Melinda Gates speaks at the Lin-Manuel Miranda In conversation With Bill & Melinda Gates Panel... [+] at Hunter College, February 13, 2018, in New York City. Getty Images
Melinda French Gates, philanthropist, is starting her own publishing imprint.
Macmillan announced in a press release that Moment of Lift Books will publish nonfiction across a wide range of fields to promote equity for women, girls and boys. The name is a reference to French Gates' 2019 memoir, The Moment of Lift : How Empowering women Changes the World.
French Gates stated that while we have made great progress in gender equality over the past decades, the COVID-19 epidemic continues to adversely impact womens lives, livelihoods, and health. Moment of Lift Books will publish visionaries and leaders who help ensure that women's voices are heard as the world strives for an equitable recovery.
In 2023, the imprint's first three titles will be published. Jina Krause–Vilmar, President and Chief Executive Officer of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that supports immigrants and refugees, is publishing a book on the systems that keep refugee females at the economic margins. David Moinina Sengeh will also write about the struggle to allow pregnant girls to go to school in Sierra Leone. And Joanne N. Smith, founder and CEO of Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit Girls for Gender Equity, is writing about how our culture imperils the lives and health of Black girls/gender-expansive young people.
Elle claims that French Gates suggested her own imprint when Macmillan approached her to discuss a follow up to her memoir. She also mentioned her investment firm Pivotal Ventures. Pivotal invested in Female Founders Fund which supports female-founded businesses; Ellevest, a women-focused investment platform and other organizations advancing women. Forbes estimates that she is now worth $5.9Billion after divorce from Bill Gates, Microsoft cofounder.
French Gates is not the first celebrity to have her own imprint. Flatiron's Oprahs imprint has been publishing non-fiction books since 2015. These include Ashley C. Fords memoir, Somebodys Daughter, and Tarana Burkes memoir Unbound, My Story of Liberation, and the Birth of the Me Too Movement.
