This Tuesday marked the publication of the 50th interview in our Small Press Database. Since beginning the series in January, we’ve had the opportunity to feature a huge variety of presses from across the country and outside of it, and we’re still going strong. We’ve also expanded our reach to monthly New Releases posts featuring as many presses as we can gather, as well as going bi-monthly on our “Where to Submit” posts. Below, find our favorite quotes from every small press interview we’ve published, counting down to the first with Danielle Dutton of Dorothy, a publishing a project. And check back every Tuesday for another interview!
50. “If someone were thinking of starting a press though, my first advice would be to keep your scope small, specific, and necessary.”
—Tyler Crumrine, Plays Inverse
49. “We’re living in a golden age.”
—Kevin Wehmueller, Queen’s Ferry Press
48. “Our sixty-odd books include British and Australian poets; translations from ancient Chinese, Greek, and Persian; innovative new work alongside lost modernist classics; the living and the dead. In this way we hope to find new paths to the present.”
—Devin Johnston, Flood Editions
47. “That there are no real gatekeepers. That the gatekeepers that are there don’t have nearly as much of the power as they used to. That writing and literature exists to beget more writing and literature. That that fact is—or should be—a source of inspiration.”
—Jeff Alessandrelli, Dikembe Press
46. “Going to a reading will one day be as common as going to the movies or to see a band…”
—Madison Parker and Derrick Brown, Write Bloody Publishing
45. “Small/independent press publishing by its very presence in the world argues that anything is possible, everything can and should be tried and challenged, and that there’s precisely zero correlation between quantity and quality.”
—Lance Olsen, FC2
44. “When I think back on my life, pretty much any moment not alone in a room seems sensational and even wild to me and a lot of these moments were indeed thrilling. But most of the truly happy moments of the expansive time alone in silent rooms involved books. If we can somehow facilitate that exchange with anyone—that immersion—that’s a life well invested in—it’s meaningful work! “
—Tim Kinsella, Featherproof Books
43. “I personally see the costs incurred as a type of donation in support of our authors’ careers and the community that’s interested in their work; a community I’d like to see grow.”
—Rebekah Weikel, Penny-Ante Editions
42. “But aside from the vibrancy of the books, I think what’s really got me going is how there seems to be this critical mass forming in the community, where everyone is getting to know everyone and things are coalescing. I’ve been going to the big annual conferences for a few years now, and it seems like there’s more collaboration, more of people finding ways to work together to do great things and to get really good work out there, be it through events like the Twin Cities Book Festival or Litquake or Brooklyn Book Festival, periodicals like Music & Literature or BOMB, Rain Taxi, etc., etc., reading series like The Bridge and Quiet Lightning, podcasts, websites, and so on and so forth. I see so much good energy on social media these days. It’s all hugely encouraging.”
—Scott Esposito, Two Lines Press
41. “Poetry is a way to lose money.”
—Geoffrey Gatza, BlazeVOX
40. “The most exciting thing, as far as I’m concerned, is the broadening recognition that the lack of diversity in publishing is a serious problem. We are in the midst of a surge forward in the publishing of writers of color, women writers, and writers under the wide trans umbrella. It’s about time. The movement forward will benefit all of us concerned with the strength and relevance of art.”
—KMA Sullivan, YesYes Books
39. “I can say, though, that I think independent literary publishing should be a coterie affair. So open reading periods, reading fees, and contests make no sense to me. I also think that if experiment(al) means what I take it to mean, and if it’s to be taken seriously, contests are defeatist. We are independent because we believe, on some level, that competition does not reveal merit.”
—Patrick Durgin, Kenning Editions
38. “Less publishing and public readings. More organizing. More activism. More discourse around work that exists and that is being written. More thinking in space together about ourselves as historical and political subjects.”
