Agate Publishing announced on Thursday that the Evanston, Ill.–based indie publisher is collaborating with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications to launch a new imprint. Medill Books will publish nonfiction by journalists, with its debut title scheduled for release in late 2026. Agate, a Chicago-based indie publisher, is anticipating at least two books to be released each season under the Medill imprint, a number which could grow in the future.
The mission of Medill Books, which is Agate’s sixth imprint, is to “develop a new outlet for journalists to produce ambitious longform work in a media climate where it’s increasingly challenging to do so,” according to a release. Joseph Medill, for whom the school and imprint are named, was an early editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
“I’ve published dozens of journalists during my career in book publishing, and before that I spent a decade working as a magazine editor and freelance writer myself,” said Doug Seibold, Agate president and publisher, who founded the press in 2002. “My hope is that this new imprint might become another sustainable channel for journalists to publish longform work of all kinds.” Seibold will serve as acquiring editor and primary liaison between Agate and Medill School of Journalism.
“We are excited that our partnership with Agate will provide us with another important avenue to support journalism and journalists by seeking out and publishing ambitious nonfiction work in book form," said Charles Whitaker, dean at Medill, in a statement. Medill will have a hand in approving acquisitions, while also promoting the imprint to journalists. In addition, Medill students will be able to intern at at the imprint.
Agate has already published a number of nonfiction books by Pulitzer Prize–winning Black journalists under its Agate Bolden imprint, which publishes African American literature, including Nick Chiles’s Justice While Black and Leonard Pitts Jr.’s Forward from This Moment. And since 2011, a partnership with the Chicago Tribune has produced approximately 20 print titles and 80 short e-books under the Midway imprint, which publishes books relating to the Midwest and Chicago. The line of books featured Tribune-derived works on various topics, as well as books by newspaper and magazine journalists.
Agate announced in its release that it is now open to proposals for reported nonfiction works that are between 10,000-30,000 words in length. Journalists wanting to submit their proposals should send them to submissions@agatepublishing.com, with the subject line “Medill Books proposal.”
