publishing | Erica Mena

Small Press Publishing Goals: Making Future People's Heads Explode

February 27, 2015 by Erica Mena

“My mission is to create beautiful, strange little books that a grad student studying the small press movement of the early 21st century will find in a special collections somewhere and they will make her head explode. Can you give us a preview of what’s current and/or forthcoming from your catalog, as well as what you’re hoping to publish in the future? Well, last season we only put out three titles, and they were all poetry. Outer Pradesh by Nathaniel […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, experimental poetry, keith waldrop, nathaniel mackey, outer pradesh, poetry, publishing, rosmarie waldrop, small press

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Chapbooks Resources

September 4, 2013 by Erica Mena

**I drafted this post a few weeks ago, and wanted to have more in my spreadsheet before publishing, but CLMP just announced a new chapbook/zine membership which you can read about here and I figured I should just get this posted.** I’ve been into chapbooks for a long time. Pretty much since I started working in literary publishing as the senior editor for the fascinating Arrowsmith Press, edited by Askold Melnyczuk. There’s a lot to love about them. One of the things I love […]

Categories: Chapbooks, Publishing • Tags: chapbook, poetry, publishing

Anomalous Press on Goodreads

April 13, 2013 by Erica Mena

The Anomalous Press books are now up on Goodreads. If you’ve had a chance to read them, or if you’re dying to, please take a minute to rate/review/add them to your to-read list. Believe it or not, this actually helps support us! The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17713493-the-continuing-adventures-of-alice-spider An Introduction to Venantius Fortunatus for Schoolchildren or Understanding the Medieval Concept World through Metonymy: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17728410-an-introduction-to-venantius-fortunatus-for-schoolchildren-or-understand Ghost: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17728432-ghost The Everyday Maths: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17728451-the-everyday-maths Mysterieuse: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17728456-mysterieuse

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, goodreads, publishing

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AWP-Wrap

March 4, 2012 by Erica Mena

Well, it has been far far too long. I’ve been buried under my thesis (excerpts of which you can read on Words Without Borders here and here) which is inches away from being announce-ably forthcoming in full. So that’s exciting. I’ve also been printing like a madwoman, making, among other cool things, these sweet postcards for Anomalous Press to hand out at AWP and display on the lovely Iowa Review table. And wow, was AWP crazy this year. I wasn’t initially going […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Anomalous Press, awp, awp12, awp2012, conference, conference experience, conference tips, letterpress printing, literary translators, poetry, publishing, Words without Borders

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Submitting Myself

October 14, 2011 by Erica Mena

Starting last year I began seriously working on my own poetry again, making it a priority. I had an idea, and wanted to see it through the same way I have with my translations. And I’ve been really satisfied with that. So now that it’s been through my editorial-brain wringer a few times, and I’m sure I’m not going to embarrass myself, I’m starting to think about places to send it. And that’s a hard question. I’m thinking about starting […]

Categories: Poetry, Publishing • Tags: journals, literary journals, poetry, publishing, submit, submitting

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Zombie Issues & Rolling Releases

September 8, 2011 by Erica Mena

I wrote a guest-blog entry about Anomalous for Write By Night: After discussing different approaches with the editors, luckily some of whom have online journal publishing experience, we decided to try what we’re calling “rolling releases.” Issue #2 was shaping up to be a monster issue (and it is; the pdf is over 100 pages long!!) and so we decided to sort of parse the writing out over the “life” of the issue. I’m using “life” in quotes because since it’s digital, it’s […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, online literary journal, online publishing, publishing, rolling releases, Write By Night, zombie issues

Bio Etiquette for Editors

August 19, 2011 by Erica Mena

I’m having a strange experience. I got an email from the editor of another journal, one in which I’ve actually been published and nurtured hopes of being published in again, about one of my Anomalous author’s bios. The other journal editor is insisting that I remove the sentence in the bio crediting my author with being an editor at their publication (does that all follow…..?). In other words, though Author was an Editor at Other Publication at the time we did production, […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, bio, editor, etiquitte, literary journal, online publishing, publishing

Enhanced ebooks

April 11, 2011 by Erica Mena

Apparently, the near-simultaneous birth and death of enhanced ebooks is being heralded by some at the London Book Fair (which I am not at, so all of this is reflecting on articles written on the talks there, not first-hand experience). At The Digital Reader the managing director of Bloomsbury is quoted as having said: “Enhanced will have an incredibly big future in education, but the idea of innovation in the narrative reading process is just a non-starter, I’ve been smug […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: 21st century publishing, ebooks, enhanced ebook, innovation, new media, publishing

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Online Journals Thrive, Too

April 9, 2011 by Erica Mena

A heartening article in the NYTimes, which I hardly ever read seriously due to their disgraceful dismissal of literary translation, caught my attention yesterday. Literary journals are doing well despite economic difficulties, publishing industry difficulties, and rashes of bookstore closures. Literary journals, because they are focused on small communities of like-minded readers, are not only surviving they are thriving. The article then goes on to talk about a bunch of wonderful west-coast print journals. Emphasis on print. They talk about […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: 21st century publishing, independent publishing, literary journals, online journals, publishing

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To publish: print or online?

April 7, 2011 by Erica Mena

This came up in my post about the 21st century publishing conference I attended a few weeks ago, and about Rebecca Frank Morgan’s comments about the ecosystem of literary publishing. But I think it’s worth further thought. Is there a real benefit to publishing in print rather than online? It used to be, back in the early days of the galactic interwebs, that online literary publishing was stigmatized. I know, how could that be? Aren’t artists, especially writers, supposed to […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: 21st century publishing, elit, eliterature, experimental poetry, independent publishing, literary journals, new media, online publishing, publishing

Erica Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

Tag: publishing

Small Press Publishing Goals: Making Future People's Heads Explode

Chapbooks Resources

Anomalous Press on Goodreads

AWP-Wrap

Submitting Myself

Zombie Issues & Rolling Releases

Bio Etiquette for Editors

Enhanced ebooks

Online Journals Thrive, Too

To publish: print or online?