Co-founder of Cinco Puntos Press Bobby Byrd passed away at age 80

on Jul 13, 2022

Co-founder and publisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, Texas, Bobby Byrd passed away recently. He was 80. The publisher and poet retired the previous year after selling their publishing company to Lee & Low Books with his wife, Lee Merrill Byrd. The publishing business was founded in 1985 and quickly rose to prominence as a counterculture movement, specialising in authors from the borderlands who were not widely known.

Byrd was born in Memphis and lost his father when he was seven years old in an aircraft crash. Before turning to publish, he worked as an academic and a poet.

Publishing Joe Hayes' La Llorona/The Weeping Woman helped the business establish a reputation in the marketplace, something that Byrd was very pleased with. Every Mexican and Mexican American child grew up hearing this classic tale. We first encountered multilingual children's books when Joe asked that it be bilingual. We were struck by the Mexican diaspora wave that swept the nation as a whole from the border. More than 500,000 copies of the book have been sold in various editions.

The Story of Colors by Subcomandante Marcos, a revolutionary from Chiapas; Selavi, That Is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope by Youme; Pitch Black: Don't Be Scared by Youme; Vatos by Luis Alberto Urrea; Sammy & Juliana by Benjamin Alire Sáenz; and Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero were among the other books published by the company. Among the thousands of authors, Byrd published were the poets Joseph Somoza, Rudolfo Anaya, and Dagoberto Gilb.

Byrd collaborated extensively with his wife Lee and son Johnny as well as the rest of his family. Byrd admitted to PW after selling his business, "When we began out, I read a how-to book about publishing. We just did what we felt like doing and what we thought was incredibly interesting because we didn't know anything else. The first thing I say now when someone asks for our advice on how to launch an independent publishing company is, "Don't!" But if you do, especially if you live somewhere remote like El Paso, I advise them to first study everything they can about the publishing business. Have a few dollars in the bank and nice pals. Possibly a second source of income. It's a turkey shoot, keep in mind.

It's a turkey shoot, keep in mind. The truth is that publishing is already an odd and unstable sector, and it will only get more so, especially for the smaller businesses.

We would do it all over again, he continued. It was a remarkable voyage full of amazing friends and writings that expanded our hearts and minds with a fresh perspective of the place where we all dwell, the earth.

White Panties, Dead Friends & Other Bits & Pieces of Love (2006), and Otherwise My Life is Ordinary are two of his published works (2014). His wife and three kids are left behind.