12 or 20 (small press) questions with Kristina Marie Darling on Noctuary Press

Noctuary Press is a small press based in Buffalo, NY. We focus on female writers working with cross-genre prose forms (such as flash fiction, prose poetry, footnoted texts, etc.). All too often, writing that is easily classifiable as “poetry,” “prose,” or “nonfiction” is privileged over exciting literary work that is not so easily categorized. Noctuary Press seeks to create a public space for women writers working across literary genres. We publish writing that does not simply challenge the notion of genre, but engages it in a meaningful way, assessing both the artistic possibilities and the dangers inherent in maintaining genre categories.

With that in mind, Noctuary Press strives to open up a dialogue among writers, reviewers, and readers about what constitutes a literary genre, the purpose of genre categories, and, perhaps most importantly, the politics of genre categories in the literary community. We focus on female writers because these efforts to define, label, and categorize literary texts often reflect larger power structures in the literary community and in the academy.

Our 2013 series includes titles by Carol Guess, Kristy Bowen, and Eva Heisler.

1 – When did Noctuary Press first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
Noctuary Press began in the fall of 2012, although almost a year of planning had taken place beforehand.  When I initially started the press, I was very interested in publishing cross-genre prose work.  I thought I'd mostly be publishing flash fiction and prose poetry.  One thing that's really surprised me (in a good way) is the infinite variety inherent in cross-genre writing.  I began to see that writing that engages questions about genre doesn't necessarily have to take the shape of a prose poem.  We've published erasures, lyric essay, and even a book-length meditation on the line.  I've really enjoyed seeing the variety of the submissions, and the many different ways writers approach these questions of genre. 

2 – What first brought you to publishing?
I've been fortunate enough to publish several books while still a graduate student.  For me, publishing a book was a really transformative experience, since it allowed me to be part of a literary community.  When I started the press, I really wanted to give something back to the literary community, and to make these opportunities available to other writers. 

3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
In my opinion, small press publishing serves to democratize public literary spaces.  When there were fewer publishers, fewer voices were heard, since only privileged individuals had access to the means of production and dissemination.  The revolution in technology, and proliferation of small presses and little magazines, has given social groups outside of the mainstream a voice.  Because anyone can become a publisher, and at a very low cost, we've seen a greater diversity of people represented in public literary spaces, including women, experimental writers, writers of color, and the list goes on.

4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?
Many publishers working today are interested in cross-genre writing.  But so much of the work that's published is merely rebellious, and rejects the notion of genre without interrogating it in a meaningful way.  Noctuary Press does just this.  We are interested in work that examines the sociopolitics of genre formation, and our books are intended to start a conversation about genre among readers, reviewers, and other small press publishers. 

5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?
I see social media technology as an extremely useful tool for promoting new books.  In my opinion, sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. make it possible to reach infinitely more people than at a literary reading or author event.  In my experience, it's usually friends who come to readings, and most of them already have copies of my books.  Promoting books online makes it easy to reach people who might not already know about the press, and who would likely be interested in getting copies of our books. 

6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
Although I'm very involved in book design, I'm not too involved in editing the work itself.  I definitely trust the authors who's work I select, and allow them to make edits to their own text up to the point it goes to the designer. 

7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?
We publish books with an initial print run of 50-100, but will print more books if these sell out.  We distribute them through Amazon.com, as well as through author readings and events. 

8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
I'm the sole editor of Noctuary Press, so I'm responsible for choosing the work that gets published.  I work with David McNamara of Sunnyoutside Press in order to provide books of a professional quality.  Usually, I'll do most of the interior layout for the book, and make suggestions about cover design.  David then designs the cover and sends the book to the printer.  I'd definitely recommend his services to anyone looking to start a small press. 

With that said, I think of myself as collaborating more with the authors themselves than other editors.  I actively seek input from them about cover art, review outlets, promotions, etc.  The benefit of being the sole editor is that I'm able to work much more closely with the authors than I would otherwise. 

