Calamari Press

Calamari Press (now known as Calamari Archive, ink.) is a small-press book publishing company, founded in 2003 by Derek White. It has published over 50 book objects, including the literary magazine Sleepingfish and the acquired 3rd bed imprint.^[1] Some of these have been first books by emerging writers such as Blake Butler, Miranda Mellis, Robert Lopez, Peter Markus and Chiara Barzini, while others have been resurrected reprints of out-of-print cult classics by established writers such as David Ohle, Gary Lutz, Stanley Crawford and Scott Bradfield.

Overview

Calamari Press started as an outlet for Derek White's own home-brewed chapbooks and collaborations of art, visual poetry and prose, and the lit mag Sleepingfish. Early collaborators included Carlos M. Luis, Sandy Baldwin and Wendy Collin Sorin. In April 2005, Calamari Press published its first perfect bound book, The Singing Fish by Peter Markus, which received acclaimed reviews in places like American Book Review and DIAGRAM. This was followed by Land of the Snow Men by Norman Lock (a literary canard penned under the name of George Belden), Trilce by James Wagner (homophonic translations of Cesar Vallejo's Trilce), and The Night I Dropped Shakespeare on the Cat by John Olson.

By the fourth issue of Sleepingfish (issue #0.875), Robert Lopez had joined Derek White in editing the publication, which still contained smatterings of visual poetry and text/image, but more experimental prose, perhaps in response to the void left behind by the folding of 3rd Bed. The fifth issue of Sleepingfish (#0.925) was published in May 2007.

In the fall of 2006, Calamari Press re-issued Peter Markus's first book, Good, Brother, followed by White's own Poste Restante. In early 2007 came Part of the World by Robert Lopez and The Revisionist by Miranda Mellis, an excerpt of which appeared in the June 2007 issue of Harper's. In 2008, Calamari Press acquired the 3rd bed imprint. In 2009, Calamari Press relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, where it published Blake Butler's Ever (novella) and Boons & The Camp by David Ohle. In 2010, Calamari Press relocated to Rome & published titles by Vincent Standley, Gary Lutz and Chiara Barzini. In 2013, Calamari Press moved back to New York City & re-issued The History of Luminous Motion] by Scott Bradfield and the 12th issue of Sleepingfish, with which it celebrated its tenth anniversary and announced it would be subsequently online. The anniversary issue was written up in Poets & Writers Magazine in an article on avant-garde journals, citing interest in the issue's "spectral maps" by Daisy Atterbury, image-texts by Nance Van Winkel and an "array of indices" by James Wagner.^[2]

In 2014, it published books by Elizabeth Mikesch, Brandon Hobson, Stanley Crawford, Beth Steidle, David Ohle and Laura Ellen Joyce. In September 2014 Calamari Press changed its name to Calamari Archive, ink., announcing that it would no longer publish copyrighted works and aggressively participate in the American economic machine.

Distribution

Calamari Press books are distributed by Small Press Distribution.

External links

• Calamari Press website
• Sleepingfish
• Poets & Writers Magazine

References