Laura Chapman Hruska

Who was Laura Chapman Hruska?

Laura Chapman Hruska was an American lawyer, novelist, and co-founder and editor in chief of the Soho Press.

Born as Laura Mae Chapman in The Bronx, she was raised in Manhattan. After graduating from Cornell University, she attended Yale Law School. After a short career as an attorney, she quit to start a family and focus on writing. She published three novels. In 1986, she, her husband, Alan Hruska, and their friend, Juris Jurjevics, the former editor in chief of the Dial Press, founded Soho Press with the objective of publishing serious literature by authors who had yet to be discovered. The publishing house is unusual in accepting—and actually reading—unsolicited works.

One of Soho Press's notable discoveries was Breath, Eyes, Memory by the then-unknown Haitian-born author Edwidge Danticat. In 1994, the company started the Soho Crime imprint dedicated to mysteries with foreign settings. In 2008, it forged a partnership with Constable & Robinson to publish British crime fiction in the United States.

Hruska died on January 9, 2010 of cancer, aged 74, in Manhattan. She was survived by her husband, three children, six grandchildren and her sister.