I bought version #213 out of #295 of the zine, meaning that Art Noose handset the type for almost three hundred of these books. She didn’t do it for the money, as my copy cost only $2.00 at Needles and Pens, a store in San Francisco with abundant zines and books for sale, alongside handmade dresses, purses, and jewelry; it is my favorite souvenir from the week that I spent as part of the “Our Other Weapon is a Zine: Northern California” tour during the tail end of August.

The tour kicked off in Santa Cruz, where I read along with Tomas Moniz who does Rad Dad (short for “radical dad” and winner of the 2009 Utne Independent Press award for Best Zine), Dani Burlison—my creative comrade in an endeavor we call Petals and Bones—and Gilroy-based zinester John Bobst. John writes this ridiculously sarcastic and funny zine called Silly Little, and, well..the title gives you a taste of the author’s humor. At our reading in Oakland, Artnoose, Capella Parish and Anna Reutinger and Roxie Perkins of Crosshatch Zine all made appearances. How’s that for an amazing line-up of artistic instigators? Anna and Roxie read a choose-your-own-adventure story from the latest issue of Crosshatch that begins on the morning after zombies take over Oakland. Um, yeah, it was as awesome as it sounds. Davis and San Francisco also featured fantastic guest readers like Katie McCleary, Renee Cashmere, and Andria Alefhi of We’ll Never Have Paris zine.

A couple of times, as we prepared for the tour—once during a write-up for a short newspaper piece and once on the radio—Dani and I were asked, “Why zines?” Why now? Since blogs and other 21^st century technologies allow us a way to reach a much wider audience, with less paper waste, and less effort, what is the point of a measly little zine? Or maybe I was asking myself these questions, even as I championed this formerly robust art form. I love blogs, and I read my favorites on a daily basis. Hell, I’m a fan of most 21^st technologies. Having recently read, Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky, I mightily agree with the notion that harnessing the power of group dynamics on the internet as a way to promote social change is a worthy endeavor. That said, the fundamental aesthetic joy of holding a copy of a handset zine, the paper grainy and solid under the pads of my fingers, is a joy not soon to be replaced by a computer screen.

If I’ve learned one thing from dedicating an entire week of my life to spreading the gospel of the zine, it’s that we need both modalities. While I won’t be trading in my laptop anytime soon, I also want to take a break, lie on the couch with a cup of coffee in hand, a handmade zine in the other, as I stop to marvel at the ingenuity and sheer perseverance of writing and creating something that few people will ever see. Art for the sake of art, for the sake of getting a voice out into the world. What a beautiful notion.

Some of the publishers I spoke with were branching out into digital formats, while others aimed to kindle interest in books better than a Kindle™ ever could. Whatever their approach, they all demonstrated a propensity for outside-the-box thinking. I interviewed Jen Loy and Kaya Oakes of the late, great Kitchen Sink magazine; Johnny Temple of the adventurous Akashic Books; and the creative minds behind Small Beer Press, Green Lantern Press, and Mule magazine (among others). I spotlighted the literary magazine and press Tin House, located in Portland and New York, and the Zurich-based publishing house Nieves, which specializes in good-looking limited edition zines and artist books.

Rather than revive that column, I’m preserving the literary theme and launching a new recurring feature, “Pressing Issues,” in which I’ll share a selection of news and notes about small presses, periodicals, and other bookish goings-on. Feel free to chime in: If you have any interesting literary news/notes/events of your own to add, please do so in the Comments section or email me at laura@laura-pearson-net. Onto the pressing issues…

Poised to baffle, muse, and bemuse, the legendary Chicago-based cultural and political magazine, The Baffler, is back. Founded in 1988 and published until 2007, the magazine reemerged in Jan. 2010 with Vol 2, Issue No 1. In this humdinger of an issue, the eds. declare, “…We are losing our faculties of inquiry at precisely the moment when public-minded scrutiny of our institutions is most needed,” going on to promise “a strong dose of our particular brand of scoffing: Strong ideas, elegantly expressed.” Reminds me of George Saunders’ essay, “The Braindead Megaphone,” in which G.S. proposes a remedy for shallow and sensationalistic mass media: “Every well thought-out rebuttal to dogma, every scrap of intelligent logic, every absurdist reduction of some bullying stance is the antidote.” The antidotal issue is available in stores and via subscription. (I got mine at Powell’s.)

Paul Harding just won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his debut novel Tinkers, an elegiac story of a clock repairman on his deathbed. It was published by Bellevue Literary Press, a teeny indie operation located in a tiny office in New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center. It’s the first small press to put out a Pulitzer-winning novel since 1981, when Louisiana State University Press published A Confederacy of Dunces. Turns out that “books at the intersection of the arts and sciences” are just what the doctor (and Pulitzer committee) ordered!

Speaking of small presses, last month was Small Press Month, and in case you missed it, the Chicago Tribune’s book blog, Printers Row, spotlighted a variety of local presses, including Agate, Haymarket, and Flood Editions. Works by these publishers (and tons more) are available for perusal in the newly expanded Publishers Gallery in the lobby of the Chicago Cultural Center.

April is National Poetry Month, and in celebration, CA-based independent bookstore, Diesel, is posting a video poem each day. Palm trees and Rumi, anyone? Meanwhile, the Academy of American Poets has launched Poem on the Range, a collaborative multimedia-mapping project in which people upload and geotag videos of poetic pilgrimages, landmarks, and roadside ephemera. Maybe someone could do a video recitation of Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” while standing by the company lost & found. Or how about an Anne of Green Gables-esque recreation of “The Lady of Shalott”? An endless range of possibilities, people.

Moving on…South End Press, formerly based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, moved to a new HQ in Brooklyn. The 32-year-old indie has opened an editorial office at Medgar Evers College (CUNY) and will partner with the school’s Center for Black Literature and the DuBois Bunch Center for Public Policy to sustain and grow SEP publishing initiatives. Also check out SEP’s other cool sustainability effort, Community Supported Publishing.