9– How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?
I started the press because these questions about the sociopolitics of genre formation were important to me, and to my work as a poet.  Starting the press has shown me myriad possible approaches to this same question.  It's made the concerns about gender, genre, and power that I engage in my own work richer and more multifaceted than they seemed before.  It's been a privilege to be exposed to new forms of writing, new possibilities, and writers with different backgrounds than my own.

10– How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
It depends on the goals you have for publishing your work.  If you want to get your work out into the world, than publishing your own book may be the most expeditious option available.  But some writers seek a sense of legitimacy by being able to say that they've made it past a cultural gatekeeper other than themselves.  I think both perspectives are perfectly legitimate.  With that said, I prefer to be published by other presses, since this process has helped form valuable connections with other writers and editors.  Being published by another press also helps bring your work to a new audience, which is something that's also very important to me. 

11– How do you see Noctuary Press evolving?
I'm hoping to publish more books in the future, and to represent greater diversity in our catalogue.  I see the press continuing to publish women writers working across genres, but representing greater variety within the categories of "women writers" and "cross-genre writing."

12– What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?
We've had a very encouraging critical response to the works we've published. I've been delighted by the intelligent reviews, positive features about us in magazines, and the incisive analyses I've seen of our titles.  In the future I'd like to work on improving sales.  I look forward to getting more books into people's hands, since this will benefit the press and the authors.  I feel that the authors we've published deserve a wider readership, and I hope to accomplish that for them. 

13– Who were your early publishing models when starting out?
Kristy Bowen's Dancing Girl Press was definitely an inspiration.  I marvel at how many books she's able to publish as the sole editor, designer, and distributor.  And the quality of her editions is something I aspire to.  The same goes for Gina Abelkop of Birds of Lace Press.  I'm grateful that there are other women before me, who have shown others what's possible within the realm of small press publishing. 

14– How does Noctuary Press work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Noctuary Press in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?
Since most of our authors reside outside of the greater Buffalo area, we haven't engaged with the local literary community to a great extent.  For this reason I'm very excited about our first publication launch in Buffalo later this month.  I see the press as being in dialogue with presses that publish experimental writing—like Tarpaulin Sky Press, Apostrophe Books, Sidebrow Books, Dusie Books, and many others—although surely I flatter myself here.  With that said, I also see the press as making up for something that other presses aren't doing, so Noctuary is filling a gap in this conversation.   

15– Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?
Noctuary Press offers to set up readings for authors, and I wish more people would take us up on that offer.  I think readings are important for aesthetic reasons.  The audience is able to see how the poet envisions her work existing as performance.  I think that more readings are performances than we realize.  Every poet has a persona, and this is often an extension of the work itself.  With that in mind, it's important to get to know how the poet represents her work out in the world. 

16– How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?
I use the internet for almost all the press's promotions, marketing, etc.  I don't think that Noctuary could exist without it.  While it's important for Noctuary to build and audience in Buffalo, the internet is what allows us to reach people beyond our immediate community.  The internet is also useful for finding out about author's we'd like to publish.  It adds to the diversity of our catalogue, and the richness of the conversation surrounding our books. 

17– Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?
We operate mostly by solicitation, but hope to have an open reading period in the near future.  With that in mind, we aren't looking for traditional poetry, work that doesn't take risks, or writing that doesn't question the literary tradition that the writer has inherited.

18– Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.
Our most recent title is Kristy Bowen's the shared properties of water and stars.  It's a remarkable book.  Kristy presents us with poems in the guise of algebra word problems.  Never have I seen mathematics and logic rendered so beautifully. 

Carol Guess's F IN offers a provocative engagement with the tropes of genre fiction.  She has erased her own YA novel, leaving only shards of a story that once was whole.  I love that she invites the reader to assume a more active role, rather than passively glossing over the literary tropes they already know to expect. 

Lastly, Eva Heisler's Drawing Water offers readers a beautiful matching of form and content, in which the author's smallest technical decisions illuminate and complicate the text itself.

12 or 20 (small press) questions;

Ongoing notes: early September, 2013

[photo of the leather-bound limited-edition above/ground press fetish item, including thirty different above/ground press “poem” broadsides, produced in a numbered edition of ten copies by Christine McNair] Pearl Pirie was good enough to do a small write-up on the recent above/ground press 20th anniversary reading/launch/party at The Mercury Lounge. Can you believe it’s been twenty years already? I certainly don’t.

