Women Publishers' Roundtable: Second Installment

I'm absolutely delighted to bring you the second installment of Delirious Hem's Women Publishers' Roundtable.  Seven small press editors have been sent interview questions about the contemporary publishing landscape. Here you'll find the latest interview question and the resulting conversation.  Enjoy!

Second Interview Question:  Once you decided to start a press, how did you find a specific editorial focus within contemporary women's writing?

Kristy Bowen (Editor, Dancing Girl Press):  It’s hard for me to pinpoint a specific focus since so much of what we publish is geared by my purely subjective likes and dislikes (which vary all over the place.) Genre-wise, we usually say we are looking for poetry, but I find myself very often drawn to more prose-oriented and hybrid work, as well as occasional image-based and vispo projects. Aesthetics-wise, we probably lean a bit more towards innovative/experimental/conceptual work, but I appreciate traditional lyric or narrative poems as well. Some of our pet passions are work that engages the visual arts in some way, as well as work that engages other texts, history, fairytales, other cultural reference points.

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S. Whitney Holmes (Editor, Switchback Books):  We haven’t found a specific editorial focus and that’s really part of what I love about Switchback Books. A lot of the books we publish are winners of the Gatewood Prize for a first or second book of poetry, so we work frequently with first-book authors and, while we read every manuscript for the contest, the final winning book is chosen by a prominent woman poet judge. So each of our books reflects a slightly different editorial perspective. The place where the diversity of our catalog really plays out is when we go to book fairs. Someone who’s unfamiliar with our press comes up to the table and we can just start talking about what they do, who they are, what they like to read, and before long, we can recommend a book from our table that we’re sure they’ll love. That’s part of how we get those books into people’s hands—by publishing a multiplicity of voices and aesthetics.

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Gina Abelkop (Editor, Birds of Lace Press):  Birds of Lace’s editorial focused isn’t quite fixed but is certainly recognizable, I hope. When reading submissions, it is just what makes my heart go harder when I’m reading it, what I hope will make the hearts of rangy but kind weirdos and sweethearts beat harder too. We don’t publish cis-dudes because we don’t. I am interested in printing the work of women and queers who are historically and infamously underrepresented in both the mainstream and the alternative/small press literature and art worlds, and the world in general. Especially those who are upstarts in their own ways ie feminist killjoys, dyke bitches, pissed off fags, shy brilliant darlings, secret geniuses, enthusiastic dressers, friendly sweet perverts.

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Lisa Marie Basile (Editor, Patasola Press):  Patasola Press doesn’t have a fixed editorial focus at all, and we never will. Our writers are all very different, but much of our work deals with what it means to who we are — as women, as Americans, as travelers, sexual beings, as lovers, as mythology. I wanted to publish women whose voices are so purely their own—and if they’re all different, even better. I publish voices that aren’t afraid, that aren’t apologetic, are urgent and bold and bloody, even if in a silent way. We also like to consider work by first-time authors, and that’s really important for us. We’re so tired of seeing the same names over and over. There are lots of people who don’t get the time they should be demanding because they don’t have publication credits, or whatever, and it’s important to really read their work too.

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T.A. Noonan (Editor, Sundress Publications): Do we have a specific editorial focus? I mean, I’ve noticed that we have a general preference for works with a strong narrative current, but I think that’s because our editors enjoy the stories that writers have to tell. That said, we don’t have a very strongly defined aesthetic. In terms of its books—full- and chapbook-length—Sundress is most invested in poetry, but our Flaming Giblet Press imprint works with prose, hybrid, and experimental texts, especially ones that are challenging because of their form, subject, etc. Our journals do their own thing. And then there’s the Best of the Net series, which showcases work from dozens of online journals. We end up representing a lot of different voices, aesthetics, and experiences because we have so many different projects, editors, judges, etc.

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Erin Elizabeth Smith (Editor, Sundress Publications): I'm with T.A. here.  I don't think I ever went into it with a specific focus in mind.  Our first book, Especially the Deer by Tyurina Allen, Julie Ruble, and Mary Beth Magin, was part of what we then called The Artemis Project, which published women 25 and under.  Looking back on the collection, there's definitely no hinge to the aesthetic between the work of the three women involved.  Similarly, the work in our more recent collections ranges from T.A. Noonan's experimental narrative in verse to Marcel Brouwers' ode to travel and wordplay.  Our forthcoming books deal with issues as various as fairy tale retellings, miscarriage, meditations on place, and bisexuality.

 

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Kristina Marie Darling (Editor, Noctuary Press):  Although Noctuary Press was initially conceived of as a press that specializes in cross-genre writing, I definitely agree with you all that diversity is important when making editorial decisions.  I mentioned earlier that Noctuary Press attempts to fill a gap in the existing publishing landscape, and to reprenset writing that takes place at the peripheries of existing genre categories, writing that might otherwise be excluded from public discourse.  One of the most important aspects of our editorial mission is to showcase the diversity inherent in contemporary cross-genre writing by women.  Although most of our books are written in hybrid genre prose, they engage with such diverse subjects as murder mysteries, coming of age stories, and algebra word problems.  For me, learning about the diversity of aesthetic approaches within contemporary women's cross-genre writing has been one of the most rewarding aspects of running a woman-centered press.   

Please check back for the third installment, which includes a discussion of the editors' own creative work!