Other publishers have opted to go digital. According to the Media Bistro blog, eBookNewser, Graywolf Press and Melville House are among some indie presses that plan to release frontlist titles (and a bit of backlist) as eBooks.

David Shields’ collage-y, controversial manifesto Reality Hunger was published by Knopf last month, but did you know that before that, it was serialized in the fledgling literary journal Knee-Jerk? F’reals.

Those hungry for dessert, rather than reality, participated in the Seattle Edible Book Festival on April 10. This idea is so awesome: Participants make literary-themed culinary creations—food like The Bun Also Rises, Curd Vonnegut, and S’more and Peace—and are awarded prizes for “Most Pun-derful,” “Most Appetizing,” etc. My friend Kate, one of the organizers, posted some photos from last year’s fest.

This summer Chicago Artists Resource, a project of the Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs (full disclosure: I work for CAR) launches a new literary component, featuring Artist Stories (essays by writers, publishers, and other lit-minded people), informative articles, and links to opportunities and resources. If you live in/around Chicago, consider participating by emailing ideas or submitting an Artist Story. (Email literary@chicagoartistsresource.org).

We just learned the meaning of “hypocorism” and “couvade,” thanks to this list of all the words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary. It comes courtesy of the Ransom Center, the research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, which now houses the DFW archive. From “Viking Poem,” composed when he was six or seven years old, to obsessively annotated copies of Cormac McCarthy and John Updike books, the archive is sure to foster additional interest in the late writer.

Check back next month for still more pressing issues.

Magazines are flailing due to high production and distribution costs, two pitfalls that zines, by nature, avoid. But this isn’t to say that zines have remained unchanged since their heyday. After an explosion in the early to mid 90s, zines were arguably usurped by Livejournal as the independent (and navel-gazing) media du jour.

It is no longer simply a case of strolling into a local record or book store to peruse the zine rack. Aside from at your local (and sometimes rare) zine festival, finding zine networks or distributors can prove a bit tricky. For all their scarcity, zines are becoming hard to avoid in the mainstream media: books are being publishing, art galleries are hosting exhibitions and even newspapers are waxing nostalgic about zines. Is this a real resurgence or just a case of the media jumping on a bandwagon? According to Melissa, co-founder of Cherry Bomb, it is mostly the latter:
“the main change that I’ve noticed is the mainstream is starting to get interested, e.g there have been more books published talking about zines and zine culture , and also various public & academic libraries in NZ have started creating zine collections.”

Cherry Bomb existed as a dedicated comic and zine shop in Auckland, New Zealand from July 2004-November 2007. Moving online has proved a much different venture according to Melissa:
“It was sad in lots of ways to transition from our physical space to our online store. I felt like we had really built up a little community, we were a hub for people to come and meet at, a place where they could hold political meetings, parties, gigs, film screenings etc.”

“Our store acted as a very visible, political and creative statement in Auckland city, and there was something really nice about people being about to physically browse the stuff we had, and talk to us about it. Online however does have it’s advantages – it’s cheap (no rent to pay!) and makes it very easy for people all over the world to find out what you’re about….. The best thing of course would be to have an awesome website AND a shop space, but maybe that’ll come about in the future.”

This new-found attention paid by the mainstream media to zines haven’t exactly revolutionised those networks that still fly under the radar. Two recent examples of mainstream coverage do nothing to challenge this. Simon Reynolds claimed in a recent Guardian article that: “(a)lthough it’s hard to quantify, it feels like the fanzine is making a resurgence in the face of digital culture, just like that other analogue format, vinyl”. Despite this, the article focuses primarily on one-off art projects rather than self-made magazines. Harmony Korine (best known as the screenwriter of Kids) has released a book (called imaginatively The Collected Zines) of zines he created between 1992 and 1999, partly to stem the trading of the original publications at ridiculous prices on eBay. Neither of these events seem to indicate a major resurgence beyond the art gallery world.

Zine distribution networks are still out there, making the most of both email and postal connections. Marching Stars is a zine distro that stocks between 60-70 zines but, aside from a shift towards Paypal (rather than sneakily hidden money in the post), founder Lizzy hasn’t noticed any major changes over the last few years:

“There were a few UK distros that sold international perzine type zines which I LOVED and 2 closed and one went on indefinite hiatus (still hasn’t reopened) and I saw a gap. There’s Manifesta, which sells perzines with a feminist type slant, but most of them are from the UK and I have so many favourite zinesters who are international. I felt that someone should be making their zines more easily available in the UK, no-one was, I figured it was something I could do, so I started marchingstars.”

One difference Marching Stars has noticed is that there are fewer zine review listings amongst the back pages, a theory backed up by the recent decision by Xerography Debt to stop printing zine reviews. This decision was made because a blog provided a more timely way of providing zine reviews and the now co-exists alongside the printed version of the zine.

“The blog is fast and reaches a number of people, but certainly not everyone and it can be exclusionary”. (Davida from XD).

XD have also formed a partnership with distributor ‘Microcosm’ to try and offset some of the demands on the zine and allow it to stay in print:

“They will have no editorial control, but will help co-ordinate support and try and flow some new zines our way. Their mission and that of XD are actually very similar, so it is a perfect partnership. In this case, the zine and the distro are trying to actively support one another.”

On a larger and international scale, the Queer Zine Archive Project ensures obscure zine titles remains available across the world. While the QZAP’s main objective is to ensure zines are archived and future-proofed, new zines can also be distributed via the archive website.

Projects, like the US-based Trading Network seek to do for self-publishing what BookMooch and others have done for literary types. Inspired by postcardx.net project and similar in function to the now-inactive Zine Recycling Centre, The Trading Network encourages people to send random mail to others with similar creations on offer. This includes but is not limited to zines.

So, while this might not be the revival predicted in some quarters, there are plenty of reassuring signs of healthy and creative underground publishing networks.

Directories such as Zine World and Broken Pencil publish online guides as well as regular printed issues. Factsheet 5, a pivotal zine resource, also seems to be back in action. And sometimes, if you are lucky, there are Zine Fairs.

