About Lazarus Media Publications
Lazarus Media is the realization of Editor Reg Van Hirtum's longtime dream to start a book publishing company. After retiring from a successful business career, including owning The Luna Cafe in Summerland, California, Van Hirtum launched Lazarus in 2025. As a voracious reader and fan of such writers as Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith, Don DeLillo, Aimee Bender, Rachael Kushner, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, he is looking to publish bold storytellers who take risks in what's increasingly become a risk-averse business. The first books from Lazarus are by Santa Barbara authors, Shelly Lowenkopf and Max Talley, but Van Hirtum plans to publish great writers from across America.
My relationships with publishers takes me back to the days when publishers were limited to cranky typewriters and smelly mimeographs. Then they got computers, which added a sense of superiority. Then came the Internet and the opportunity to escape that great bugbear, the printed catalogue. This left them free to be cordial, but at a distance. In all my dealings with Lazarus to date, I've had nothing but immediate and positive results, at times even to the point of providing me with coffee. Go figure.
- Shelly Lowenkopf, Author
History of Lazarus Media Publications
A publishing staple in California, Lazarus Media Publishers has been providing readers traditional, and non-traditional, titles across the literary fiction and literary nonfiction spectrum. Our titles represent thought and writings in representation of the most current and boundary challenging forms, without ignoring tradition.