Spencer Madsen on “Indie” and “Small Press”
Monkeybicycle: What does “indie” or “small press” mean to you? What do you think of such classifications and distinctions?
Spencer Madsen: I immediately think of Roxane Gay. I think of complaints about not enough people reading or not enough people buying books or too many books being published. I think about the word ‘writerly’ and the distinction of being ‘serious’ literature. I think these classifications serve to make reading books more insular and less exciting for people. The word ‘indie’ always evokes for me a kind of club that you have to join to engage with. I’d like to bypass that by avoiding adjectives or the temptation to define the press in a verbal way. I don’t want Sorry House to be At The Forefront of Independent Literature or The Home Of Avant-Garde Poetry. I want it to be a thing like any other thing. A glass of water doesn’t need an about page. It holds water.
– Spencer Madsen, from Monkeybicycle interview re his new press, Sorry House
Mira Gonzalez has a book coming out
Mira Gonzalez‘s first book, i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together, is now available for pre-order from Sorry House, a new press founded by Spencer Madsen. It will be published in January. The trailer above is by Meggie Green and Michael Inscoe.
It’s a book of poems. I’ve read the manuscript and enjoyed it. The poems are declarative, metaphorical, full of imagination and dreams as well as physical events. They create a feeling of rudderlessness, an uncanny mixture of confusion, sadness, and detached introspection.
Click here to read a poem by her on her tumblr and see one of her collages, which I also like. Also there’s these poems and this one.
As an added bonus, Mira is a real fun, nice person to interact with, and her Twitter is very enjoyable and funny and zany.
Sorry House has rounded up an impressive group of blurbs from Blake Butler, Melissa Broder, Brad Listi, Tao Lin, and Victor “Kool A.D.” Vazquez.
I feel nice that Mira will have a book out in January and I’m glad Spencer is making a press according to his particular tastes and collaborating with lots of good people.