This feature originally appeared on Dandizette, A Pulp Magazine for Media Perverts

Besides being a gallery owner, Picard is–among other things–a painter, collagist, writer, and bookbinder. By establishing an independent press as part of The Green Lantern (now a 501(c)3 organization), Picard reinforced her desire to work across mediums. The Green Lantern Press publishes limited edition original fiction with an emphasis on “underdressed intelligence.” According to the mission statement, these are works that “relate old dusty books to contemporary experience without a lot of noise and pointing”–works like Nicholas Sarno’s God Bless the Squirrel Cage, Moshe Zvi Marvit’s Urbesque, and A.E. Simn’s Lust and Cashmere. The GLP also publishes Phonebook, a handy guide to alternative art spaces in the U.S.

A unique aspect of the press is its “slow media” approach: Books are printed in small, collector’s editions of 1,500. The first 500 books in each print run feature silkscreened covers designed by local artists. The remaining “no frills” editions are sold at a lower price, allowing the books to reach a larger audience. This is just one way that Picard, and her collaborators at The Green Lantern, approach their publications and projects with imagination and resourcefulness. Picard believes that many Chicagoans have these qualities in spades. “I don’t think I could have started [in any other city],” she says. “There is such a strong DIY tradition here. I was talking to a friend of mine once about how Chicago is like the Wild West, where anyone can come and set up a little shanty, put a sign out, and sell bonds. People will always come to check it out. They buy the bonds and, generally speaking, the bonds are legit. Sometimes they’re fake, and then people stop going…. But how crazy that people are always willing to give you the benefit of the doubt!”

I corresponded with Picard about the origins of The Green Lantern, book publishing as compared to co-op milk production, and future projects.

Laura Pearson: I’m curious about how you started The Green Lantern. Did it begin as an individual project or a collaborative effort?

Caroline Picard: The Green Lantern began years ago in a series of conversations that ebbed and flowed between myself, Nick Sarno, Jason Bacasa, and a handful of others who happened to be in the same bar or coffee shop at the same time. Depending on who was involved in the conversation, it tended to have different emphases, For instance, I remember sitting on a stoop with Moshe [Zvi Marvit] in Washington D.C. He suggested we one day buy a warehouse building and open a bar with live music for our friend, Peter Speer, who runs an independent music label called Colonial Records (at the time an undeveloped idea without a name). Moshe suggested we could fund the press with the bar, offer live music, and hang art on the walls. I believe we had just come from a lecture given by Noam Chomsky, after which Moshe (age 20 at the time) and I (18) shook the man’s hand and informed him that we wanted to start a revolution. Chomsky gave us his card. I think, somehow, opening the bar was tied into the revolution idea, but I can’t be sure.

A few years later, after college, Nick and I were roommates in San Francisco and the idea resurfaced. This time we thought we’d start a literary journal. We did the research, felt daunted by the economic prospects and, in all honesty, didn’t have the money. The house we lived in caught on fire; I moved to Philadelphia, another roommate moved to Florida, and the other two–Nick and Kate–stayed in the city.

Obviously, things don’t turn out the way one expects, though I think this is generally for the better. We’d always been interested in independent venues and culture, and it was probably only a matter of time before one of us set up shop someplace. The literal beginning of The Green Lantern happened somewhat arbitrarily. I had lived in Chicago for a year, house-sitting. I decided I would stay in the city more permanently and needed to find a more permanent place to live. I looked at various apartments–dark garden places with sketchy landlords and high price tags. In the midst of this, I happened to walk past the Singer Sewing Machine Shop. Above it, there was a For Rent sign. I went to look at it and realized that it would be cheaper to run a space than go to grad school. It would also be more efficient to run an apartment gallery than to rent a single apartment and a studio (I was painting at the time). So I took the place. The next day I called Nick and asked him if he wanted to start the press with me. That was it.

LP: Were there other small publishers that you looked to for inspiration?

CP: I don’t know. Featherproof, certainly. McSweeney’s. Even the not-so-indie New Yorker magazine.

We got our business model from Slow Food organizations. I worked for a year at The Cowgirl Creamery, an artisan cheese company in California. For that year I helped make 350 cheeses a day (their production has gone way up since). The Slow Food movement has enabled mom-and-pop dairies to stay open. By becoming organic, they are able to control their price points, and thus thrive outside of the rubric of co-op milk production, which, from what I understand, is a real machine that streamlines production to such an extent as to squeeze out the little guys. I really liked this approach, because it showed how innovation and creative thinking could create new avenues of economy that then liberate the individual within the corporate system. Obviously, The Green Lantern has a long way to go before we get to such a point. I hope we can though.

LP: GLP publications are lovingly designed! I understand you’ve chosen different silkscreeners (Mat Daly, Alana Bailey) to design the covers. Any specific artists you’d like to work with in the future?

CP: This year we’re working with Nick Butcher from Sonnenzimmer. I don’t know who we’ll work with next year, but I like the idea that each year is a kind of screen-printer’s residency.

LP: What’s next for GLP?

CP: I’m working out the exhibition schedule for 2009/2010 this January. We will be publishing a few smaller books, in editions of 100–200, a long prose poem by Devin King that references The Odyssey, a translation of Rimbaud’s "A Season in Hell" by Nick Sarno (the proceeds of which will be donated to a children’s hospital in San Francisco), as well as a reprint of The North Georgia Gazette, a newspaper published in 1821 by a fleet of English sailors who were trapped in the Arctic for nine months. Our edition will include the original manuscript, as well as an excerpt from the Captain’s journal, some annotations kept by the transcriber, Lily Robert-Foley, and contemporary artworks by Jason Dunda, Daniel Anhorn, Rebecca Grady, Deb Sokolow, and Nick Butcher, who will be pressing a 7-inch record. This book–it’s probably our most ambitious project–is due for release in February, in an edition of 250. Nick Butcher is also going to be making the covers.

