Mountains & Plains Regional Book of the Year Awards, two American Book Awards, The American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award, the National Book Award, and many others.
Our History
2003 - Unbridled Books is formed
Fred Ramey and Greg Michalson formed Unbridled Books in 2003, a renewal of our partnership dedicated to publishing high-quality works that are moving, beautiful, and surprising. We chose the name to designate a publishing venture that is both energetic and independent.
Unbridled Books is a premier publisher of works of rich literary quality that appeal to a broad audience. We want to be able to continue our longtime discussion about what allows a novel to touch our hearts and our minds at once. And we want our readers, booksellers, and reviewers to trust that when they pick up an Unbridled book, we’re inviting them to enjoy that rarest of pleasures, a good read.
2008 - Celebrating the First 5 Years of Unbridled Books
We’ve just reached our fifth year anniversary, and we are proud of all that’s happened. It remains an uncertain time for publishing overall. But we still believe it’s a promising era for commercial literary presses. The successes we’ve known so far look to us like testaments to a continuing passion for reading the kind of quality fiction we aspire to bring you. And the reviews and kudos our books have received tell us that we’re still doing the right thing at the right time. Selected (and recent) honors include the following:
—31 HOURS by Masha Hamilton (due out in September) was featured in Publishers Weekly’s Show Daily at Book Expo America
—The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson was a #1 Book Sense Pick
—In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld was a #1 IndieNext Pick
—Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel was reviewed in the daily New York Times, is a June IndieNext Pick, and is the July selection of the Twitter Book Club
—Shimmer by Eric Barnes (landing in stores in late June) is a July IndieNext Pick
—Madewell Brown by Rick Collignon was the first ever adult book selection for Reading the West!
Yes, the book industry is still overloaded with well-documented challenges. What keeps us going through it all? The love of a good story and the sound of an original voice. We hope that you will be as absorbed as we by the titles in our list.
2013 - Growth and Change
In 2013, Ramey and Michalson gained sole ownership of Unbridled Books, promising to continue the literary lines of fiction and memoir and to maintain the complete independence of the company. In the first year under their ownership, Unbridled published new work by Michael Mewshaw, Masha Hamilton, David Bajo, Nancy Zafris, and Ed Falco. They also published the debut novels of Elizabeth Huergo and Solveig Eggerz. Then there was the anonymous confessional dialogue called The Mistress Contract, which was adapted for The Royal Court Theatre by Abi Morgan.
2021 - Almost 20 years of Publishing
Check out the Our Books page on this new website by clicking on the above link, and you'll see what all we accomplished over the decades. We are proud of that record, proud of every book, and grateful to all the wonderful writers who entrusted their work to us over the years.
2024 - Our new website
You may have noticed our hiatus.
We're excited to be back with new releases in 2025 and beyond.
Watch this space.