Astra House

Astra House began in 2020 as the adult list of Astra Publishing House, a New York company set up that year with the backing of Thinkingdom Media Group, a Beijing publisher founded in 2002 by Chen Mingjun. Ben Schrank, formerly president and publisher of Henry Holt and earlier of Razorbill at Penguin Random House, was named publisher of Astra House and chief operating officer of the group. Early hires included Alessandra Bastagli, who came from the HarperCollins imprint Dey Street, as editorial director.

The imprint sits beside other divisions under the same roof. DAW Books, the science fiction and fantasy house founded in 1971 by Donald and Elsie Wollheim, joined the group in 2022. The children's list, Astra Books for Young Readers, has its own imprints, among them Calkins Creek and Wordsong. Astra House itself is the general literary list, and it describes its aim as publishing strong fiction and nonfiction writers from the US and around the world. Its editors reflect that: one, Patrizia van Daalen, previously ran the Chinese and English publishing operation at Penguin Random House China.

For a reader arriving from Early Sobrieties, the fit is easy to see. Michael Deagler's debut novel came out from Astra House on May 7, 2024. Its narrator, Dennis Monk, is twenty-six and seven months sober, and he drifts through South Philadelphia from one borrowed couch to the next. The book is told in loosely linked episodes rather than a tight plot, and it treats recovery as slow, daily, often funny work. A paperback followed in 2025.

The imprint also took part in a short-lived experiment: in 2022 Astra Publishing House launched Astra Magazine, a literary magazine edited by Nadja Spiegelman that ran for two issues.

What to expect from an Astra House book is a literary sensibility with an international outlook, backed by an editorial team drawn from established New York houses. Titles are chosen for voice and character more than for genre convention. If Deagler's wry, observant narration suited you, the imprint's current fiction and nonfiction lists are the place to look next.