May 07, 2019
Two alumni guide growth, reach of Catholic media publishing business
By Ealish Brawley ’14
Many Providence College students complete the extensive reading list in the four-semester Development of Western Civilization Program with a deep sense of relief. Two recent graduates are not only making happy returns to that reading list but also hope to publish classic books that could be on the same list.
John Clarke ’15 and Scott Thompson ’14, ’18G have made it their mission to provide readers with copies of texts foundational to Western culture that have gone out of print — in the hope of advancing the intellectual and cultural tradition of Catholic education. They bring complementary skills and expertise to their Catholic media publishing company, Cluny Media, which is based in Providence.
Clarke’s father, Leo Clarke, founded Cluny in 2015 with the help of an investor who wished to donate time and capital to an evangelization initiative. Communicating the truth of the Gospel has always been the mission of the company, which coined itself “Publishers for the Front Line of the New Evangelization.”
The company’s namesake is the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, founded in 910 and whose monks painstakingly preserved great works of Western thought. Taking its inspiration from those works, Cluny’s goal is to make out-of-print or unavailable texts accessible to readers in quality, affordable editions. The publisher specializes in scholarly and popular works in theology, philosophy, literature, history, and science. It currently has a catalog of more than 100 books.
Clarke and Thompson, friends from the time they met in Clarke’s first year at PC, were involved with Cluny Media from its inception. Clarke, who had just graduated from the College’s Liberal Arts Honors Program with a degree in philosophy and a minor in classics, worked part time as its director of production while working full time in research editing for a congressional think tank in Washington, D.C. Thompson, with bachelor’s degrees in finance and theology and an MBA, was working full time for Bank of America in Providence when he began to manage Cluny’s finances on a part-time basis.
In January 2017, Clarke and Thompson purchased Cluny Media and assumed management. Clarke is now the full-time editor-in-chief and Thompson the part-time CFO.
In running Cluny Media, Clarke and Thompson said their expertise in different fields is complementary. Clarke’s study of philosophy and involvement in the honors program has informed his understanding of the Catholic spiritual tradition and the canon of Western thought, while his experience in editing and publishing prepared him for the formatting and proofreading tasks necessary in book production.
Thompson’s knowledge of finance and business has served him well as he manages the company’s finances. He continues to work in the banking world, having recently moved to Santander, but hopes that within the next few years he will transition to Cluny full time.
Cluny Media has experienced a rapid growth in productivity since its founding nearly 3½ years ago. During its first full year, 2016, Cluny published 30 books. The company’s goal for 2019 is to publish five new books a month.
Another measure of Cluny’s success is the relationships the company is building with booksellers and universities across the country, said the partners. In addition to selling on its website (clunymedia.com) and on Amazon.com, its books are carried by brick-and-mortar bookstores.
As more professors discover that out- of-print texts they desire to teach are now available, Cluny’s books have begun to pop up in syllabi, university libraries, and college bookstores. Texts are carried by PC’s Barnes & Noble College Bookstore and by more than a dozen other colleges, including Harvard University and the University of Notre Dame. More than two-dozen bookstores across the United States, Canada, and Europe stock their books.
In a similar vein, Cluny’s texts were used this spring by classes in the College’s honors program and by the departments of English and theology.
Clarke and Thompson attribute their belief in Cluny’s mission to their studies at Providence College.
“My studies with the Dominicans and the professors at Providence College instilled in me a profound appreciation of the Catholic literary and intellectual traditions, as well as an understanding of the complexity of human history and the human experience. That appreciation and understanding guide the daily workings of Cluny Media,” said Clarke.
“The company is really an extension of what we learned was true, good, and beautiful at Providence College,” added Thompson. “Our education at PC is the bedrock of Cluny’s success in that, through DWC and our humanities majors, we realized the need for bringing back great books and publishing new works that direct the reader to God. PC proclaims veritas; in our own way we are trying to do the same.”
