Astra Publishing House is dedicated to publishing books for children and adults that celebrate excellent storytelling, have a strong point of view, and introduce readers to new perspectives about their everyday lives as well as the lives of others.
What We Do
We advocate for authors, illustrators, and translators who experience their subject deeply and personally, and value works that are authentic, ask new questions, present counter-narratives and original thinking, challenge our assumptions, spark our imaginations, and broaden and deepen our understanding of the world.
Our Team
Astra Publishing House includes the adult literary imprint Astra House, dedicated to publishing the best fiction and nonfiction writers from the US and around the world; DAW Books, devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy; and Astra Books for Young Readers, which features the children’s book imprints Astra Young Readers, Calkins Creek, Hippo Park, TOON Books, and Wordsong.
Meet the Team
Benjamin Schrank
COO and Publisher of Astra House
Juliana Lauletta
Vice President of Operations
Jack Perry
Director of Sales and Analytics
Lisa Taylor
Senior Production Manager
Rachael Small
Publicity Director
Jane Handa
Associate Managing Editor
Elizabeth Koehler
Associate Production Manager
COO and Publisher of Astra House
Benjamin Schrank
Ben Schrank is publisher of Astra House and COO of Astra Publishing House. Ben was previously president and publisher at Henry Holt & Company and prior to that, president and publisher of Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House. At Astra, Ben has acquired fiction and nonfiction, including THE BATHYSPHERE BOOK by Brad Fox, SEEING by Chai Jing, LOOK OUT by Edward McPherson, and books by Royal Society of Literature Encore award winner Daisy Hildyard, August Prizewinner Lydia Sandgren and 20th Century renowned Chinese novelist and essayist Wang Xiaobo. Upcoming books include NEBRASKA by Monica Datta.
You can reach him at bschrank@astrapublishinghouse.com
Vice President of Operations
Juliana Lauletta
Juliana Lauletta is the Vice President of Operations for Astra Publishing House. Previously she was Vice President of Publishing for Astra Books for Young Readers, and published books such as Nikki Grimes’ Ordinary Hazards, winner of a Printz Honor and Sibert Honor, and Gail Jarrow’s Ambushed, winner of a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. Prior to that Juliana was Publisher and Editorial Director of Kane Press, where she worked as an editor for sixteen years, focusing on fiction and nonfiction books that combined educational content with engaging stories that were beloved by children, parents, and educators alike. She has edited award-winning series such as The Milo & Jazz Mysteries and Math Matters, which has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. She received her B.A. in English from Vassar College.
Director of Sales and Analytics
Jack Perry
Perry has been in the book industry his entire career. He has been VP of Sales at Random House, Scholastic, Highlights for Children, and Sourcebooks. He started his consulting firm 38enso Inc in 2010 and has advised over 50 companies from digital start-ups to Fortune 100 corporations. He also has been an adjunct professor at NYU for the past decade. He has been at Astra since 2018.
Senior Production Manager
Lisa Taylor
Lisa Taylor is Senior Production Manager at Astra Publishing House. She has worked in book publishing her entire career. Lisa was previously Production Director at Simon & Schuster Children’s Division for over 15 years, and worked at HarperCollins, Oxford University Press and Lonely Planet. Over the years Lisa has worked with numerous award-winning and best-selling children’s book authors and illustrators including Ian Falconer, E.B. Lewis, Betsy Lewin, Rosemary Wells, Jerry Pinkney and Shel Silverstein. Lisa joined Astra in 2020.
Publicity Director
Rachael Small
(she/her/hers)
Rachael Small is the director of publicity at Astra House and Astra Publishing House. At Astra, she has led campaigns for Alba de Céspedes’s New York Times Notable Forbidden Notebook (translated by Ann Goldstein), Tyriek White’s award-winning debut novel We Are a Haunting, Jesse Katz’s The Rent Collectors, and Andrea Abreu’s Dogs of Summer (translated by Julia Sanches), among others. She previously directed publicity for Europa Editions, where she led campaigns for numerous bestselling and beloved novels, including Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child (translated by Ann Goldstein). She is also an accomplished literary translator who has edited translations of novels by Négar Djavadi, Canék Sanchez Guevara, and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, and her translation of Abdellah Taïa’s short story collection, Another Morocco (Semiotext(e)) was dubbed a “notable translation” by World Literature Today.
Associate Managing Editor
Jane Handa
Jane joined Astra Publishing House in 2025 as the Associate Managing Editor for Astra House and Astra Books for Young Readers. She has worked on titles such as Dream Facades, Metropolitans, and The Oldest Bitch Alive.
Prior to Astra, Jane worked at Oxford University Press as a Project Editor. Outside of work, she plays in a community band and enjoys reading everything from literary fiction to local history.
Associate Production Manager
Elizabeth Koehler
Liz joined Astra Publishing House in 2021, and works as the associate production manager for Astra Books for Young Readers and DAW Books. She manages production for both frontlist and backlist titles, and has worked on titles such as The Empire of Silence Deluxe Edition, Zohran Walks New York and the Barnes & Noble special editions of Dragonfall and Emberclaw.
How We Got Here
2022 • DAW Books, award-winning publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, joins Astra Publishing House.
TOON Books joins Astra Publishing House.
2021 • Astra Books for Young Readers is formed as a division for all Astra children’s imprints. Boyds Mills Press becomes Astra Young Readers. Hippo Park is launched, led by Editorial Director Jill Davis.
2020 • Astra Publishing House is formed, made up of Astra House, Boyds Mills & Kane, and mineditionUS.
Astra launches its adult imprint, Astra House, headed by Publisher Ben Schrank.
2019 • Boyds Mills Press, Wordsong, and Calkins Creek merge with Kane Press to create Boyds Mills & Kane.
2016 • Kane Press is acquired by Thinkingdom Media Group.
2008 • TOON Books is launched by Françoise Mouly.
2004 • Calkins Creek, featuring fiction and nonfiction focused on the lesser-known stories of American history, is formed by Editorial Director Carolyn Yoder.
2004 • minedition is founded by Michael Neugebauer.
1992 • Kane Press, award-winning publisher of fiction and nonfiction books for children ages 2 to 11, is founded by Joanne Kane.
1990 • Wordsong, the only children’s imprint in the United States specifically dedicated to publishing poetry, is founded by Dr. Bernice Cullinan.
1990 • Boyds Mills Press is founded by Publisher Kent Brown and President Clay Winters.
1971 • DAW, the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy, is founded by Donald A. Wollheim and Elsie B. Wollheim.
Fraud Alert
Please be advised that scammers have targeted authors in attempts to solicit money and personal information. Some of these attempts have involved the fraudulent use of Astra Publishing House’s company and imprint names and logos. These emails are often sent from addresses that closely resemble APH’s. Please be vigilant and pay close attention to the sender’s email address and identity. If you have been targeted by email, the FTC recommends forwarding the phishing emails to reportphishing@apwg.org, an address used by the Anti-Phishing Working Group. If you have been the victim of such a scam, we encourage you to report the incident directly to the FTC: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov.
