High Risk Books was founded in New York City in 1993, as an imprint of Serpent's Tail

Serpent's Tail

Serpent's Tail is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It is notable for its translated works, particularly European crime fiction, and is the British publisher of Elfriede Jelinek and Lionel Shriver...

 Press of London. Started by Ira Silverberg

Ira Silverberg

Ira Silverberg is an influential literary agent and editor in the New York publishing business. Silverberg worked as a literary agent at Donadio & Ashworth, as Editor-in-Chief at Grove/Atlantic Press, and as editorial and publishing director at Serpent's Tail's U.S. projects, High Risk Books and...

 and Amy Scholder, who was then an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco. High Risk Books was dedicated to publishing innovative, provocative, and progressive literature. The publishing firm was united by its concern for certain subversive impulses, and in this spirit printed authors as diverse as William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Tim Dlugos

Tim Dlugos

Tim Dlugos was an American poet.Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, he grew up in Arlington, Virginia....

, Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer. She was strongly influenced by the Black Mountain School, William S...

, Diamanda Galas, Robert Gary Indiana, June Jordan, Cookie Mueller

Cookie Mueller

Dorothy Karen "Cookie" Mueller was an underground American actress, writer and Dreamlander, who starred in many of filmmaker John Waters' early films, including Multiple Maniacs,...

, Lynne Tillman

Lynne Tillman

Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, and two other nonfiction...

, John Giorno, Pagan Kennedy, Sapphire and many others. As a small press, High Risk played an important role in providing a space for many emerging writers who would otherwise have found it difficult to get published in mainstream, large houses. High Risk Books ceased operation in January 1997 because of disagreements with Serpent's Tail in London.