The following presses were featured in the first Small Press Reading Room event, co-sposored by the Yale Collection of American Literature and The Yale Lit.
Search Orbis to locate call numbers for small press and little magazines (use the Advanced Search features to locate all publications by a single press: http://orbis.library.yale.edu/vwebv/searchAdvanced).
The descriptions below are derived from the press’s web sites.
Fence Books: www.fenceportal.org
Launched in 2001, Fence Books publishes poetry, fiction, and critical texts and anthologies, and prioritizes sustained support for its authors, many of whom come to us through our book contests and then go on to publish second, third, fourth books. Contests include the Motherwell Prize, which offers publication of a first or second book of poems by a woman, as well as a five thousand dollar cash prize, and the Fence Modern Poets Series which is open to poets of any gender and at any stage of career, and offers a one thousand dollar cash prize in addition to book publication. Fence Books is also a participating publisher in the National Poetry Series.Fence and Fence Books are programs of Fence Magazine.
Ugly Duckling Presse (UDP) is a nonprofit art and publishing collective producing editions of new poetry, translations, lost works, and artist’s books. The Presse favors emerging, international, and “forgotten” writers with well-defined formal or conceptual projects that are difficult to place at other presses. Its full-length books, chapbooks, artist’s books, broadsides, magazine and newspaper all contain handmade elements, calling attention to the labor and history of bookmaking. On or off the page, UDP endeavors to create an experience of art free of expectation, coercion, and utility.
Les Figues Press creates aesthetic conversations between Writers/Artists and readers, especially those interested in innovative/experimental/avant-garde work. The Press intends in the most premeditated fashion to champion the trinity of Beauty, Belief, and Bawdry. Les Figues Press was founded in January 2005 by Teresa Carmody, Vanessa Place, Pam Ore and Sarah LaBorde. In December 2005, Les Figues incorporated as a nonprofit organization. The Press is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), the California Association of Nonprofits (CAN), and the Green Press Initiative. Les Figues Press titles are distributed by Small Press Distribution (SPD).
Established in 2007, Mud Luscious Press publishes raw and aggressive works by writers unafraid to destroy and re-suture words.
Beginning in the 16th century, the chapbook has proved adaptable to a wide range of material, from political tracts to penny songs and poems. Today there is still an active community of chapbook publishers, and chapbooks can be found in all shapes and sizes, stapled together, silk-screened, or sewn, often in limited editions for collectors and enthusiasts of the medium. The Poetry Society of America continues this tradition with its chapbook series presenting the work of new poets who have not yet published a full-length volume of poetry. Each year four renowned poets select and introduce a winning manuscript for publication. Each winner receives $1000.
Wave Books is an independent poetry press based in Seattle, Washington, dedicated to publishing the best in contemporary poetry, poetry in translation, and writing by poets. The press was founded in 2005, merging with established publisher Verse Press. By publishing strong innovative work in finely crafted trade editions and hand-made ephemera, we hope to continue to challenge the values and practices of readers and add to the collective sense of what’s possible in contemporary poetry.
Flying Object is interested in collaborative and interdisciplinary work of emerging, experimental, and often overlooked artists, writers, and performers that seek to expand the traditional boundaries of a given art-form and to see that work realized through performance and/or publication.Flying Object’s storefront in Hadley, MA, serves as a space for readings, lectures, performances, workshops, and exhibitions. In addition to these public events, Flying
Object functions as a publisher of both an online and print magazine, as well as limited and trade editions of contemporary poetry, fiction, artist’s books, and audio recordings. Their publications are printed under the imprint Factory Hollow Press or Flying Object.
Litmus Press is a program of Ether Sea Projects, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit literature and arts organization. Dedicated to supporting innovative, cross-genre writing, the press publishes the work of translators, poets, and other writers, and organizes public events in their support. We encourage interaction between poets and visual artists by featuring contemporary artworks on the covers of our full-length books and in the pages of Aufgabe, our annual literary journal. By actualizing the potential linguistic, cultural and political benefits of international literary exchange, we aim to ensure that our poetic communities remain open-minded and vital.
Literary Citizenship: Tiny Press Practices, Jen Hofer and Students in the MFA Writing Program at California Institute of the Arts.
The course is a hands-on exploration of contemporary autonomous small-press practices as they relate to a poetics of community accountability; we consider zines, broadsides, little magazines and journals, micro-presses and small presses, reading series, cultural centers, and collaborative or cross-genre projects, and end with a collective exchange of DIY books. The basic question the course proposes to examine is how each of us might cultivate the literary world we would like to inhabit.What is our responsibility, as writers, readers and thinkers, to a larger literary-artistic culture? What kinds of literary and art spaces would we like to participate in creating, and how might we begin to construct them? What kinds of communities are made possible through different kinds of cultural action and cultural work? How might we activate a literary-artistic gift economy that proposes an enthusiastic and participatory community of adventurers?
Beinecke Top Tens gather (approximately) ten related items to give an at-a-glance look at some of the Library’s interesting, important, strange, compelling, beautiful holdings. To see more lists, click here: Beinecke Top Tens. To suggest a list subject, contact us: Top Ten Ideas.
