“The Beauty of Small Presses Is That They Are Small, Especially in Their Attentions”: an Interview with Han VanderHart of River River Books

“The Beauty of Small Presses Is That They Are Small, Especially in Their Attentions”: an Interview with Han VanderHart of River River Books https://ift.tt/IcKZzN1

The “Not Abandon, but Abide” interview series is dedicated to Southern poets abiding by hope in the South. Their poetry actively resists the notion that we all co-sign the actions of the monoculture. Poetry shakes what we thought we knew.

Among other goals, I hope that this series documents a South chockablock with poets working to shape the publishing community (-ies) where we write and read. Years ago, Durham, North Carolina poet and editor Han VanderHart got on my radar as a prolific and generous reviewer and in their role as (now former) reviews editor at EcoTheo Review, among other literary activities. VanderHart also (also!) wrote a beautifully nuanced and self-aware collection, What Pecan Light, published by Bull City Press in 2021. My students loved reading this book. I recommend What Pecan Light to you, as well.

On X, formerly Twitter, Han often shares snippets of poems and poets they read, doing the important work of literary curation that used to draw me to the platform. I wasn’t alone in taking notice when they announced that they planned to launch a poetry press, River River Books, with fellow poet Amorak Huey. What collections would these careful readers and community-minded editors bring into the world? In June, River River Books released its first two titles: An Eye in Each Square by Lauren Camp, and Bullet Points by Jennifer A Sutherland. Two more will publish in January, 2024: Dear Memphis by Rachel Edelman, and A Geography That Does Not Hurt Us by Carla Sofia Ferreira.

You would be forgiven for missing just how recently River River Books began, in March of 2022. This interview with Han VanderHart about the press took place in August using Google docs.

My hunch is that some readers may have known you and Amorak as poets and on social media prior to your joining forces for River River Books. Obviously, either of you could have chosen to pair with someone else, but you chose to work together. How did you decide to take the big step of starting a press? 

I just finished reading Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow—ultimately a book about two friends who develop video games together. Something this novel does well is explore how the act of collaboration affects you and your art at both an individual and community level. The novel also highlights the specialness of a working partnership—it’s not just anyone you can work with intensely and intentionally; it’s a lot like falling in love. When Amorak and I first met in person at AWP 2022 in Philadelphia, we had so much to talk about and to share with each other about how we thought books should be made, and authors supported—and when, after 48 hours of conversation, walking, sushi in a tent on the street, I said that we should start a press, Amorak was game enough to say yes (after laughing at me, in the best way).

Why did you decide to publish poetry titles vs. other forms of literary community work or advocacy? (I know you both do a lot of other things, so it’s not an either/or).

Since both Amorak and I are poets who have published books, we know firsthand some of the pitfalls and disappointments that accompany publishing poetry. I’ll add that it’s impossible to know these things well until you start a press and understand how thin the labor is, especially during weeks when your own family and other work require your fullest attention.

We also personally know so many incredible poets trying to place their books right now—American publishing is awash in good poetry titles waiting to find their press and readers. We wanted to create another opportunity for poets who have been shopping their manuscripts around, sometimes for ten years. If the model isn’t scarcity, then we need to change the model. I see starting a poetry press as a small, needful act (to paraphrase Ross Gay).

I encourage readers to visit River River Books’ Mission, Vision, Values page and to compare it to other presses which tend to have reader- or audience-focused missions. Centering the author in publication feels new. What are the implications of that?  What in practice has this been like?  Being that there are more readers than writers in the world, how do you see an author-centered model being sustainable?

I once spoke with Annie Lauterbach after a reading, and she mentioned feeling like her recent book had not been supported well by her (large) press. This absolutely boggled my mind at the time—I don’t think it would, now. But writers with small presses need to hear this from writers acknowledged as “established” and “successful,” because too-often writers feel alone in their press experiences: in feeling like their press does not have their back, does not communicate well, does not celebrate them. Lauterbach then said those words we often hear from experienced writers: “…the work is all.” Both yes, and no. You have to believe the work is all; the intrinsic value of your work is mighty, and needs to be there. But as a writer, you also need to know that others believe in you, and are invested in championing your work. The practice of clear communication with our authors is one simple but significant way we support them. Even if you can’t afford a publicist or large marketing budget, you can communicate well with your authors, and make sure they feel heard. When you listen to a poet published by a large press express concern about a lack of attention, you realize author support is not solely about having a generous press budget, a press building, or a full staff. Centering our authors at River River Books is sustainable in part because we are against the capitalist model of growth and expansion for their own sake. The beauty of small presses is that they are small, especially in their attentions. Linda Gregg’s “we manage most when we manage small” is close to our press vision.

Is the press a nonprofit (501c3) or an LLC?  Were there start-up costs you had to bear in starting River River Books?

