As a non-profit, mission-driven press, our goal is to ensure US culture includes, values, and reflects Hispanic contributions. Arte Público began publishing Latino authors of the US, including Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, and works by Ana Castillo, Denise Chávez, and Gary Soto.
The bottom line: I want poetry to open me up, to awaken or reawaken me in some way, to make me have to stop and read and ponder it even though so much else demands my attention. I expect the best poetry to do nothing less than expand consciousness in a way that will ultimately change the world.
I named it Under a Warm Green Linden after an image in one of my favorite poems, “The Day of My Death” by Pier Paolo Pasolini. With time—admittedly slowly—the project grew into the journal and press today, which publishes two digital issues a year, broadsides, chapbooks, reviews, and interviews.
Website Submission Guidelines Interview with Kate Partridge and Alyse Knorr, Editors How did Switchback Books start? Switchback Books was founded in 2006 by the amazing poets and editors Hanna Andrews,…
We want to be troubled and inspired by the work. If there is anything explicitly outside our aesthetic, it is work that does not trouble us. We also want to be challenged by the distinct and diverse aesthetics of the various editors working together in this collective press.
Ultimately, the one thing about literature is that it’s never static. As soon as something becomes a trend, readers are looking outside of that trend, wondering what new kinds of books are out beyond the breakers, or still an undertow.
Our aesthetic, I believe, has always been simple: find unique storytelling, conversational poetry, edgy work that takes risks but isn’t trying to trick anyone or talk in circles or over heads; keep the writing real, imaginative, and mind-opening.
Eric Westerlind and I both work in the service industry to support Fathom. Our printer, Eberhardt, is also run by an independent artisan, struggling month to month. The money’s made on our backs and the books are too. We ‘cope’ by gritting teeth, keeping the friends and writers we admire close, and believing in our mission to make and share the dire books.
glo is influenced by emo, cowboys, nature pix, racing, wrestling, critters, dirt, and water. aesthetically we are chaotic good. we want to bring really drippy/sensitive/empathic art to the world—we’re hyperpersonal.
I’m interested in writers who offer exceptional counterpoints to the literary mainstream. These days that usually means people situated outside the Academy.
Will any of this change? Possibly, but I cannot predict what kind of outcome a potential change might result in, and there are certainly no easy solutions. Regardless of these issues, as publishers we have do whatever it takes to get our books in the hands of readers, and help create a competitive marketplace.
In a way I think writing is really a more fluid part of reading/thinking/living, which shouldn’t be as limited as it is by the fairly extreme expectations and rules our culture has about publication.
“I strive to incorporate the practice of meditation throughout the entire publishing process. Poetry and books are patient, waiting to be created and read, so we attempt to work and grow like a small but well-tended garden. We search for flowers. We try to subvert the hurry of everything around us. I don’t have a car, so when it’s time to deliver chapbooks, I walk on a trail to the post office and look at trees as I follow the creek that runs through our town.”
2017 was a whirlwind of a year for Paloma Press! And none of what we were able to undertake would have been possible without the help of the Filipino American community and the wider network of writers, artists, reviewers and booksellers, from the Bay Area, DC, Philly, Southern Cali, Luxembourg, New Zealand and the Philippines. In our case, it really took a village to launch our books.