—Saretta Morgan, Belladonna*
37. “We have many people writing to us, wanting to visit, wanting to work in our office, inviting our authors to do events—there is just an outpouring of love and enthusiasm all the time, and not just from younger writers or from MFA programs but from poets around the world, actually. It’s great to be part of this community.”
—Heidi Broadhead, Wave Books
36. “Small publishing will remain exciting as long as it continues, as a field, to work toward ideals of visibility and cosmopolitanism.”
—Dan Machlin, Ted Dodson, and Jennifer Tamayo, Futurepoem
35. “I really don’t believe in reading fees—I’ll never charge one for our open reading periods and contests. Poets who are sending out their mss are in a vulnerable position, and it seems to me to be exploitative to charge a fee, unless we’re giving something back to them in return.”
—Bruce Covey, Coconut Books
34. “I’ll always be a book peddler. I’ll always be printing books.”
—Carl Annarummo, Greying Ghost Press
33. “Bigness for its own sake is overrated. It feels more true to our mission to be big in terms of the reputation of our books and the notice and support our authors receive than to be big in terms of how many books we produce each year.”
—Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney, Rose Metal Press
32. “I can name maybe forty small presses founded within the last decade who’ve made a serious stamp on the literature of our time, publishing what they like, publishing from their communities, publishing international writers, publishing themselves. It’s not new—there’s been Virginia Woolf and Hogarth, Ferlinghetti and City Lights, Dave Eggers—but I don’t think there’s ever been so many of us. And a lot are working with shoestring budgets, but the work they’re putting out is groundbreaking.”
—Joe Pan, Brooklyn Arts Press
31. “And no mission. One is invited to haphazardly investigate and/or enjoy fluidity between genres via a subjectively sequenced catalog of wide-ranging material and structural practices.”
—J. Gordon Faylor, Gauss PDF
30. “I dreamed I was a book.”
—Amanda Raczkowski and Joseph Reed (quoting Meredith Stricker), Caketrain
29. “The decentralization of media and changing models of publicity and distribution have put everything in flux, but these conditions are favorable to small press publishing, which in our estimation is having a rich moment. Exploration is being built into the everyday.”
—Michael Newton and Emmalea Russo, Ugly Duckling Presse
28. “We don’t have a business model that I’d recommend to anyone. We save on typesetting because I do it.”
—Janet Holmes, Ahsahta Press
27. “Because of the yearly workshop setting, the staff and readers are always different resulting in an ephemeral vision, which is great when you think about it. We have poets and fiction writers from all over the country with wildly different aesthetics defending their favorite pieces to one another. It’s beautiful.”
—Liz McGehee, Subito Press
26. “Everyone knows that the stakes are not monetary in poetry. There may be some side bullshit but mostly small presses are gifting the world work that moves them and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy in a world that often seems perpetually terrible. I feel very, very lucky to be alive RIGHT NOW, while so many of my favorite poets are alive and giving readings and publishing books and poems on the internet for me to wake up to.”
—Gina Abelkop, Birds of Lace
25. “The missing letters are missing so that, no matter what you think they are, you can never be quite certain.”
—Nate Pritts, H_NGM_N Books
24. “There are so many options to publish nowadays—including lots of creative ways to do it yourself—that slagging off presses for charging $20 to read is tedious. I say, just don’t submit to those if you don’t dig that model; or start your own press and publish your friends. That’s fine too.”
—Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Letter Machine Editions
23. “If my blood pressure goes up (in a good way), I know I’ve found something.”
—Diana Arterian, Ricochet Editions
22. “My mission is to create beautiful, strange little books that a grad student studying the small press movement of the early 21st century will find in a special collections somewhere and they will make her head explode.”
—Erica Mena, Anomalous Press
21. “We see ourselves as a little corner of the conversation, as a place to forward innovative, smart, new poetry into the hands of readers. We only exist because we feel like we have a way of contributing, to make richer the things we’re already influenced by.”
—Zachary Schomburg, Octopus Books
20. “We’re all coping and I do believe that the sentence is the surest form of coping mechanism. Beyond any device, the sentence not only explains but also inspires. There’s magic in the words we choose to accept as our own.”
