Editor Interview: Gnashing Teeth Publishing

Boundary-pushing poetry

34 Orchard and EIC Krsti Petersen Schoonover - Every poem and story is exceptional, there's no fluff. Kristi is also a talented writer herself.
Roadside Press and EIC Michele McDannold - Accessible poetry for every reader, and just darn good stuff. Michele (that's one L!) has created a community of poets at her press. She's an amazing poet and advocate for poetry.
Tupelo Press - Their commitment to not just publishing, but the art of poetry itself, is commendable. They have so many different projects and ways to interact with the press.
FlowerSong Press - With their focus on the borderlands and LatinX voices, they are publishing necessary voices. And the books are so good. They have a couple of imprints which are also doing great work.
Sibling Rivalry Press, Deep Vellum Publishing, Belle Points Press, Red Hen Press - so many great indie presses out there putting out amazing work

This is probably the hardest question to answer, because I am absolutely in love with every author we publish. I could go on and on about their work. SO I'm going to list some folks we haven't published. I absolutely adore Jericho Brown; every time I read "The New Testament" I find a new favorite line of poetry. Ocean Vuong's poetry has made me cry, as has Leonard Cohen. Naomi Shahib Nye for every single reason. Christian Collier needs to be on everyone's reading list; his poems come out swinging as he looks at race in America and the South, while using these cultural moments to ground the story he's telling. E.D. Watson is another poet to read and follow; her poetry reflects her life of activism and authenticity. Ron Whitehead, one of the powerhouse poets of our times. Joaquin Zihuatanejo, the former Poet Laureate of Dallas; he's a working poet and his words are sharp, incisive, and sometimes a gut-punch. Charles Russell Price is incredibly bold and so truthful it hurts; I still buy copies of his first book as gifts for friends.

I think all of us indie presses have our own vibe. It's one of those ethereal things you can feel but can't put your finger on. The greatest compliment I ever received was that Gnashing Teeth Publishing has a "great curatorial eye." The poets and authors we choose to publish all have something important to say or share. They are baring their souls for us to read, to relate, to understand, to learn. More than once we've heard "I didn't think anyone would be brave enough to publish this." Here we are, doing our little part, to stand against expected norms and just publish really good work. I think that's the best part, not having a quota to fill. We aren't filling out a calendar and picking books just because. We are enthusiastic about every book we publish. We work hand-in-hand with our authors to make it a book they are proud of.

Don't send us something you think we want to pubilsh, send us what YOU want to publish. Honesty in the work shines through.

First off, follow the guidelines! It's hard to be open to the work when it's in an 8 point cursive font. I think "the ideal submission" is one where the work speaks for itself. There is really no magic formula, because we've published everything: from "standard" books of poetry to a microchap with a CD, from a love story with a the angel Gabriel told in texts to a sci-fi story in verse.

I think sometimes folks don't understand that we read completely unauthored. I always check submissions to ensure there are no names on the manuscript before they are saved over to the readers' Google Drive. No one knows who the author is or anything about them. It's just the work on the page.

We recently changed out guidelines to require a cover letter. In that cover letter, we ask about the impetus for the work. Going back to that letter after reading the work, it's good to see if our thoughts about the work align with what the author intended. Did we do our job as readers and did they do their job as the writer?
It's always nice to have a bio, and we do like to know about the author's publication history. However, we publish debut poets fairly often, so a list of accolades doesn't sway us towards or away from publishing a certain manuscript.

I can usually tell a quick no within the first five pages. The same with a quick yes. But then there are some that are a slow burn.

As EIC, I have final say on every manuscript. Did a reader have an opinion which differed from mine? That's okay. Maybe I'm struggling between a couple of pieces, so I go to a reader and get their feedback. If it's a quick and solid yes, though, I learned my lesson early about letting a piece slip through my hands. I will immediately accept a quick yes.
We also do a quick social media search. We want to ensure once we love a manuscript that the author doesn't have any problematic views which might not align with our press. We are unrepentant feminists and very politcal, and we believe that values matter.

I wear a lot of hats, so I pick a time devoted solely to reading manuscripts when I won't be interrupted. So I may go a week or two without reading, then spend all day Sunday doing nothing but reading manuscripts. Or I'll stay up past midnight on a Tuesday reading submissions. I might read on my phone sitting on the couch or laying in bed or sit at my desk on the computer with lo-fi music playing in the background. And go through lots and lots of water. I don't know why reading is such thirsty work. lol

Once I sit down to edit a piece, I go old school. I print out the manuscript and clip it to my clipboard. I carry it around with me and just read it once, entirely through. Then I read it again, this time going through and doing complete edits, from suggesting a new word to moving a comma, sometimes making notes about form or flow. Every manuscript is different, so some may have almost no notes, while others get reworked. Sometimes we even move the order of poems around. Then I send all those edits and notes to the author and give them a week or two to go through them. Then we get together and they either accept or reject edits, or we work together on something. We may go through it more than once. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it's their work. We want it to be the absolute best version.

We nominate for every award we can. We also ask our authors to keep an eye out for any awards they want to be nominated for, because we might not know about every award out there. We love for our authors to be recognized for their hard work.

My job. We do have manuscript reading fees, and we make a little money selling books and merch, and we get the random donation here and there. But we are still small and I have to work to pay the bills. We aren't a 501c3 so we don't get to apply for grants. So if anyone has any money lying around not doing anything, send it our way!

We use our website and social media, we send out press releases, our authors reach out to their local bookstores and reading venues, we provide a digital Media Kit for our authors to use and we send it to the author's local and hometown media outlets and any alumni associations. We also do a press release when our authors win awards. We are members of CLMP, so we also send the information to them for inclusion in their roundups.