The next book we’re gearing up for is an original novel by Terri Griffith, due out this spring. Next fall, we’re going to release a book called The Concrete of Tight Places, by Justin Andrews, as well as a collection of short stories by Ashley Murray.

Which, I guess is to say, we’re going to be really busy. In the best way.

LP: In keeping with the final question of my last column, what are three words you’d use to describe your independent publishing experiences in Chicago?

CP: Wide open. Supportive.

Photo by Flickr user holisticgeek

The Queer Zine Archive was started in 2003 as a way of preserving and promoting queer DIY publishing, making queer zines available across time and space. From an initial 15 zines, the QZAP has continued to expand and recently celebrated its 5th birthday! Check out the website to find out about recent additions to the archive, ways to contribute, info about new projects (including the QZAP:Meta zine) and other ways to support this awesome archive.

Founders, Milo and Christopher were kind enough to answer some questions about the project.

Why did you decide to make an archive of queer zines? Was it always going to be a web-based archive?

QZAP
When Chris and I first met in 2001, we discovered that together we had upwards of 300 queer zines that we had collected out of our own interests or via trades. We began a discussion of how important we thought they were both personally, and also because of what they represented – a look at queers’ lives, stories, and histories that are seldom visible through mainstream media. We kicked around various ideas of how to best preserve and share these documents and decided that putting them online was the way to go. In the way we’ve built QZAP, these zines can transcend borders, and have become accessible to many more people than those who might have originally seen them.

Had you been involved in other zine projects before this? As a creator? Distributor?

QZAP
We’ve both been zinesters for many years. In the 1990s Chris was the creator of a zine called “Abrupt Lane Edge” and helped produce other arts publications. He also participated in several queer zine events over the years such as SPEW 3 in Toronto. I worked on a couple of zines previously, but really got my start in 1999 with a zine called “Mutate.” So far I’ve done 10 issues and additionally have made several one-off zines, a vegi cookzine called “SoyBoi: Queer Adventures in My Vegetarian Kitchen” and currently self-publish a zine called “Gendercide.” Additionally, most members of the loose QZAP collective are all zinesters in some form. When we have interns or volunteers, we ask them to make zines as a requirement to better understand the material that we’re working with.

I know the archive went offline for a while earlier this year because of technical complications. Can you tell me a bit about the technical basis of the project, both originally and what you’re using now?

QZAP
The Queer Zine Archive Project has been based as much as possible on free open-source software. We originally started out of our home on a Pentium 3 computer running OpenBSD. We quickly moved to a Linux-based server that was housed in a closet at a local cyber-cafe. When the cafe went out of business, we moved to a data center in Texas. After our crash, have relocated to a data center in Los Angeles.

Currently, the server is running on Debian Linux with Apache 2, MySQL, and PHP. Our website infrastructure is built on Joomla!, and the current archive is based on Gallery2.

In our workspace where we scan the zines, we run dual-boot Macintosh desktops (Mac OS X and Linux) and use Ubuntu, GIMP, XSANE for scanning, and have just started working with a closed-source library cataloging system to help us keep track of our titles as well as aid searching what we physically have in the collection.

Philosophically, we use F/OSS software because it is representative of what many zinesters have done over the years. It’s inexpensive, modifiable, and accessible to most people with a little know how.

Do you work most closely with zine creators or is there a network of distributors/collectors who contribute zines?

QZAP
A combination of the two. Many individuals will send us their zines to be included in the archive, and we have also received five large donations from people’s zine collections each containing fifty to one hundred zines each. While we started out with just 300 or so, we now have well over 1000 queer zines. The oldest document in our collection dated back to 1973 and is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The most recent came in the post last Thursday. We have zines from more than a dozen countries and in several languages.

Is the project still primarily archival or is there a distribution aspect of it now that people are adding newer zines?

QZAP
We see ourselves as an archive with an educational mission. Our purpose is to make queer zines available for research and personal enjoyment, but we don’t discount the fact that in some ways we might be seen as a digital distro. That’s not our intent, and we try to follow the US “Fair Use” doctrine as close as possible.

Have you notice a flow on effect of archive-type projects? Do you get lots of people contacting you asking advice?

QZAP
We’re fairly well connected to other zine libraries and archives around North America, but for the most part each one has it’s own way of structuring itself.We try to help folks as much as possible with their projects, but mostly we encounter librarians and archivists who work with more institutional archives (Public and academic libraries.) Part of the reason we use F/OSS software is so that others can see and use the tools we do to make their own projects, whether they’re archival in nature or not.

What are the future plans for QZAP?

QZAP
We’ll keep scanning zines, and are slowly working toward establishing a physical space where people can come and view or check out the zines and documents.

This interview cross-posted with permission from Dandizette.net

If you’ve ever worked at a tiny bookstore (narrow aisles, teetering piles of overstock, employees generally crashing into one another), perhaps you can relate. Maybe you too have taken refuge in this sense of immensity: all those words, all those worlds captured on all that paper.

When I worked at a little independent bookstore, my favorite task was opening boxes of new books and giving them a pre-shelving perusal, à la Léopold Sfax. I noticed that often the most interesting, most expansive stuff came in small boxes—promising new titles from small indie publishing houses, unadorned by stickers declaring “Now a Major Motion Picture!,” “Oprah’s Book Club,” or “Reading with Ripa.” Admittedly, some of the least interesting lit also arrived in small boxes, but more often than not, the independently published fiction and nonfiction we received and eagerly hand-sold (an effort led by one of my particularly book-savvy coworkers, Javier), crept onto the store’s bestseller list. Thus, while working at a neighborhood book retailer in this Amazon.com-ian age, I took refuge in this fact—that tiny presses can have immense impact.

While unpacking those boxes, I became especially intrigued by a press based in Hoboken, New Jersey, called Melville House Publishing. Their books were wide-ranging in subject matter and dazzlingly well-designed (Simplicity! Originality! French flaps!). I was not surprised to learn that the company had won several AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artist) Awards for book covers and interior design. When the bookstore hosted a Melville House writer, Benoit Duteurtre, who was on tour for his fascinating novel, The Little Girl and the Cigarette, I took some time to learn about the origins of this fast-rising press.