—Michael J Seidlinger, Civil Coping Mechanisms
19. “We want to keep it going but not at any cost. We want to treat our collaborators and writers fairly and ethically.”
—Hedi El Kholti, Semiotext(e)
18. “Copilot’s mission? Make interesting work and know when to make silences. (This is very distinct from being silenced.) There is so much output in our culture right now that it becomes crucial to know when to be still and listen, to let fallow and let die. I value cycles over productivity for the sake of itself.”
—Stephanie Sauer, Copilot Press
17. “We (as in the royal We) do not cope, and We are very tired. Nay, exhausted.”
—Debra Di Blasi, Jaded Ibis Press
16. “Have you ever wondered is Florida real?”
—J. David Osborne, Broken River Books
15. “We wanted to design the books to make them visually striking and desirable as objects, because that’s how we believe books will survive in the new media age.”
—Jacques Testard, Fitzcarraldo Editions
14. “I think the old paradigms in publishing are falling apart. And there’s something quite nerve-wracking about that if you’ve worked in publishing and you’ve made it your career, but there’s also something very exhilarating about it. The one thing that I’m convinced that will endure is people’s desire to read interesting, informative, challenging nonfiction and beautiful writing, good stories in fiction, and books that need to be written. That’s not going to change. That stays the same.”
—Colin Robinson, OR Books
13. “What’s always excited me, personally, about small and independent publishing, is the ability to be hands on in so many different aspects of the business. The size of the place allows for real collaboration and input on so many aspects of the publishing process from acquisitions, to design, and marketing and publicity.”
—Stacey Lewis, City Lights Books
12. “…if i could i’d just give books away.”
—Derek White, Calamari Press
11. “Not to be too pretentious about it, but if you decide to be an independent publisher, it’s like deciding to be a samurai or a dandy: you’re in for a miserable end, but it’s one you’ll be able to face with honor.”
—Marc Lowenthal, Wakefield Press
10. “I enjoy a feeling like I’m getting away with something, publishing book about video games—as if some real adult is going to pop into my life and say, ‘Okay, Durham, fun’s over.’ It hasn’t happened yet.”
—Gabe Durham, Boss Fight Books
9. “Imagine if every book cost $9.99 and then imagine every book tasting like Budweiser. That’s not a world I want to live in.”
—Eric Obenauf, Two Dollar Radio
8. “Because it’s not who publishes what that matters, but just that it gets published. It doesn’t even matter who writes the book or not. Just as long as it gets written.”
—Giancarlo DiTrapano, Tyrant Books
7. “The job of a publisher is simple: Publish a pretty object that contains important and daring ideas. Pay your authors. Thank your readers. That’s it.”
—Ken Baumann, Sator Press
6. “The fundamental thing I believe about literature, and this is just from my own experience so I’ll just speak for myself, is that it opens me up to other people. It makes me more compassionate.”
—Adam Robinson, Publishing Genius
5. “I was influenced by everything.”
—Spencer Madsen, Sorry House
4. “I’m excited when an independent press is publishing something other than literary fiction. Literary fiction was, in all seriousness, established by the CIA during the Cold War—it belongs to the state. As such, an independent press with no ties to the state should inherently not be interested in “literary fiction.” Semantically!”
—M Kitchell, Solar▲Luxuriance
3. “So we decided to become the press for poems that go ‘too far.’”
—Joyelle McSweeney, Action Books
2. “We were convinced that some of the best writing from writers we knew happened outside of their normal writing forms and practices, e.g., in conversation, in emails, in rants while driving, etc.”
—Harold Abramowitz and Amanda Ackerman, eohippus labs
1. “I’m really hoping I get to keep publishing incredible books. I’m still in love with every book we’ve published, and I hope I always feel that way.”
—Danielle Dutton, Dorothy, a publishing project
