About Penfield
Penfield Press was founded in 1979 by Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret, an Iowa photographer and writer, and her late husband, John Zug, an editor and writer. The company is named in honor of the publisher’s grandmother, Eva Adora Penfield, daughter of a Civil War veteran and his wife who flipped a coin and decided to join the last covered wagon train west from Wichita, Kansas, to Bellingham, Washington, in the 1870s. 45 years and more than 140 titles later, we have sales throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2001, we founded a sister company called Penfield Books. Penfield Books publishes and distributes existing Penfield Press titles, as well as new titles with the Penfield Books imprint. Penfield continues to distribute not only its own titles, but also books of related topics from other publishers. Joan died in 2022 and was posthumously awarded the Governor’s Art Award by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. In September 2024 Joan received the “Iowa Women of Achievement Award” from Women Lead Change, and a permanent plaque was installed on the iconic ‘Iowa Women of Achievement Bridge’ in downtown Des Moines IA. Penfield Books has been operating since 2022 under the direction of its new owner, Joan’s Grandson, Forrest Heusinkveld.
Penfield has brought back into print selective writings of Selma Lagerlof, who, in 1909, became the first female writer (and the first Swede) to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Difficult to find in translation, her writings had been out of print for more than 60 years. She is noted for GOSTA BERLING’S SAGA, MEMORIES OF MARBACKA, and her wonderful children’s books about NILS the little boy who flew over Sweden with the geese. Penfield takes great pride in bringing these works by one of Sweden’s best-loved storytellers to readers in America.
In 2012, Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret’s autobiography won the Benjamin Franklin Award for the Autobiography/Memoirs category. More than 1,300 books were entered in that category. In 2009, we were recognized as a Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MIPA) 2008 prize winner for our title, License to Cook Missouri Style. The 19th Annual Midwest book awards attracted 149 nominations from 66 publishers in the 12 Midwestern states in our region. In 2008, Penfield was recognized as a Midwest Independent Publishers Association 2007 prize winner for our title, Recetas De Vieho Mexico: Recipes of Old Mexico. These titles are included in our popular 3-1/2 x 5-1/2″ Stocking Stuffer series. These books range in price from $6.95 to $8.95. We also stock larger 6 x 9″ titles for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
Among Penfield’s authors, Julie Jensen McDonald, Pat Martin, Louise Roalson, and Carol Van Klompenburg have all won top national honors in contests of the National Federation of Press Women for the books by these authors published by Penfield.
Penfield’s ethnic books are of primary interest to Americans of Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian Irish, Norwegian, Polish, Scottish, Slovak, Swedish, and Ukrainian descent. Several new titles are released each year. Penfield is dedicated to quality, accuracy, and to the production of books that are both exciting and useful to readers.