Calamari Press

Derek White started Calamari Press in December of 2003, publishing three hand-stapled chapbooks in one month with just a couple of HP Laser Jets, a manual paper trimmer and, apparently, one hell of a work ethic. Mining in the Black Hills, 23 Text Tiles, (both authored by White himself) and Spiritual Turkey Beggar Baste Mechanism/ Trapezoidal Juggernaut (co-authored by White and Sandy Baldwin) are all spastic works of lo-fi text/image, wildly original and totally impossible.

White soon took this dynamic to town with the inaugural issue of his seminal text/image journal SleepingFish in January 2004. Where so many other lit journals fail, SleepingFish succeeds: All the work in the journal is in conversation about the nature of writing today, and the reader enters into and experiences the give-and-take as participant.

In March 2004 Calamari Press released O, Vozque Pulp, a collaborative swirl of language and abstract graphic constructed by White and artist Carlos M. Luis. While Calamari's previous publications had been raw and busy, this book felt more mature and-dare we say it-professional. White's prose style had advanced considerably, and stood proudly alongside Luis' electrifying splotch and spatter. In many ways, this work was a milestone in the history of Calamari, an indicator of what White was capable of in the future. Readers were not disappointed, then, after the publication of two more chapbooks, Bodh[i] Circu[it]s/ Algae[bra] D[ra[in]] (by White) and P.S. At Least We Died Trying to Make You in the Backseat of a Taxidermist (co-authored by White and Wendy Collin Sorin), and the release of SleepingFish 0.5 in October 2004.

Again, Calamari raised the ante, filling the issue cover to cover, margin to margin, with brilliant images considered with, against, above, or below challenging texts. Resultant were paeans to the deconstruction not of art itself, but of the boundaries between text as text and text as image or act-certainly a concern of writing now, and a vital function of Calamari that would be impossible to serve under corporate editorship and marketing departments.

Calamari then ventured into the perfect-bound world in April 2005, with the release of Peter Markus' story collection, The Singing Fish. White decided to use a service to print the book, not because he didn't want to keep making things by hand, but because of spatial constraints (his Manhattan apartment is very tiny, go figure). The result: a beautiful book, whose cover alone should win an award; pair it with the mesmerizing prose inside and you have one of the best works to be released by a new author this year.

Calamari now has three projects in the works, slated for publication in August and September: a new issue of SleepingFish, ma(I)ze Tassel Retrazos (another collaboration between Luis and White), and Land of the Snow Men (by the fictitious "Arctic explorer" George Belden, edited by his creator Norman Lock). All three texts, two of which will be perfect-bound, epitomize everything Calamari Press has achieved thus far, while at the same time extending the mission. White's own writing reaches a new peak with ma(I)ze Tassel Retrazos, and his artwork in Land of the Snow Men goes far beyond any previous text/image graft in its mad scrawls and text-as-texture.

In less than two short years, Calamari Press has established itself as not only one of the best (and, indeed, one of the only) text/image presses out there, but as one of the most consistently excellent small presses as well; reminding the publishing industry that, at its core, all good art is homemade.