There are still a number of exciting announcements to occur for the twentieth year, including new publications by Rae Armantrout, Hailey Higdon, Hugh Thomas and others, and the 2014 annual subscriptions, to be announced in October. Watch for it!

And we will see you at the Fisher Small Press Fair tomorrow at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto? We'll be there with bells on.

Buffalo NY: Before moving into three sections of prose-pieces, Kristy Bowen’s small poetry book, the shared properties of water and stars (Buffalo NY: Noctuary Press, 2013) opens with the line, “There are 3 houses with 3 different ghosts.” Writing in that nebulous space between prose and prose-poem, Bowen’s book is an accumulation of small prose-sections, presenting a semi-fragmented narrative that wraps and weaves through fable. The first page of section one reads:

THERE are 3 houses in 3 different colors. Each owner keeps a certain kind of sadness locked in the cupboard. The tall man lives in the white house. The short man keeps rabbits as pets. The woman in her white dress drinks vodka and stays up late. The yellow house is to the immediate left of the white one. The woman in the second house keeps her sadness in a smallish box. The older woman with the violets on her hat lives in the first house. The girl with the blonde hair lives next door to the man who keeps rabbits. One summer the rabbits multiply and chew through the fence. Mostly, they all keep to themselves.

The back page tells us that “Noctuary Press is a small independent press that focuses on female writers working with cross-genre prose forms (such as flash fiction, prose poetry, footnoted texts etc.).” Bowens’ the shared properties of water and stars is the third title produced by the press, after works by Carol Guess and Eva Heisler, and would be would be interesting to see illustrated, as she paints a vivid series of small portraits. Her fables wrap and soar and weave their way through shades of familiar characters and stories, turning and twisting them to tell a different kind  story, one that exists alongside what you might already know.

LET’S say the blonde girl has something shadowy whispering in her ear each night. Hundreds of bears lumber outside her windows. Her mouth like an open seam. A small cut in the dark; club-footed, claw-hearted. The bears outside her window watch the boys climb, one by one, up to the roof to touch her face. Her murmurs are slender, silky, like the backs of calves. Let’s say the dark writes itself anew along the walls each night. The words like a bubble in the throat until they burst.

Minneapolis MN: From the few I’ve seen, I’ve become quite a fan of the WinteRed Press Chaplet Series, edited and published by Gabrielle Civil and Rachel Moritz. There seems something here reminiscent of the late Sylvester Pollet’s Backwoods Broadsides, which produced the one hundredth and final publication back in 2006 [see Ron Silliman’s note on such here]. Produced in runs circling one hundred copies, the two most recent are Purvi Shah’s “What monsoon is this” (number 20) and Caryl Pagel’s “Mausoleum” (number 21), and previous authors in the series include Mark Nowak, Fanny Howe, Rodrigo Toscano, Elizabeth Robinson, Juliet Patterson, Tiff Dressen and Kate Greenstreet, with forthcoming titles by Dawn Lundy Martin, Moe Lionel, RosamondS. King and Eric Leigh (a complete list of the series so far, including forthcoming authors, are listed on the back of each publication).

Sometimes it is not the answer that matters but the question, the ruffled spot left behind where question hangs in air. Can you steam the air into a smooth sheet? Perhaps: momentarily. But then the separation of cloud and rain asserts itself. Perhaps: you need not find answer. But then sometimes answers find you: sometimes even when you abandon, you cannot escape. Such is the justice of the world: moving. (Purvi Shah, “What monsoon is this”)

I hadn’t heard of Brooklyn, New York poet Purvi Shah previously, the author of Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), and (according to her bio) “winner of the inaugural SONY South Asian Social Service Award in 2008 for her work fighting violence against women.” Her poem/broadside “What monsoon is this” is an intriguing sequence of startling fragments, some boiled down to the sharpest, startling points. Chicago poet Caryl Pagel is the author of the poetry collection EXPERIMENTSI SHOULD LIKE TRIED AT MY OWN DEATH (Factory Hollow Press, 2012), and her chaplet is made up of four poems constructed nearly as continuous threads, each small phrase-fragment built as a punch. The title poem “Mausoleum” opens:

The night behaved exactly as you

thought it would                      As you saw

it would                       As you saw it

unfold and unravel and pre-occur in

a previously—you now know—prescient

premonition                        The details are irrelevant

Back issues (I’ve been myself meaning to pick up the whole run at some point) are $1.45 US, which really does make excuses for not ordering seem rather lame. Send cheques to: Rachel Moritz, 2917 E. 22^nd Street, Minneapolis MN 55406 USA

12 or 20 (small press) questions: Kristy Bowen on Dancing Girl Press

When did Dancing Girl Press first start? What first bought you to publishing? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
Started in 2004, dancing girl press was a spin-off of the online journal I was editing at the time, wicked alice, which published women-focused work and was about three years old.  At the same time, I had developed an interest in book and paper arts, and was trying to combine them with the poetry-related things I was doing. The goal of both was pretty much to feature the work of women poets, particularly emerging authors who sometimes find it difficult to get a foot in.   I feel in many ways that we are helping foster a proliferation of women’s voices, which as the VIDA statistics reveal are underrepresented in contemporary publishing, in the general literary conversation.  On one hand, the whole endeavor was rather simple and DIY rooted to launch, but as it grows, more work than I ever would have imagined. But it’s good, fulfilling work.

What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
I feel like small publishing is freer and more willing to take risks than bigger publishers.  With a small scale operation like ours, I have no problem taking on an interesting manuscript from a newish, unknown-as-yet poet that may or may not sell a single copy.  Obviously, the goal is to sell books if you want to survive, but I’m willing to risk it if I feel strongly enough about the work.  We’ve published some first chaps that are slow out of the gate, but as the author’s reputation grows, they start selling like hotcakes.  It’s nice to have that luxury to make decisions outside the finance driven paradigm of traditional publishers.

What do you see your press doing that no one else is?
There are a lot of presses out there that overlap with our goals, publishing chapbooks by women, innovative work, new authors.  We have a strong tie to the visual arts and paper crafts, since those are my other interests, so that shows up occasionally in projects that are more book arts driven and more unusual than just a saddle stapled chapbook.  We also probably publish a lot more books than a lot of presses of similar scale, mainly because I feel like the more work we issue, the greater the impact and scope.  I guess it’s sort of like a few drops versus a slow trickle of books making their way into the world, so I’m determined to take on as many projects as I find interesting and that we can afford.

What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world? How do your chapbooks get distributed? What are your usual print runs?
dgp has sort of grown up along with the rise of social networking, first blogs, then things like myspace, facebook, twitter, all excellent ways of connecting writers and building communities. Our primary means of distribution is internet sales, so this online sense of community is absolutely necessary. A small percentage of our sales stem from readings, book fairs, and events, which I try to do as much as I can, at least locally.   With a few exceptions, most of our books have an open run, usually starting off with a large batch of about 50 and then in smaller batches as needed. 

How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
I’m definitely more hands off on poems or ordering, since I only really take on work that I love already.  I was never really good at offering suggestions to other people about their work (I was the most frustrating person in my MFA workshop).  For me, it worked or it didn’t.   My suggestions are usually based around practical things like punctuation, capitalization, consistencies or inconsistencies of such, breaking lines to fit, things that come up during the layout process. 

How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
I occasionally pull in some help for assembling books during crunch times, and we sometimes solicit cover artwork/designs depending on the author’s desires, but otherwise, it’s solely me.  I’m a little bit of a control freak about it all, so I’m usually content to work alone to sustain that control. I sometimes feel like group endeavors suffer from “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome and it’s more counterproductive than helpful. The flipside is that I have to shoulder all the work myself, but for me, it’s worth it to not be tripping over anyone else. 

