We’re interested in writing with a voice. That’s the simplest way to put it.

Beyond that, we do realize that the market has changed due to technology, people’s attention spans, and the competition from other forms of media. But rather than lament times past, we see this new reality as a possible opportunity.

We went to the roots of literature and asked some basic questions. What makes people keep reading? When do they stop reading a particular book? And why have some demographics—men in particular—almost completely given up on literature?

Most books today will never make it past the gatekeepers in agencies and publishing firms. It’s not because these books lack quality. It’s simply a matter of the marketplace, prevailing tastes, and politics. If something is considered potentially “offensive” or does not outwardly support the day’s trending political ideology, it will never see the light of day.

We oppose that kind of censorship.

We are not interested in the type of commercial fiction that would appeal to a big publisher. We are interested in doing what the big publishers, generally, refuse to do: giving a platform to talented writers who cause us to look at something familiar differently, or who take us somewhere we haven’t been before.

That can take many forms.

In fiction, we look to writers such as Hamsun, Kafka, Graham Greene, Kundera, Unamuno, Kerouac, Offill, Houellebecq — and to the short, compact side of writers better known for going long: Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 rather than Gravity’s Rainbow. Short novels, big ideas, unmistakable voices.

We like work that plays with form, which is untethered to any particular genre, that does not bow down to the latest political ideology, and which does something truly beautiful with words. We love books that are cinematic, where the story doesn’t get lost in the prose, and ideas that transcend clichés. We admire a precisely constructed novel heavy in metaphor and motif as much as a first-person stream of consciousness that plays with language and meter. The key is that it is original, well-written, and voice forward.

In nonfiction, we look to writers such as Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, George Orwell, and Roger Scruton—writers who can write about the human condition with expertise and thoughtful experience, while avoiding the dryness and pretension of academic literature. But we’re not looking only for books about philosophy, politics, or big ideas. Sometimes a book is simply a pleasure to read. The Most Beautiful House in the World by Witold Rybczynski, for example, is a wonderful book about architecture, building, and the experience of making a home. It doesn’t need to answer the great questions. It’s simply a beautifully written, intelligent book that makes you interested in something you might otherwise never have thought much about.

We also seek writers who have something for younger readers. Not books written down to them, but books that take them seriously.

I was thirteen when I read Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House. Wolfe changed the way I looked at buildings and gave me a greater appreciation for modern architecture and art. We need more books like this for young people—positive influences that spark an interest in art, science, technology, history, and exploration. Not manga. Not another book whose depressed protagonist questions their sexual identity. We need books that will foster curiosity and a passion for life in the next generation.

This is the kind of work that interests us.

In terms of format, we have a particular preference for short novels—ideally between 150 and 250 pages. Part of this is a rethinking of what a book should be: when Dickens and Dostoevsky were writing, it was for serialized stories meant to sell newspapers, and the length of the novel followed that mandate. There is no reason a novel needs to be over 500 pages when a trilogy would suffice.

But part of it is simpler than that. We’ve noticed that even genuinely engaged, intelligent readers increasingly struggle to finish long books—not because they’ve stopped caring about literature, but because modern life has reshaped how much sustained attention anyone has left to give it. A five-hundred-page novel can start to feel less like a pleasure and more like an obligation you’re quietly failing at. We don’t think that’s a failure of the reader. We think it’s a failure of the format. A book that respects your time isn’t a lesser book—it’s simply one built for how people actually read now.

But we are also looking ahead.

We’re interested in the online format and audiobooks, and in what happens when the technology itself becomes part of the reading experience.

We all love sitting down with a quality print of an original book, but the reality is that a lot of reading gets done on the metro on a tablet or cellphone. That is not going to change. And rather than fight technology, we are looking to make it work for us.

The technology may change. The format may change. The way we discover and experience books may change. But what doesn’t change is what we’re looking for: writers with an original voice who have something worthwhile to say.