Dinah Press Lives!

Remember, about a year and a half ago, when I posted that I was starting up a small press?  Well, after many, many months of planning and work, we’ve finally gone live!

Dinah Press (www.dinahpress.com) publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by women of color, trans people, people with disabilities, members of colonized peoples, and other talented writers whose work has been deemed “unmarketable” by mainstream publishers. We’re currently holding a fundraising drive, and our goal is to raise $3,000 by January 1st to fund our first print run.  If you contribute, you get fabulous things:

$10-$24: A link to your website on our Supporters page
$25-$49: A signed print of original art by one of our authors or artists
$50-$99: An original sketch and thank-you note by one of our authors or artists
$100-$199: An original sketch and thank-you note plus copies of our first three books as they become available
$200+: Any two of the previous gifts, plus a personal call by one of our authors (please include your phone number and preference with your contribution)

You can contribute by clicking the link in our ChipIn meter above.  Also, if you contacted us way back when I first announced our call for editors and volunteers, we haven’t forgotten about you. You’ll be hearing from us! If you’d like to volunteer now, leave a comment on this post or email us at dinahpress at gmail com.

Below you’ll find our press release, which details the three projects we’re working on: my novel, Other Life Forms (from which I’ll be posting excerpts in the coming months); a collection of poems by Cynthia Oka; and a collection of fiction and essays by Elena Rose, AKA little light.

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Dinah Press Ready to Launch

October 01, 2011

www.dinahpress.com

 
Dinah Press, a publishing press specifically by/for women of colour, queer women, trans women, Indigenous women, and other talented writers who are too often deemed ‘unmarketable’, launches its new website and  aims to fundraise $3,000 by January 2012 in order to publish extraordinary literature by Cynthia Dewi Oka, Elena Rose, and Julia Glassman.


Dinah Press, a volunteer-run collective publishing press, works to fill in the gaps in today’s literary landscape by publishing fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and everything in between by women of color, trans people, people with disabilities, members of colonized peoples, and other talented writers whose work has been deemed “unmarketable” by mainstream publishers.

Dinah Press believes that our stories and writing cannot be separated from the organizing that we do. Our work, our words, our representations and our survival are interrelated, informing and growing from one other. Dinah Press’ mission is intrinsically political, although the work we publish may not define itself as such. In building solidarity with individuals across communities and letting writers control the production of their work, we strive to break down the idea that writing is a solitary, isolated, and privileged act, or that publishing is necessarily hierarchical. Writing—especially when one’s voice is not valued in mainstream society—is a necessity, not a luxury.

We are now in the process of fundraising $3,000 by January 2012 so that we can publish original work by three incredible writers!

 

Cynthia Dewi Oka, poet, community organizer, revolutionary mother, twice alumnus of the Voices of Our Nations Summer Writing Workshops for Writers of Colour and previously published in 580 Split: Journal of Arts and Letters, Kweli Journal, SCHOOL Magazine, P U L S E Media, and Leftturn: Notes from the Global Intifada, is finishing her first book-length poetry collection. Oka’s work seeks to recover terrains of joy, possibility and power inside the complicated/complicit spaces of late imperialist/colonial/hetero-patriarchal capitalism.

Religion scholar, medic, and Filipina-Ashkenazic mixed-class trans dyke mestiza Elena Rose is working on a collection of fiction and essays. Her writing can be found online at http://takingsteps.blogspot.com, as well as everywhere from law school classrooms and academic conferences to bathroom mirrors and protest marches. Elena Rose serves on the advisory board of the Allied Media Conference in Detroit; has twice been a San Franciso Pride Featured Performer with the National Queer Arts Festival production Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue, and was a charter member of the Speak! Radical Women of Colour Media Collective.


Radical librarian Julia Glassman’s debut novel, Other Life Forms, a meditation on the complexities of creation, identity, strength, and the self, is forthcoming this spring. Glassman has written fiction and essays for make/shift magazine,The Missouri Review, Kitchen Sink, Monkeybicycle, and various blogs, including Feministe, JVoices, and Alas, a Blog.

Media contact: Vanessa Fernando

tel: (438) 868 6032

email: dinahpress at gmail com

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