About Us
Finding Inspiration in Every Turn
Who We Are
We are an artists' cooperative press publishing literary fiction, memoirs rooted in history, novels, and short stories. We are also published in traditional format or in film and online. Some of our authors are former or current magazine editors. One author has been the founder and editor of a major scholarly journal in literature. We are members of the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild, the Dramatists Guild, and the Authors Guild. One author is a member of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, another appeared regularly on WNPR talking about books. Recently one author was honored by Yale University's Beinecke Library by having his work included in the Yale Archive of American Literature.
Our Purpose
We publish literary fiction, memoirs, short stories, poetry, and novels that have limited commercial appeal. They aim at what John Milton called, a "fit audience, though few."
Our Story
Bill Kelly, Norman Weissman, and Lee Jacobus founded Hammonnasset House Books years ago in 2007. Norman was a distinguished film director who wanted his books on historical subjects to find a home. Bill was the editor of a journal for natural history in the area of fish and wildlife and had a mystery he wanted published.
Lee had been publishing academic books for forty years with publishers like Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, Oxford, and more. But his fiction and poetry found their home here at Hammonasset Books. His novels center on a seaside town in Connecticut known for its quarry, which produced the base for the Statue of Liberty.
Dick Frattali’s career was in show business and he produced a number of short tales about life in Hollywood, and produced a best-seller through Hammonasset Books.
Richard Friswell is the most productive of the current members of the artist collective, with a series of books on the nineteenth-century trade in opium between Connecticut and China. His book on the Hudson River has been a best-seller.
Meet The Team
Our books are distributed internationally by Ingram