Melville House was founded by a couple who had no experience in the publishing field: Dennis Loy Johnson, a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer and creator of the book blog MobyLives, and Valerie Merians, a sculptor and photographer. At first, the two didn’t intend to form a publishing company; their sole goal was to release a book that responded to the events of September 11, and particularly the U.S. political climate at the time. In 2002, they published Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets, and it attracted major media attention—CNN, NPR, Good Morning, America, etc. In a New York Times article from July 28, 2002, Merians said, “We thought [the book] would be very modest. We would hand-sell it just to area bookstores. You know, an out-of-the-back-of-the-car kind of thing.” But one book led to another, and after publishing a work of literary criticism by B.R. Myers, deciding to incorporate, finding a distributor, and figuring out things like printing costs and royalties, Melville House Publishing was born.

From the beginning, Johnson and Merians wanted to avoid becoming a niche publisher. Many small presses occupy a niche, they reasoned, but releasing books in a range of genres, subjects, and styles would enable them to stand out as a truly independent voice. In an interview with Bookslut, Johnson said, “We want to do what Random House does, but we want to do it right.” True to their mission, Melville House has assembled a catalog that is as wide as it is deep: French novels in translation (as in the aforementioned Duteurtre book and Justine Lévy’s Nothing Serious); classic and contemporary novellas (such as Adair’s The Death of the Author, plus a lot of other sharp, previously unpublished prose narratives); avant-garde fiction (from the likes of Stephen Dixon and Tao Lin); and leftist political reportage (i.e., Who Killed Daniel Pearl? by Bernard-Henri Lévy, and Torture Taxi, by Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson). The latter political books made big waves by being ahead of the news. Who Killed Daniel Pearl? was the first source to reveal that US ally Pakistan was trading nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea, and Torture Taxi was the first book to explore the CIA’s rendition program. In fact, the book was being printed at the precise moment President Bush made a public admission of the program’s existence.

Melville House continues its wave-making efforts, but now from a new location in Brooklyn, complete with offices and a sparkling new bookstore. (I’ve seen pictures, and it looks anything but claustrophobic.) Fortunately for the book industry and for readers everywhere, Johnson and Merians show no signs of slowing down. Last year, the press received the Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing, otherwise known as the Indie Publisher of the Year Award. At his acceptance speech, Johnson reflected, “Valerie and I entered this business with absolutely no background in it… But the fact is that once we had entered the business we quickly found a huge community, both in and out of publishing, who shared a passion for it and supported our approach to it.” He went on to say that in the aftermath of distributor fiascos and in the midst of financial crises, this community has persevered. “There are a lot of publishers out there right now who deserve an award for creativity by simply staying alive,” he said. Here’s hoping that the life of this fresh, fearless publishing company is very long indeed.

Looking for a specific way to help preserve your independents? South End Press is in the running for a $20,000 grant from the quirky website Ideablob.

The small, social justice-oriented press became a candidate for the grant via its Community Supported Publishing (CSP) Program, designed to promote sustainability in independent publishing. Like Community Supported Agriculture, this effort helps make available a steady crop of quality books. Now the CSP Program is up against seven other “ideas” in Ideablob’s July Showdown, and the winner receives a generous grant.

To help South End Press receive these much-needed funds, visit ideablob.com and cast your vote. Voting closes July 31, 2008.

-Laura Pearson

I asked writers, publishers, booksellers, distributors, teachers, editors, and supporters of independent publishing—some of whom have been featured in this column, some who have not—to provide a list of recommended reads for summer. Their suggestions range from short stories to comic books, from classic fiction to contemporary poetry. There’s a book recommendation for “people who think they’re scared of Shakespeare” and one for people who cook with a cast iron skillet. Other publications feature beautiful illustrations (The Never Mind) and soaring titles (Oh Pure and Radiant Heart). And let’s not forget such vibrant inclusions as World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (an audio book read by Henry Rollins and Mark Hamill) and Thank You and You’re Welcome (an “entertaining volume of ‘Kanye-isms’” from the humble pen of Kanye West).

Yes, some of the items on the list are simply meant to inspire lighthearted literary recreation during the summer months. But in keeping with the reverential tone of this column, I’d like to give props to all the great stuff included below that was released by small presses on shoestring budgets. In fact, I encouraged participants to mention their own work—zines or books they’ve written, recent titles they’ve released—in hopes that you’ll seek out these fine publishers and publications, for summer reading and beyond!

So enjoy the selections below, and whether you’re embarking on an epic road trip, taking your lunch break in the park, or floating on a raft in the waters of Fiji whilst drinking a piña colada out of a coconut shell, may you never be without good reading material.

Without further ado, the summer reading list:

David Lasky, Comics Artist and Teacher

Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, by Anders Nilsen (Drawn and Quarterly)

Escape From Special, by Miss Lasko-Gross (Fantagraphics)

Happiness? An 826 Seattle Comic Book (826 Seattle) — I edited this.

365 Days, by Julie Doucet (Drawn and Quarterly)

Lone Wolf and Cub, Volume 16: Gateway Into Winter, by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima (Dark Horse)

Hunter Clauss, Freelance Journalist and Chicago Public Radio Contributor

Crime, by Alix Lambert

The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore

Y: The Last Man, Volumes 1–10, by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm, by Ulrich Haarburste

Fantomas, by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

Jocelyn Burrell, Editor, South End Press

Books I truly wish I could read again for the first time:

Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion

Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, by Frank B. Wilderson (South End Press)

The Collected Stories, Leonard Michaels

Ariel, by Sylvia Plath

Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde

Jonathan Messinger, Co-Owner, featherproof books

The Facts of Winter, by Paul LaFarge

Jamestown, by Matthew Sharpe

Nellcott Is My Darling, by Golda Fried

Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, by Lydia Millet

I Am Death, by Gary Amdahl

Kathryn Lebo, Development Associate, Richard Hugo House

The Real West Marginal Way, Richard Hugo — memoir

The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald — memoir

Set This House in Order, Matt Ruff — fiction

The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne — cookbook

Dog & Me, Kary Wayson — poetry

Kaya Oakes, Writer and Former Senior Editor, Kitchen Sink magazine

Reading Comics, by Douglas Wolk — An excellent critical overview of both underground and mainstream comics that will be interesting to both comics addicts and laypeople. Newly out in paperback too, for all of us who are too poor to buy hardcovers.

