Hill Street Press was founded in 1998 by four individuals with extensive experience in the book publishing, bookselling, magazine publishing, and graphic design fields.
President & Publisher
Thomas Payton is a founding principal of Hill Street Press with experience on both the publishing and retail sides of the industry. He is responsible for oversight of the day-to-day operation of the company including all financial management, production, marketing, publicity, sales, and subsidiary rights activities. In addition, Payton jointly participates in all editorial decisions made for Hill Street Press and acquires titles for publication.
Payton has extensive relationships with newspaper, magazine, and Internet editors nationally and overseas, as well as with television and radio producers. He has made arrangements for thousands of author appearances at bookstores as well as at book festivals, historical societies, museums, and other venues. Payton has negotiated numerous agreements for paperback reprint, film/television, foreign language, serial, electronic book, and book club subsidiary rights. He has served on the board of the Publishers Association of the South (PAS) and the Georgia Center for the Book, and speaks regularly at numerous conferences, conventions, and festivals within the industry.
Previously, Payton has held senior management positions with the University of Georgia Press, the Architectural Book Center, and Oxford Bookstores (now defunct).
Payton is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He lives in Athens, Georgia and in his rare spare time away from the company he reads a lot (favorites are pop culture/history, biographies, architectural/urban history, and some fiction), plays softball and tennis, enjoys camping and hiking, and spends time in Atlanta.
Vice President & Editor-in-Chief
Judy Long is a founding principal of Hill Street Press and has been in the book business on both the publishing and retail sides of the industry. She is responsible for oversight of the editorial operation of the company including manuscript evaluation and the acquisition and preparation of manuscripts for publication. She participates in marketing and sales promotion efforts. Long has edited several anthologies published by Hill Street Press and regularly attends writers workshops and conferences in the South seeking manuscript submissions for the Press.
Long was previously the manager of the nationally-acclaimed Old Black Dog Bookstore in Athens, Georgia, where she was responsible for day-to-day operations including staffing, financial management, inventory control, buying, publicity, and planning for special events. Long also operates Byhalia Books, a traveling literary salon sponsoring author readings and book signings at locations in the Athens area. She also writes a regular book news column for Flagpole Magazine and supports the activities of "Writer's Bloc," an Athens writers group. In addition, she contributes to the Oxford American's "Uncle Art" column and serves on the board of the Georgia Center for the Book, the Stanley W. Lindberg Award, and the Athens-Clarke County Library and is a member of AWP and the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Long is a native of Asheville, North Carolina and a graduate of the University of Georgia, where she specialized in the study of Southern literature.
We have been fortunate to benefit from the fine contributions made by our interns. Interns typically join Hill Street Press for a semester at a time, though some have chosen to stay longer. We are indebted to them for their commitment and especially pleased that so many of them have chosen to pursue careers in publishing, journalism, and bookselling.