Dottirs

JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER got her start in publishing fresh off the train from Fargo in 1993 at Ms. magazine, where she met future Dottir-colleagues Erin Wade and Anastasia Higginbotham. Jennifer left Ms. to write articles (Glamour, Teen Vogue, Bust, New York Times, The Nation, etc.) and books (Manifesta, Grassroots, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, etc.) and to make the documentaries I Had an Abortion and It Was Rape. In late 2017, after four years as ED of the Feminist Press, she launched Dottir with her husband Michael. Sons Skuli and Magnus work part-time in the Dottir Press mailroom.

LARISSA MELO PIENKOWSKI, assistant publisher of Dottir Press, has worked with Jennifer since Dottir's start. She holds a Bachelor’s in Social Work from Simmons University and a Master’s in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. When she's not editing for Dottir or dealing with Coresource, she freelance edits and reps authors at Jill Grinberg Literary Management. As the queer daughter of Brazilian and Polish immigrants, she speaks Portuguese and Spanish and is always thrilled to work on books having to do with diaspora, migration, and LGBTQ+ identities, among other topics. She lives in Philadelphia with her fiancée and their very furry husky Olaf.

KAYLA BERT has been working author events and book fairs with Jennifer since pre-Covid days, and leads social media for Dottir Press since 2019. A 2020 graduate of Penn State University (double major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Psychology), Kayla credits radical reproductive justice (theorized by women of color) as inspiring her work as a full-spectrum doula and reproductive health educator. You can find her at kaylabert.com.

KAIT HEACOCK, publicist and literary organizer, has collaborated with Jennifer since 2015. Kait is the author of the 2017 story collection Siblings and Other Disappointments and is a frequent contributor to the Women's Review of Books, among other venues. She lives and works in Seattle, but is always game to fly to New York, Minneapolis, and Nashville for sales conferences.

DREW STEVENS, art director and Gemini, hails from Louisville, Kentucky. He has lived in New York for more than twenty years and has been designing books for almost thirty. He and Jennifer worked together at Feminist Press, too. Some of his book designs can be viewed on his website studiodrew.nyc.

ERIN WADE has been helping Dottir founder Jennifer Baumgardner bring project ideas to life since the 1990s, after the two met as interns at Ms. magazine. An artist, designer, teacher, and non-profit gallery director, she currently helps out with our website and social media from her home office in Chico, California.

NOELLE MCMANUS began working for Dottir in 2018, at the age of eighteen. In 2021, they graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with majors in Spanish and Linguistics and a minor in German. A translator, writer, and poet, Noelle adores books of all kinds from all around the world.