About

Who we are

Soulmaker Press, a full-service, privately held, international publisher, works the space where intellect, science, the arts and the mystical converge to create new perspectives with deep implications.

Schopenhauer wrote that the truth comes in three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed and finally, it becomes self-evident.

Soulmaker Press focuses on the first two, creating an avenue for genius, both in writers and readers, to explore ideas of every kind. Inside of every work is a safe house where imagination, wisdom and insight play without rules and constraint. We are not here to conform; we are here to breakthrough into a state of union and communion between ideas and consciousness.

Based in California, Soulmaker Press draws upon the writing and editorial talents of the world as well as ever-evolving technology to deliver the highest quality reading experience possible, wherever books are sold.

Our Mission

We love beautiful words. We believe there is a beauty in truth. And that the truth is a multi-sensory experience. It hits you. You feel it. Beyond concept, beyond reason.

We love beautiful words. We believe they are the outgrowth of the eternal. Something to be honored as a sacred artifact. To be crafted and worked with. The beautiful words are the red thread of desire that can guide you both into and out of the labyrinth of the psyche.

We believe that the word is the vehicle that can transport us into the terrain of the sacred, the numinous and ineffable. It is for this reason that one of the guiding principles of our books is that we let the experience organize the process rather than applying the conventional writing formulas we are familiar with. We feel that the truth is perishable (as all beautiful things are) and thus need a new way to be expressed rather than the canned methods and easy 1, 2, 3 solutions.

Our work is rooted in discovery and art rather than transformation. We approach spirituality as an art rather than a duty.

And just as with art, our books include what is often taboo or verboten. We do not shy away from the difficult. We do not want to ban anything: a thought, a person, an idea. We do not want to censor art. We in fact want to use art in its highest order: to reveal what passes as truth that is in fact manufactured through high ideas that do not match the map of reality. And, to re-integrate what we would attempt to exile, banish or reject, that we may live a more robust, honest and accurate expression of nature.

For this reason, we focus in large part on the “other side” of reality, the unexamined, the discarded. We take special interest in the shadow, in the unconscious, in the creative process, in a feminine system of order, non-rational in nature, that is just as accurate if not more so than the common system of logical order of classifications and thou shalts. We do not intend to displace any expression, only offer a fuller, more whole perspective, an alternative and yet rigorous angle or lens through which to see life.

It is for this reason our work is rooted in the principles of Eros as a philosophical underpinning. In classical mythology, Eros was one of the fundamental causes of the formation of the world, inasmuch as he was the uniting power of love, which brought order and harmony among the conflicting elements of which Chaos consisted. Precisely because it includes the world of spirit, the world of soul, the body, the profound and the profane, it may be that Eros can offer a much- needed perspective of unity that we are solely lacking in the world.

We view books as food for the soul, and soul food is what we aim to deliver. We aim for the secret, the mystery, to underworld, to underbelly, and expose a vast and rich territory of ideas from Eros to psychedelics, from a gangbanger to a rogue Zen priest, from a set of sutras to steep in to a perspective on cult that pre-dates Christianity and each book invites us into a view of community, tending to earth, and a view of incarceration rooted in the words tikkun olam, the repair of the world through good deeds.

That moment of illumination that marks the soul, the meaning behind “ole!” or “abracadabra!”, the luminescence that shines through an Olympic athlete or what forms between jazz musicians, what nuns call unio mystica (being at one with the divine) and shaman spend a lifetime cultivating. This is what we aim to capture in each of our offerings that as a world community we may trade in magic rather than mere coin.

OUR GENRES OF BOOKS

Nonfiction
Spirituality
Health/Wellness
Women’s Issues
Social Reform
Memoir
Science

Our Team

Ira Silverberg
Ira serves as Publisher at Soulmaker Press. He is the founder of High Risk Books, former Literature Director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Ira’s expertise and passion lands at the cross section of publishing culture-shifting literature and empowering voices on the margins of society.
Kathleen Ivanoff
Kathleen is a senior editor at Soulmaker Press. She brings her unique background as Editor, Program Director, and Instructor at Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center, alongside being an instructor of Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University. Her interests lie in the study of emptiness and Eros as a feminine and complimentary path toward that state.
Beth Wareham
Beth is an editor and publicist at Soulmaker Press. Prior to Soulmaker, Beth spent 15 years in the commercial publishing houses of New York City as a publicist and editor at Scribner, the Simon and Schuster imprint. She’s worked on multiple Soulmaker Press books including it’s first-published book, Art of Soulmaking: Prison Edition, which she teaches inside of prisons.
Marcus Ratnathicam
Marcus serves as President of Soulmaker Press. He spent over a decade studying, teaching, and developing an affiliate business at OneTaste, before becoming Executive Director of Unconditional Freedom, Soulmaker’s affiliated non-profit organization in 2020. His passion lies in bringing forward the Sutras, their derivative works, and adjacent voices, to the global arena of spiritual and religious thought, and the application of Eros philosophy toward creating a better world we all want to live in.
Courtenay Lapovsky
Courtenay is the managing editor for Soulmaker Press. She has spent a decade in deep study of Eros philosophy while overseeing production for hundreds of Eros-related workshops and training seminars. She holds a Master’s degree in Special Education and spent twelve years as a teacher. She is fascinated by words, language, and the way people learn, and has a passion for bringing the language and philosophy of the Feminine into the world.
Yia Vang
Yia is an editor and writer for Soulmaker Press. She has over 15 years of experience teaching thousands of individuals Orgasmic Meditation and various aspects of the Eros philosophy. She has a passion for exploring the intersection of intimacy, personal growth, and spiritual exploration. Yia is also a writer currently working on her first book, which is a unique blend of Hmong culture, food, her upbringing and personal insights, with various lessons from the Eros Sutra laced within the narrative.
Omari West
Omari is an editor at Soulmaker Press. Omari bridges his unique upbringing in the culturally rich neighborhood of Shaw, Washington D.C. within a strict Islamic faith, with his 20 years experience as a writer focusing on politics, business, and international affairs. He’s ghostwritten for Heads of State, sitting members of Congress, Presidential candidates, and The Undersecretary of the U.N. Omari is interested in the exploration of politics, social justice, and emerging belief systems which hold promise in addressing the world’s most pressing issues.
David Ord
David is an editor for Soulmaker Press. In other roles, David served as Editorial Director for Namaste Publishing for ten years. He brings with him extensive study in theology and religion, having graduated from the Theological Union of Berkeley, the San Francisco Theological Seminary, and served 19 years as a minister. He has authored several books including coauthoringThe Coming Interspiritual Agewith Dr. Kurt Johnson.
Kelly Madrone
Kelly is an editor at Soulmaker Press. Herself an award-winning author, she works on several Soulmaker manuscripts drawing on her roots in scholarly publishing including topics like psychology and cognition, developmental psychology, and neuropsychology. Kelly supports the Humane Society of the United States and is passionate about the intersections of animals, the human animal, and nature.
Marie Jones
Marie is a best-selling author of non-fiction and fiction, and a screenwriter/producer with her own company, Where’s Lucy? Productions. She has appeared on television and on radio shows all over the world, and has hundreds of credits writing for magazines, guest blogs, reviews, short stories, online articles, and gift books. She has lectured widely on the paranormal, unknown anomalies, cutting edge science, metaphysics, and human consciousness.