Catching Tigers in Read Weather, by Andrew Demcak — One of the most powerful, kick-ass books of poetry I’ve read in ages (and I wrote one of his cover blurbs!). It’s from a very cool small press called Three Candles.

Shakespeare the Thinker, by A.W. Nuttall — A fascinating analysis of Shakespeare’s—well, thinking, and not too dense or overly academic. Good for people who think they’re scared of Shakespeare.

Anything from the 33 1/3 series of books about albums — Good for a few hours of informative and entertaining music-related reading.

The Braindead Megaphone, by George Saunders — Proves that essays can be entertaining. When people talk about nonfiction being dry or dull, this book is a good counteractive weapon.

Liz Mason, Manager, Quimby’s Bookstore

The Bad Lyrics Project, by me: Liz Mason! — I am very proud of this zine. It’s a sociological study of sorts of rock music lyrics. I personally think it’s very funny and entertaining, but then I’m the author!

Caboose #5: The Health and Recreation Issue, also by me: still Liz Mason! — A look at my adventures in the world of both traditional and alternative medicine with my weirdo undiagnosed illness (which has since been diagnosed as Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, but I’m doing pretty rockin’, all things considered).

The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, by Sandra and Matthew Blaksee — This book is authored by a mother-son science writing team. It’s all about maps in the brain and how they’re affected by what goes on around you. Heavy shit, but they make it light and fun.

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda — What I like about this book is that occasionally the author has some nice spiritual experiences that make the story juicy, but he learns a lot on the way, which makes him seem like a regular person.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach — The same author who wrote Stiff (about human cadavers) and Spook (about the afterlife) tackles sexual physiology in a hilarious and PERSONAL research book chronicling what happens during the ol’ in-and-out.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks — This is read on CD by a full cast, and the cast rocks! Henry Rollins, Carl Reiner, and a bunch of other folks—even Mark Hamill, who is actually really good. The price ($14.99) is about what you’d pay for the book in soft cover, so you might as well get the CD set. Max Brooks, by the way, is Mel Brooks’ son, in case you’re curious. This book is all about the zombie war that came close to eradicating humanity. Very apocalyptic and dark, but totally compelling.

Mairead Case, Managing Editor, Proximity magazine

Awe, by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)

Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, by John Darnielle (Continuum)

A New Quarantine Will Take My Place, by Johannes Göransson (Apostrophe)

Lust, by Ellen Forney (Fantagraphics)

Kill All Your Darlings, by Luc Sante (Yeti)

Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm, by Ulrich Haarburste (Serapion)

Shoot the Buffalo, by Matt Briggs (Clear Cut)

The Age of Flowers, by Umberto Pasti (Pushkin Modern)

Beauty Talk and Monsters, by Masha Tupitsyn

Any interview Sylvere Lotringer ever did (most on Semiotext(e))

Chronology, by Daniel Birnbaum (Sternberg)

Complete Minimal Poems, by Aram Saroyan (Ugly Duckling)

Selected Poems, by William Bronk (New Directions)

On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City, by Erick

Lyle (Soft Skull)

Dancing After Hours, by Andre Dubus

Cabinet magazine’s Colors column

Marco Kane Braunschweiler, Co-Owner, Golden Age

The Never Mind, by Robin Cameron — A small limited-edition drawing publication with a lot of funny transcriptions of real and fake conversations.

WON magazine, Volume 1, Issue 2, Autumn 2008 — Featuring: Daniel Wang, Will Sweeney, Aaron Rose, Ken Werner, Mårten Lange, The Changes, Nienke Klunder, Robert Cook, Thobias Fäldt, Amanda Maxwell, Linus Bill, Jeremie Egry, Andrew Long, Thomas Baldischwyler, Ben Barretto, Hoger Czukay, Vernon Treweeke, Deanna Templeton, Matt Wolf, Rosemary Scanlon, and Sarah Larnarch.

Wikipedia Reader, by Various Artists — For this project, the publisher asked artists with varying interests to create a thread of linking Wikipedia articles starting with something they found interest in, and continuing to other topics from links within the page. The results are a group of similar or dissimilar topics that are all linked together linearly. This is a really fresh, tasteful book.

Accounting for Dummies, by Somebody — Seriously, this is really good to read.

Kingsboro Press, Volume 1, Issue 3— Sixty-four pages of Riso printed glory. Features interviews and work with artists like Inka Jarvinen, C.W. Winter, Kim Hiorthoy, Karma International, plus writing from KBoro regulars like Alex Gartenfeld, Yan Yan, and Jonathan Basile.

Martine Syms, Co-Owner, Golden Age

Getting Things Done, by David Allen — For all rippers and rulers.

Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History, by Robin Kinross — I’ve been trying to get through this all year. Maybe now I’ll finally have a chance.

Appendix Appendix, by Stuart Bailey and Ryan Gander — The perfect conceptual art supplement to marathon TV watching (available at Golden Age).

The Kingsboro Press, Issues 1–3 — My art/design/culture periodical of choice (available at Golden Age).

Thank You and You’re Welcome, by Kanye West — The man, the performer, and the poet graces us with wise words. I got it for free, but it’s still priceless. I’m trying to find a way to make it required reading for my students this summer.

