Manga Mavericks Books adds Erica Friedman as Managing Editor

Manga Mavericks Books has tapped Yuri scholar and longtime critic Erica Friedman as its new Managing Editor, a hire that signals the North American publisher is gearing up for a serious expansion.

The Culver City-based imprint announced the move today, framing it as the next step after a breakout debut year. Since launching in 2025, Manga Mavericks Books has built its catalog around indie titles like Horon of the Closed Country by Sen and FISHGOD by Chlona, and CEO Varun Gupta says that momentum is only accelerating. The company is targeting more than 40 releases in 2027, spanning alternative, shojo/josei, LGBTQ+, and classic manga from Japan.

"Erica's passion for manga and dedication to our mission to surface unique stories in the industry make her the perfect addition to our team," Gupta said, adding that her "drive and talent" will be central to hitting that aggressive release slate.

If the name rings a bell, it should. Friedman is one of the most credentialed voices in Yuri criticism working in English today. She holds a Master's in Library Science and a B.A. in Comparative Literature, and has spent decades building out the scholarly and critical infrastructure around the genre — lecturing at MIT, Harvard, the University of Illinois, Kanagawa University, and Keio University, among others, and presenting at festivals including the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Her byline history reads like a map of Yuri's slow march into the mainstream: the Japanese literary journal Eureka, Animerica, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Dark Horse, Del Rey, plus outlets like Forbes, Slate, The Huffington Post, Hooded Utilitarian, Anime Herald, and The Mary Sue. She's currently a staff writer at Anime News Network, and has run her own blog, Okazu, since 2002 — covering Yuri anime, manga, and news with a consistency few critics in the space can match.

She's also the author of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga, from Journey Press, a contributor to DK's Manga: A Visual History, and her writing recently appeared in the Japanese-language Hajimete no Yuri Studies: Queer/Feminist no Shiten Kara (はじめての百合スタディーズ: クィア/フェミニストの視点から).

"I am incredibly excited to be working with Manga Mavericks," Friedman said. "With the amazing team they have built and such wonderful books, I look forward to being part of a company that is destined to have a positive impact on the English-language manga world."

Given her track record, the hire reads less like a standard editorial add and more like a statement of intent — particularly for a publisher whose 2027 slate explicitly includes LGBTQ+ titles.