The Small Talks Episode 85: Forthcoming from AngelHousePress

Recorded on January 3, 2022

Happy new year, dear listeners. I thought I’d start 2022 with a conversation with the fallen angel of AngelHousePress, in other words, with me about what I’m cooking up for the year’s activities. And since I’m the only one talking, it’s not exactly a conversation but rather a monologue. As always I’m excited about what we can do with AngelHousePress, which I began in 2007 in order to publish raw talent, ragged edges and rebels. This mandate became more focused as a mission to support, celebrate, and publish those who have been systematically excluded from literary and artistic canons.

The year begins with a call for poems and visual poems for NationalPoetryMonth.ca 2022. The deadline is February 28, 2022. By means of a crowd funding campaign, I will be paying contributors.

Anyone in the world is welcome to submit work, but I will give priority, to women and  gender nonconforming writers and artists who are BIPOC, mad, crip, chronically ill, neurodiverse, trans and queer.

A new work will be published on NationalPoetryMonth.ca daily in April.

I’d like to reach unpublished and rarely published writers and artists, especially those who are systematically excluded.

I will not tolerate expressions of hate.

More details are available at AngelHousePress.com or query me at amanda at angelhousepress dot com.

February 1 will be the launch of our IndieGoGo campaign to pay contributors to both NationalPoetryMonth.ca and Experiment-O. We’ve been publishing both magazines for many years but have never paid our contributors. I want to change that going forward because I believe that paying creators is important. For the crowd funding campaign, small presses and journals from Amsterdam, Canada, Denmark, India, Sweden , UK and USAhave generously donated books, limited edition chapbooks, subscriptions, tote bags, t-shirts and art as perks for those who support the campaign.

If you’d like early access to the fundraiser, please e-mail me at amanda at angelhousepress dot com.

I believe in the strength of solidarity and community, and I think independent publishing is an important and vital grass roots activity that is very much needed in the time of monopolies and increased authoritarianism and attempts to erase dissenting voices.

Later in the year will be the launch of a new site, The Caring Imagination, which will serve as a hub for resources to empower these voices of creators who have been systematically excluded from literary and arts canons. With advisors Cat Chong of Singapore, Jacqueline Valencia of Canada, Rae White of Australia and Terri Witek of USA, the site will address every aspect of creation, production and dissemination of literature. How can we create, publish and share work with compatible and equitable practices? I’m going to do what I have been doing for several years now: I’m going to crowd source and share resources with you.

Throughout the year, mostly monthly, all being well, I’ll continue to share episodes of the Small Machine Talks with you. In 2022, we’re doing a special focus on small presses and reading series. If you have a small press or a reading series, you’d like to talk about on the show, I’d love to hear from you. Anywhere in the world.

NationalPoetryMonth.ca will be online every day in the month of April to share poems and visual poems that transcend the boundaries and borders of genre and geography.

In the summer, I’ll be sending out invitations for contributors to Experiment-O, which celebrates the art of risk, publishes poetry, visual poetry, art, prose and hybrids every year in November.

Our online essay series is still going strong. I was pleased that we had new essays by V. Rivers and Charlotte Jung in 2021. If you’d like us to publish a rant, poetic or artistic statement, interview (real or made up), review or a visual poem/poem/essay hybrid or something else, you can find the call over on the site under essays.

Thank you to all who have contributed to and shared news of our publications and activities. While some aspects of creation may be solitary, I believe in the power and vitality of working together and making art with compassion and care for others. This is a shite time. We need to find and share the light. I’m always glad to receive your thoughts on what we’re doing, what we should do and how we should do it. Please feel free to e-mail me at amanda at angelhousepress dot com, or connect with me on Twitter @KikiFolle.

The next episode of the Small Machine Talks at the end of the month will feature the Riverbed River Series, an Ottawa reading series run by Ellen Chang-Richardson and Nina Jane Drystek. I look forward to talking with both of them and sharing the episode with you.

Thank you to Charles Earl for processing, to Jennifer Pederson for the intro/outro and to you for listening and sharing the episode.