Summary
Anitra Budd is currently the Executive Director and Publisher of Coffee House Press. She is also an experienced freelance copywriter, editor, educator, and public speaker, whose past clients include Graywolf Press and New Directions Publishing as well as marketing agencies, universities, and magazines. As former managing and acquiring editor at Coffee House from 2009 to 2014, she championed the work of award-winning and critically acclaimed authors including T. Geronimo Johnson, Julie Iromuanya, Christopher Merkner, and Lincoln Michel, among others.
Through her time with Coffee House and her freelance business, she has worked with more than three hundred authors and shepherded dozens of books from contract to publication. Her recent work in academia includes teaching editing for MFA students as well as teaching undergraduate courses at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College.
She has written several educational books for children, most recently Blacks in Paris: African American Culture in Europe (Abdo Publishing, 2018; coauthored with Duchess Harris, JD, PhD). She holds BA and MA degrees from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has presented on publishing and editing topics at a variety of venues, including The Thread on Minnesota Public Radio, Columbia College’s Story Week, SUNY–Binghamton, Hamline University, and the Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable.
Education
- B.A., Latin; M.A., Strategic Communications, University of Minnesota