Richard Nash, Publisher, Soft Skull Press

All About Lulu, by Jonathan Evison (Soft Skull)

Black Flies, by Shannon Burke (Soft Skull)

The Good Fairies of New York, by Martin Millar (Soft Skull)

My Zorba, by Danielle Pafunda (Bloof Books)

The Changeling, by Joy Williams (Fairy Tale Review Press)

Zach Dodson, Co-Owner, featherproof books

Bicycle, by Paul Fattaruso (St. George Press) — This clever little book will make you want to ride your bike all summer long.

This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record, by Susannah Felts (featherproof  books) — Our first young adult novel. Set over a dramatic, nostalgia-drenched Nashville summer.

Paper & Carriage, Issue 3 (Green Lantern) — A beautiful letterpress cover and Henry Darger inside! How could you go wrong with this Chicago-based  “slow media” magazine?

The Order of Odd Fish, by James Kennedy (Delacorte) — Reading this debut young adult novel by Chicago author James Kennedy is better than a nuzzle on the nose from Aznath, the Silver Kitten of Deceit!

boring boring boring boring boring boring boring, by Zach Plague (featherproof books) — I uncomfortably recommend my own book to anyone who is listening.

Mule magazine, Issue 5 — It’s mystical!

The Mayor’s Tongue, by Nathaniel Rich (Riverhead) — It starts off with an awkward sex scene. Need I say more?

Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, by Jason Brown (Open City) —Save this lachrymose short story collection for a rainy indoor day.

The publication became a program of the Neighbor Lady Community Arts Project, an Oakland-based arts organization. As a result of the staff’s dedication and tendency to broaden—rather than narrow—its themes and content, Kitchen Sink quickly asserted itself as a bright, free-spirited magazine, or, as one journalist described it, a “zine that went to graduate school.” Via grass-roots involvement, various partnerships, and some well-attended parties, the staff worked to make Kitchen Sink more than just a magazine: It was ultimately a tribute to, and enabler of, dynamic community.

It’s these community-forging publications that leave a particularly noticeable void when they cease to exist. Lest the past tense has failed to give it away: Kitchen Sink no longer exists. It too was a casualty of a now-familiar set of factors: a decrease in ad revenue, dwindling subscription numbers, and the dissolution of the Independent Press Association (announced early last year). As you’ve probably read, this unholy trinity of causes has spelled the demise of many independent publications over the past year or so.

It makes one wonder what happens to the people who labored over these publications and the communities that sprang up around them. In some cases, staff members go on to explore other forms of publishing, e.g., blogs and online journals. Others spend time writing or researching different modes of print publishing, such as POD (print on demand). Undoubtedly, some people—especially those who’ve devoted decades of their lives to indie publishing—just need a break from it all.

I caught up with two former Kitchen Sink staffers who shared what they’ve been up to since the magazine ceased publication.

Jen Loy was a founding Editor in Chief at KS, as well as a writer and event coordinator. She was also coproprietor of Mama Buzz, a café and gallery (and former Kitchen Sink clubhouse) in downtown Oakland that has been credited for invigorating the city’s art scene and being a “nexus for all things artistic.” These days, Loy is taking it easy.

“I’m proudest of our success as a creative community,” she says of her friends and former coworkers at Kitchen Sink, describing how they’ve gone on to publish books of poetry and comics, do curatorial and design projects, and start journalism school. “As for me, I’ve learned to say ‘NO.’”

After Kitchen Sink folded, Loy sold Mama Buzz and moved to Richmond. She’s not far from Oakland and other KS alumni but decided to “purposefully withdraw” from collaborative, community-based publishing/art/writing projects.

“I’m currently focused on a professional publishing venture and specializing in health care and labor issues,” Loy says. “I’ve survived a few photography classes and have been challenged by a friend to write creatively again. I’ve written a few art and culture pieces for Bay Area publications, but mostly I’m saying ‘NO,’ which is new for me.”

Kaya Oakes is another KS staffer who’s busy working on individual writing and publishing projects. A former senior editor at the magazine, Oakes is currently writing a book about independent culture, which will be released by Henry Holt sometime in 2009.

When I contacted Oakes, she was about to dive into her chapter on independent publishing, so we discussed current ways of making indie media. Oakes affirmed that the web plays a vital, simplifying role in the way of publication and distribution. “The logistics of mag publishing are just ridiculous, and the cost is getting harder to bear unless people want to keep things very small,” she says. “Even with Kitchen Sink’s initial print run of only 2K, we had a really hard time paying the bills. When this increased to 10K, we were hopelessly in debt all the time.”

Oakes was also quick to add that print publications need to be supported and sustained, but perhaps they need to scale back a bit: “I do continue to believe in print media, of course, but I also think independent print media have to think micro these days to survive… I’m also a firm supporter of POD, which is going to be a method of survival for a lot of small presses.”

Both Loy and Oakes cited examples of indie publishers and publications that have inspired them lately: Ugly Duckling Presse, Action Books, and Flood Editions (all tiny literary presses); Make/Shift, a feminist magazine founded by Kitchen Sink staff writer Jessica Hoffman; Other, the project of another KS affiliate Charlie Anders; and Watchword, a literary journal published by Watchword Press.

Although Kitchen Sink has sunk, its hardworking staff members continue to pursue projects that will no doubt improve and enliven their communities; they’re just approaching them in perhaps quieter, more individual ways. As for her “Just Say No” phase, Loy says, “I predict this will last for about 12 months. And then, who knows? Maybe the world will be ready for another publishing project.”

I first heard about the Northampton, Massachusetts-based micropublishing house a few years ago when I was working at an independent bookstore. One of my well-read coworkers had hand-sold dozens of copies of a short story collection called Stranger Things Happen, which featured great Vintage Nancy Drew-style cover art and a blurb from Jonathan Lethem describing the author, Kelly Link, as “the exact best and strangest and funniest short story writer on earth that you have never heard of at the exact moment you are reading these words and making them slightly inexact.” It was true: I’d never heard of her, but I became increasingly curious about this book that, at least in our little store, was outselling The Da Vinci Code. So I read these strange and funny stories-stories that, by some special alchemy, imbue everyday events with a fantastical weirdness while treating haunting Brothers Grimm-esque themes like they’re nothing out of the ordinary. After reading, enjoying, and starting to recommend the book myself, I discovered that Link had self-published Stranger Things Happen, or I should say co-published it (with her husband Gavin J. Grant), on Small Beer Press.