How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?
I feel like reading so many manuscripts and spending so much time among words and thinking about each project, has only been good for my own writing in terms of expanding my range and interests. I’m also humbled by the amazingness I see come across my desk sometimes.  I think as writers in a vacuum, we don’t always see the things we come up against for publication slots or awards, and it’s almost overwhelming to know the scope and breadth of what we’re competing against in those situations.

How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
Coming from a DIY background, I feel like it’s a non-issue.  I think it’s easy to be self-indulgent as a publisher, and perhaps you should probably tread carefully.  But if you’re bringing your A-game and feel the need to get that book out there in the world, then I say go for it.  My trial run for dgp was my own chapbook since I wanted to make sure the whole endeavor was do-able before I involved another author.   I now quite regularly release my own little projects, be they visually oriented or text-oriented.  I love seeing an idea through from inception to completion and of course, being all control freaky about it.  I try to get some feedback on things before I put them out there to make sure I’m not just being self-indulgent and that it’s up to par (be that publishing pieces in journals, showing other friends/editors/etc.)

How do you see Dancing Girl Press evolving?
Right now, in terms of publishing schedule, we are at the point where it’s hard to get any larger or publish more titles.  My dream is that I could eventually quit my day job and do all this full-time, but it will probably be awhile.  For the time being, I’d like to do more book arts oriented sort of projects than we currently do.

What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?
I’m really proud that this whole thing has grown as large as it has and that people really seem to love the books we publish.  But do  I feel like sometimes people don’t quite get the very large scope of what we publish in terms of subject matter, style, etc.  I heard someone say once that “dgp only seems to publish X sort of work” which wasn’t true at all had that person actually read more than a couple of our titles.  That’s one reason I like our new little sale package, which is a mix of 5 randomly chosen books.  I think people are tempted to go with the authors they are friends with, the authors they are familiar with, but there is so much more going on that they’d like if they saw it.

Who were your early publishing models when starting out?
In the early 2000’s there were so many awesome micro-presses springing up, operations like Effing Press, Big Game Books, horseless press, all of which were doing similar things to what I wanted to do. New Michigan Press was another press that spun out of an online journal that was a model (they also later published one of my own books).

How does Dancing Girl Press work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Dancing Girl Press in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations? Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?
One of my secondary goals is to take on work by Chicago/Midwestern poets, which is always nice since we can have readings and signings and such (sometimes with other authors who happen to roll through town). Switchback Books, which was founded by my friends/classmates at Columbia a couple years after dgp, has a lot of overlap in authors and interests with what we publish, so we’ve done a lot of book fairs and readings with them and it’s been invaluable to have another press devoted to women’s writing coming of age at the same time.

How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?
The internet has pretty much been absolutely central to the operation.  If I had started a press 20 years ago, it would have felt like an uphill battle to even get work to publish, let alone readers. As I mentioned earlier re: social networking, I feel like the poetry community is much more accessible to everyone, even if you live in the middle of nowhere with no other poets for miles.  Because of the internet, I was already getting to know other writers even before I started the press via listservs, discussion boards, blogs.  These were the poets who started sending work, buying books, spreading the word.  It’s only continued as that circle has grown larger.

Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?
Our publication list is a mix of manuscripts collected during our open reading periods and other solicited projects.  We are open every summer for submissions.  I could rattle off a list of things we’re not looking for, but then someone could send me something that turns all of it on its head and I’d take it.  The main thing I will immediately skip over though is the sort of poem that just feels like ordinary prose broken into lines without any attempt at doing, I guess, poetic things—things related to sound, rhythm, image, strangeness.  On the other hand, I usually love prose poems, just not prose broken arbitrarily into lines.

Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.
Sandra Faulkner’s Hello Kitty Goes to College is a strange meditation on pop culture consumerism, sexual politics, and academia.

Brenda Sieczkowski’s Wonder Girl in Monsterland, which includes images by artist Chad Woody, creates this surreal little world with talking bears and odd neighbors and strokes me as very Alice-like, which I love.  One of the best things a manuscript can do for me is create some sort of alternate world.

Emiliegh Barnes’ Given is a book of poems as mathematical equations. Despite my horror of actual math, I love this little book.

12 or 20 (small press) questions;