We do a lot of work behind the scenes, but the writers create the work so they deserve the most credit and profit for it. They are the reason we even have a project to work on in the first place.
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It’s sort of a marriage of my beloved zine culture and the indie press world. Zines are a huge influence on my life, I thought I invented them when I put out my first “Question Authority” zine in high school. I am always inventing things that already exist.
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We hand-bind all of our books. The covers for our journals are made from 6-packs of local breweries. We’ll gather friends to help us, buy some beer and pizza, and spend a lot of time cutting boxes, and sewing our books.
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On a daily basis, we’re inspired and influenced by every other indie press around: it’s a lot of hard work to run a press—often thrilling, but frequently full of difficult and thankless tasks—and I admire everyone who is doing this, who is giving of themselves to help facilitate the continuation of independent literature, all the other editors and publishers working hard to bring new books out into the world.
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And the name obviously comes from “the dark wood” of Dante’s Inferno, but also from the notion that when whiskey is aging in commercial barrel houses, enough of it evaporates (called the “angel’s share”) to turn the bark of nearby trees (or actually the moss on the bark) black. It’s what revenuers looked for back in the day as a tell tale sign in hunting down illegal stills. I suppose that comes as close to anything in describing my aesthetic. That, and something Fred Moten said in one of our recent email exchanges: “poetry should be at least ten times more beautiful than that pig on Green Acres.”
My mission is to publish a mix of established poets and the first book of others. The press is now an official 501(c)(3) non-profit and will rely on donations and sales going forward.
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Feature image taken by Caitlin Purdom 2014 will be remembered as the death of Alt Lit, or, at the very least, its nadir, but amongst all of the think pieces…
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Everything has potential. Even the worst storm brings new plants into the world, helps clear the air between the sky and ground, and gives people an opportunity to spend a…