Link and Grant founded Small Beer in 2000. In some ways, the evolution of their publishing endeavors can be described as two people working with greater and greater amounts of paper: starting with zines, experimenting with chapbooks, and finally arriving at trade paperbacks. In 1996, while working at Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in Boston, they collaborated on publishing a literary zine called Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. “Gavin had access to a photocopier at his temp job, and we both knew a fair number of writers,” says Link. “After awhile, we put out two chapbooks to experiment, just a bit, with more book-like design and layout… It seemed as if we could probably sell a certain number of books, and having worked in bookstores for years, we really wanted a chance to see what making books would be like.” According to Grant, publishing Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet had already taught them “(in small affordable steps): marketing, distribution, design, how to work to deadlines, and most of all, the importance of professional proofreaders.”

Obviously the experience paid off, because after releasing the two chapbooks, Link and Grant went on to publish two short story collections: Stranger Things Happen and Ray Vukcevich’s Meet Me in the Moon Room. Now, in addition to still releasing the twice-yearly zine, Small Beer Press publishes novels, collections, chapbooks, anthologies, and classic reprints. “Most of the books that we’ve published have had some element of fantasy or strangeness to them,” says Link, “but that wasn’t a conscious decision… We set out to publish books that we loved.” Recent releases include the novels Endless Things, by John Crowley, Water Logic, by Laurie J. Marks, and Generation Loss, by Elizabeth Hand (another book that enchanted my well-read former coworker).

This labor of love isn’t strictly a paper venture. Like other indie publishers, Small Beer uses the Internet, in various imaginative ways, to get the word out. Which leads me back to that free book I mentioned: After Link published her second short story collection, Magic for Beginners, Small Beer made Stranger Things Happen available for free download under a Creative Commons (Attribution-Noncommerical ShareAlike 2.5) license. Not only was this a way of promoting downloadable story-sharing with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached, but it also served as an expression of gratitude. As Grant and Link explain on their website, “When we published our first two books, we were incredibly lucky and received an incredible amount of support, advice, help, and enthusiasm from readers, publishers, writers, and others across North America and beyond. So this is one way to say thanks, everyone.”

Yet as indie publishers like Small Beer Press continue on-not only holding their ground but even claiming new territory (content-wise, distribution-wise)–it’s we grateful readers who are saying thanks and raising our glasses and toasting: Live well. Live long.

Small Beer Press online

Free Download of Stranger Things Happen

Previously in the Preserving Our Independents series

Quimby’s bookstore in Chicago. Photo from Quimby’s Flickr account.

As the bankruptcy saga unfolded last year, and more and more publications started to fold, many people involved in independent media considered giving up and retreating to that comfortable hole in the ground. Blogs and message boards conveyed recurrent themes: “Print media is dead;” “This is the end of independent publishing as we know it;” “New distribution models are needed;” “The future is the web.”

There are still no easy answers. Just as these conversations reveal the difficulties of independent publishing in an increasingly corporate-dominated climate, they also-somewhat miraculously-contain glimmers of hope. Despite numerous print casualties (a death toll that has grown steadily since last year), there are still small publishing houses and indie publications forging ahead with new ideas (many of them web-centered), determined to preserve their voice.

One of many such forgers-ahead is Featherproof Books. “All sorts of people point to declining ad sales and reading surveys in an alarmist way, but I really think that energy is still there,” says Zach Dodson, co-founder of the small Chicago-based press, “It’s just moving to different places.” In addition to publishing perfect-bound fiction, Featherproof also offers downloadable mini-books-short stories and novellas available online that the reader can print on ordinary paper and fold into pocket-sized books. “The free and easy distribution that the Internet allows is great,” says Dodson, “but we are in love with paper, and the physical object that a book is, so the minis were a way for us to combine the two… We’re trying to think of ways to embrace technology, while retaining the things we love about books.”

Such imagination and synthesis of print/web content seems vital to indie press survival, but understandably, not everyone is convinced. Certain publishers, like the owners of No Depression magazine, bear some pretty fresh wounds: Last week, they wrote a letter announcing that the 13-year-old magazine would cease publication after the May-June issue. In the letter, the three owners cited some of the all-too-familiar circumstances that forced them to call it quits: a decrease in ad revenue, the downfall of the music industry, and the struggling economy. “The cumulative toll of those forces makes it increasingly difficult for all small magazines to survive,” they wrote. “Whatever the potentials of the web, it cannot be good for our democracy to see independent voices further marginalized. But that’s what’s happening. The big money on the web is being made, not surprisingly, primarily by big businesses.”

But despite varying perspectives on what role the web should play in independent publishing, one thing is clear: An ever-growing readership is still valued, and full-fledged support is needed. Disillusioned though indie media advocates may be, we shouldn’t forget that there are great things still being printed and great things on the print horizon. To that end, Is Greater Than is beginning a new bimonthly feature showcasing new and noteworthy publications released via tiny budgets. We’ll try to include a range of titles, from political nonfiction to short stories and graphic novels; from science writing to zines and artist books. Our hope is to bring some much-deserved attention to various independents, to shine a spotlight on small presses working tirelessly to convey big ideas. And in case you ever need to tune out the bad news and escape into that aforementioned hole in the ground, at least you’ll be accompanied by some good reading material.

Other installments of Preserving Our Independents

Like all of Koak’s previous work, this project originates from a real-life experience–a nightmarish trip to the hospital that was both traumatic and surreal. The title “Sick Bed Blues” is drawn from a song about illness and death written in the 1960s by blues musician Skip James.

To read the comic, click on the image below. Clicking “prev” or “next” on the popup window will scroll through the pages. Purchase a print version of the preview here.