We are an LLC (for legal protection reasons), but our immediate goal is to break even and our future goal is to be self-sustaining. We started the press with an initial $3,000 in our account. That was a good amount to begin with, as the fees for registering an LLC, designing a website and shop, and hiring a designer are some of the first things you need to do when beginning a small press. Printing even 250 books of modest design, under 79 pages or so, is about $1,000—a cost I don’t think many poets know. We selected four books last year for our initial catalog, as opposed to our planned “two editors, two books a year” press model, and you don’t need to be a mathematician to see how we nearly broke our budget. We also give a $250 advance to each of our authors, twenty-five author copies, and sell additional author copies at cost plus shipping. We joke our press model is anti-profit.

What was the first reading period (and selection process) like?  Were there any “a ha!” pieces of the process for you, or takeaways from going through many manuscripts? (How many did you receive?)

In our first reading period, June-July 2022, we received 264 manuscripts (for comparison, this summer we received 295). Something that surprised me is how quickly you can tell if a book captures your interest—those first ten or twenty pages are important. Reading poetry centers our emotions and their impressions, so you let those lead when you read (and form/content affect the emotions, too). Last summer we were impressed by how many beautiful manuscripts we received, which is why we ended up choosing double the titles we intended to. I hope this year we can stick to our plan and choose two, since we do want to run a sustainable press. Part of that sustainability has to do with how much attention Amorak and I have as people with families and other work.

What drew you in about each of the first four?  And did you feel any special pressure as these were the press’s first selections?

We just loved the manuscripts we chose by poets Lauren Camp, Jennifer A Sutherland, Rachel Edelman and Carla Sofia Ferreira. These manuscripts arrived like Athena from Zeus’s head–each fully-formed by labor, attention, and time. They are unique, and the sheer range is wonderful: the poets live in New Mexico, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, two are Jewish, one Arabic, two have immigrant families, their ages are all different; they have their roots in the U.S. South, Portugal, Iraq. Part of why we chose four is because of that beautiful variety of their work and lives—two is fairly limiting. Blessed be the press or contest only choosing one—I wouldn’t want to be in that editor’s shoes! Definitely there was pressure. But also: real delight to be on the same page as Amorak. We agreed on every single manuscript.

Though this is less related to the press, I’ll ask you as a fellow poet, what makes an author or a work “Southern”? On one hand it’s such an obvious question, but when you look deeper, the answer is pretty complex. For instance, recently Barbara Kingsolver (from Kentucky) in an interview spoke about Appalachia as “an internal colony within the U.S.” Without being essentialist, I wonder if it’s possible to consider “the South” beyond geography.

My sense is that you know a place when you understand (at least some) of its deeper problems and complexities. Having work that is about the U.S. South doesn’t necessarily make it a Southern work. Sally Mann’s eerily empty and abstract Deep South photography comes to mind–for me, the South is not the South without its people, its food, its funk. (I recommend the portraiture of Deborah Luster, who worked in collaboration with Kentucky-born poet C.D. Wright, as a relief to Mann’s work. Also Ebony G. Patterson’s gorgeously-riotous …when the dew is still on the roses art installation). I tend to say the “Souths” because, of course, there are so many different Souths. Rural life and farming are also intrinsically bound to my ideas of the South. So much so, that whenever I encounter the rural seeping through a poet’s work, wherever they are from or located, I feel a kinship with them. And when a writer has an urban or suburban Southern upbringing, I feel a mistrust and alienation from them, I admit it! There’s a whole world they don’t know, or at least do not—or cannot—acknowledge.

Has starting a press changed anything about the way you approach your own career as a poet? I imagine that publishers are more cognizant of trends and or influences in a genre like poetry.  

Every poetry collection is so different—I feel like it’s easier to see trends when you read for a chapbook contest (e.g. I remember wondering if the poets had read any play besides Hamlet)? But I also love a memoir-driven collection, so I suppose I’m the person happily standing on the beach under the currently crashing wave of personal narrative.

Starting a press has definitely shown me how limited attention is, and strengthened my sense of the pay-to-play reality in poetry publishing. If an author or press can afford a publicist, it shows. You see their books in airports, reviewed in the New York Times, nominated for a Pulitzer, submitted to the National Book Awards ($135 fee and six physical copies). Sometimes the book on display at the train station is not very good, at all—that is the gift and the curse of money in the poetry world. When I pay to submit my own manuscript somewhere, I’m glad we don’t require a reading fee. I’m also glad we’re open for two generous summer months, instead of a week, or (God forbid) until we reach a submission cap.

I’m sitting back and not submitting myself right now, and it feels like a much-needed rest. But the press keeps me engaged with poets and their work, which I need.

Photo credit: Han VanderHart

Learn more about titles offered by River River Books and find out when the next call for submissions opens at the press’s website.  You can also discover the work of Han VanderHart on their author site.