Ugly Duckling Presse

Ugly Duckling Presse
Founded1993
FounderUDP Collective
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationBrooklyn, New York
DistributionSmall Press Distribution
Publication typesBooks
Official websitewww.uglyducklingpresse.org

Ugly Duckling Presse is an American nonprofit art and publishing collective based in Brooklyn, New York City. It publishes poetry, translations, experimental prose, performance texts, and books by artists.

History

Through the efforts of the volunteer editorial collective, UDP has published more than 500 titles to date from the late 1990s to the present.

A micro press and a non-profit, UDP innovated distribution methods not traditionally seen in publishing, such as subscriptions, and gathered its early audience with guerrilla marketing techniques.[1]

Publications

Ugly Duckling Presse (UDP) focuses on new, international, and "forgotten" writers, and specializes in projects which may be difficult to produce at other presses.[2] Formats produced include full-length books, chapbooks, and broadsides. The publications often contain handmade elements and letterpress covers.[3] The Presse states that these details "call attention to the labor and history of bookmaking".[2]

Past publications include Nets by Jen Bervin, erasure poetry of Shakespeare's sonnets, Poker by Tomaž Šalamun (which was a finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation) and works by New York-based writers Steve Dalachinsky and Lewis Warsh. The Presse also publishes a regular series of translations of Latin American poetry.

As of 2007, Ugly Duckling Presse also created "paperless" works in collaboration with various visual and performance artists. These may be performed, or produced through media such as digital video, CD, or tree bark.[3]

Premises and personnel

The Presse maintains a workshop and letterpress studio in the Gowanus neighborhood in the industrial complex of The Old American Can Factory on the Fourth Street Basin of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Its current editors, as of 2024, are Yelena Gluzman, Anna Moschovakis, Daniel Owen, Kyra Simone, Rebekah Smith, Lee Norton, Chuck Kuan, Silvina López Medin, Marine Cornuet, Serena Solin, and Milo Wippermann. [4]

Past editors are Matvei Yankelevich, Katherine Bogden, Michael Newton, Abraham Adams, Emmalea Russo, David Jou, Phil Cordelli, G. L. Ford, Ellie Ga, Ryan Haley, James Hoff, Marisol Limon Martinez, Filip Marinovich, Julien Poirier, Linda Trimbath, and Genya Turovskaya.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Nichols, Travis. "If No One Can Find My Book, Does It Exist?". Poetry Foundation Online Journal. The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  2. ^ a b "About". Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  3. ^ a b Miller, Michael (2007-08-09). "Scenes from the city's DIY publishing movements". Time Out New York. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  4. ^ "Participants". Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  5. ^ "Ugly Duckling Presse: People". Retrieved 2023-05-31.