Publishing Short Short Stories and Hybrid Genres

A Conversation with Rose Metal Press

Q: Your press is specialized in short short stories and cross-genre literary forms. Could you describe some of the nontraditional literary forms that you have published?

A: Sure. We’re an independent, not-for-profit publisher of work in hybrid genres, specializing in the publication of short short, flash, and micro-fiction; prose poetry, novels-in-verse or book-length linked narrative poems; and other literary works that move beyond the traditional genres of poetry, fiction, and essay to find new forms of expression.

Short shorts are one of our flagship genres, and for the last five years we've run one of the only chapbook contests for manuscripts of short short stories in the country. We’ve also published two field guides made up of essays about hybrid genres: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry.

Q: Could you explain a bit about why you think commercial publishers are reluctant to publish literary work that doesn't fit into traditional genres?

A: It seems that if a project can’t be easily shelved in one of the pre-existing categories offered in major chain bookstores, or if it can’t be described as "The next (fill-in runaway best-seller here)," then large commercial publishers are afraid to take it on.

The book market is tough right now, just like the job market, and just like many markets. But a lot of things that are worth doing are tough. Rose Metal Press believes that the irrational, uneven, high stakes gambling model by which most of the trade publishers still insist on operating does not make sense. We deliberately stay in the black by not giving outrageous advances and by sticking to three carefully selected titles a year in small print runs. We see a lot of other small independent presses making similar choices that make financial sense for them and allow them to keep publishing worthy new titles. So, the state of the trade publishing market is pretty crappy: outmoded and anxious. The state of small press publishing is healthy: enthusiastic and strong.

Q: Could you offer some advice for authors who are writing in non-traditional forms about publishing and marketing their work?

A: It probably sounds cheeseball, but first and foremost: be yourself. Don’t be afraid to keep experimenting with your writing, and don’t let bookstore categories fool you into thinking that your only options are novels or short stories or poetry or essays. Beyond that, be willing to hustle, by which we mean: it’s not enough anymore just to write a book; you have to be willing to go on the road and sell it at readings and on tours. We’ve been extremely lucky to work with authors who share our enthusiasm for getting their work “out there” both online -- in the form of blogs and websites -- and in real life in the form of events and tours. At the moment, our latest author Adam Golaski, is on the road in support of his fantastic new book, Color Plates, released in September.

Q: Your press sponsors an annual short short chapbook contest. Could you talk a little about the short short form and what qualities you look for in a collection of short short stories?

A: In general, we prefer stories -- both fiction and nonfiction -- that operate on more than one emotional level simultaneously, achieving an atmosphere that is, for instance, funny-sad. We also love stories that exhibit some kind of formal inventiveness. It’s one of those stock answers, we know, but if you’re really curious about what exactly we’re “into,” the best thing is to check out one of our previous winners: Claudia Smith’s The Sky Is a Well, Geoffrey Forsyth’s In the Land of the Free, Sean Lovelace’s How Some People Like Their Eggs, and Mary Hamilton’s We Know What We Are.

Q: What are some exciting new Rose Metal Press titles that we should look out for?

A: There are so many! In August, we released Mary Hamilton’s chapbook We Know What We Are, followed by Adam Golaski’s Color Plates in September, and then we’re going to be publishing a multi-author volume of chapbooks consisting of a reprint of Third Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest winner Sean Lovelace’s How Some People Like Their Eggs along with four of the finalists to the Fourth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest, including Elizabeth Colen, John Jodzio, Tim Jones-Yelvington, and Mary Miller. It will be called They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, and will be sort of similar to the multi-author chapbook collection we put out back in 2007 called A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness, which included a reprint of Claudia Smith’s First Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest winning manuscript, as well as chapbooks by Amy L. Clark, Elizabeth Ellen, and Kathy Fish.

After that, we’ll put out prose poem/short short book The Louisiana Purchase by Jim Goar. What we are saying about the latter is this: The prose poems and flash fictions in The Louisiana Purchase carry the reader past Ozzie Smith and Thomas Jefferson into a world where the moon is an outlaw, a weeping elephant flees from the authorities, the Pinkertons upset the sky, effigies of Phil Neikro are burned, and a society made of words collapses. According to Scott Glassman of Rain Taxi, Goar’s "clause-free declarative sentences are a perfect match for the edgy grade-school surrealism that guides us into emotional revelation." The Louisiana Purchase is what Alice would have found had she fallen into William Clark’s map instead of a rabbit hole; it is an uncanny territory that both delights and disturbs.

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