A note from HCR Editor James Duncan: Of the many indie press editors I've worked with over the years, Michele McDannold has always stood out for her relentless enthusiasm for the poets she publishes, the unending encouragement and excitement, the effort to get them reviews and blurbs, to get their books and voices and faces on social media, to make a world with more and better and grittier and honest poetry. She's an absolute tornado of awesome and I'm happy to share this Q&A with you. Seek her work, and she'll tell you to seek the work of so many other cool poets. Do so!
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Zygote in my Coffee/Tainted
Coffee Press, Red Fez Publications, Punk Hostage Press… there’s a pretty long
list of free-wheeling organizations that inspired me. The DIY Press. The
Literary Underground. I’ve always had a healthy love of books. Combine that
with all the talent I found in the small press, and I just had to wonder what I
might be able to contribute as a publisher. Plus, all these little presses that
promised to publish my chapbooks kept shutting down! It seemed like a good
thing to obsess over. Little did I know, this would be a lifelong obsession.
What's the greatest
challenge you've faced to keeping these afloat and how have you persevered?
Definitely financial issues. I
believe in every project I take on. I’ve told my authors that I fall in love
with their books over and over again. That’s true. I don’t make any books just
to make money, but I do recognize when certain books have the potential to make
more money than others. I have to find a balance on which projects I take on…
enough that will make more money to keep the press alive while still supporting
the other less performing books.
What's the best thing a
writer can do to help their indie publisher (and their own book) succeed?
#1 thing is get out there —do
readings and signings, go on a tour if you can. Get your book in front of as
many people as possible. No one can pitch the book like the author. If that is
not true, then there is work to be done.
What's the fastest way to
fuck up a relationship with an indie publisher?
That’s easy, by wasting our
time with either a lack of communication or straight-up fuckity behavior. I’ve
actually had an author become such an ordeal to deal with that I ended up
pulling the book. Don’t be that person. Have some respect and show that you
care.
Has reading so many
submissions for your presses affected your reading habits in your
"downtime"?
110%. I rarely read for “pleasure” anymore.
Occasionally a nice author will send me a freebie of their book, and I do get
down with those. But, generally, my pleasure reading is getting to dig into the
collections that are chosen for publication. I fall in love with every
collection over and over again. Did I say that already? Oh well. The enthusiasm
is genuine.
Not long ago, I tried joining a
book club to spend some time reading something not from the presses I’m working
with. It was a disaster. First of all, the text was The Waves by
Virginia Woolf. I feel like most people might benefit from a guide to this
book, so in that way the book club was beneficial. But, my type of social
anxiety is not too keen on weekly meetings where you show up and read some shit
and then talk intelligently about it. Cue Sheryl Crow’s “Run Baby Run.”
Outside of those you've
published, who are some of the authors you’re excited to see new work from?
Recently I’ve noticed a number
of poets new-to-me that I’m interested in… April Ridge, Heather Kays, Jonathan
S Baker, Marty Shambles, Al Ortolani…to name a few. Mostly from submissions at
The Literary Underground’s In Conversation, but some through the gift of
social media. Just when you think you must know everyone in the small press,
blammo, there’s a whole ‘nother pocket you’ve found.
Are there any writers you've
published who have impacted your own poetry in a way you weren't expecting?
Definitely. First that comes to
mind is from publishing Bill Gainer at Red Fez Publications. I thought my
poetry was pretty sparse to begin with, but Bill is the master of “meat and
potatoes” poetry. You know, just the guts. Iris Berry! Iris knows how to nail the
essence of a place down while telling a compelling story, but the real trick is
the emotions that she’ll pull from you. I can’t always do this, but knowing her
writing has helped me do it in a few spots. Plus, I was blessed to have her
editorial expertise on Stealing the Midnight from a Handful of Days. Speaking
of which, probably the poet and editor that has changed the way I see my own
writing more than most is Ezhno Martin. I worked with him on By Plane, Train or
Coincidence and more recently my Collected Poems (2005-2025).
The most recent release is
going to take so long to process mentally that I’ll probably not have a next
one for a good long while. Collected Poems 2005-2025 covers basically my
whole writing “career.” Twenty years of poems. There were some cuts, but it
still rings in at nearly 300 pages. It’s all in there, and it does feel like a
spell on the witness stand. How far removed do you feel from 2005? 2015? Spend
some time staring into the eyes of your old self. You almost get to experience
the poems in a different way.
I'm a fan of making specific
playlists for long road trips. If you were on a multi-day trip, what
bands/songs would absolutely be blasting out of your speakers?
Oh, I’m a total Fleetwood Mac
junkie. Gotta have that. But truly I dig a wide range of music and I have a few
friends that have obscure tastes in music and they occasionally send me
playlists. Probably what’s more notable is what there wouldn’t be… which is any
Grateful Dead whatsoever, and forget Bruce Springsteen. Sorry, America. Listen
to John Cougar Mellencamp.
And last, that road trip
you're on? What three writers, living or otherwise, would you bring along with
you?
My first thought of a dead
writer I’d like to go on a road trip with was Richard Brautigan. But, then I
thought why not make it really interesting with Kathy Acker, Susan Quist and
Jack Micheline. And, maybe we could get a short bus and take along living
authors Dan Denton and Westley Heine. Tim Murray would drive and hopefully
Aleathia Drehmer would meet us there.
Michele was the Editor-in-Chief
at Red Fez Publications for over five years. She is the founder of The Literary
Underground, a grassroots effort committed to supporting independent artists,
promoting diversity in creativity, and fostering community in the small press.
Michele is currently the editor/publisher at Roadside Press and Citizens for
Decent Literature Press, home of the Brian Fugett Memorial Prize.
Punk Hostage Press released
Michele’s first full-length collection of poetry, Stealing the Midnight from a
Handful of Days in 2014. Cocklebur Press followed with the chapbook Point of
Departure in 2018. In 2022, SpaceTime Continuum for Dummies was released from
Gutter Snob Books. By Train, Plane or Coincidence, a full-length poetry
collection also came out in 2022 (Roadside Press). Most recently, Roadside
Press released a comprehensive collection, Collected Poems 2005-2025.
Michele is a full-time student
in the school of the motherfucking underground and does a massive amount of
hustle to keep the dream alive.
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