This morning, Seattle publisher Sasquatch Books announced that they've been acquired by New York publisher Penguin Random House for "an undisclosed sum." Sasquatch and Penguin Random House are not strangers to each other; the larger publisher has served as a distributor for Sasquatch since 2012, shipping the smaller publisher's titles to bookstores and marketing their upcoming books to retail buyers.

Sasquatch is not moving to New York; the press will maintain their offices and staff on 3rd Avenue downtown, and they will continue to publish titles — cookbooks, guidebooks, children's books, and so on — with a Northwest perspective.

“We are going to be the same Sasquatch Books as always, publishing great talent from the Pacific Northwest," Sasquatch publisher Gary Luke wrote me in an email yesterday. "We are still an independent publishing company with our own editorial, design, production, and marketing. It’s important to point out that Sasquatch will not become an imprint of Penguin Random House."

"So, to readers of the Seattle Review of Books, I say: Got a book idea? We’d like to hear about it,” Luke concludes. (Sasquatch's submission guidelines are posted on their About page.)

As for the immediate future, Sasquatch is publishing a full complement of local-interest books and/or books by local authors this fall. A pair of highlights: Pie & Whiskey is an anthology collecting readings from a popular literary series, edited by Spokane authors Kate Lebo and Sam Ligon. And David M. Buerge's Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name is described as "the first thorough historical account of Chief Seattle and his times." You'll be reading more about both those books right here in the weeks to come.