Chapbooks

Publisher Highlight: speCt!

Posted on October 14, 2025October 14, 2025 by Bee Lehman

Physically located in Oakland, CA, speCt! (titles on Asterism) has been treating a reading public to beautiful poetry and visual art since 2012.[1] Founded by Gillian Hamel, Peter Burghardt, and Robert Andrew Perez, the group started printing on a C&P is a small letterpress.[2] The community publisher started with and continues to focus heavily on chapbooks, which they publish with beautiful covers and excellent printing. They also print the occasional full-length text with titles like Wildfires. Their authors, including Ching-In Chen, have won awards for their beautiful work, including the 2022 Markowitz Award.[3]

One can find information about their publications on Asterism and about their community activities, including readings, on their Instagram page.

Gorgeous example titles

Cover to Anti-Heroines — Anti-Heroines, Lo Ferris, 2021

Cover to Serviceable Clothes — Serviceable Clothes for Life in the Open, Laura Woltag, 2022

Cover to The 90s — The 90s, Brian Whitener, 2022

Cover to Make Black Paper Sing — To Make Black Paper Sing, Ching-In Chen, 2019

To find out more about UC Berkeley’s collection of speCt!’s book, take a look at our UC Library Search.

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EndNotes

[1] “speCt!,” Asterism Books, accessed July 10, 2025, https://asterismbooks.com/publisher/spect.

[2] “speCt: A Retrospect!ve,” Small Press Traffic, 2022, https://www.smallpresstraffic.org/traffic-report/spect.

[3] Mai Tran, “Ching-In Chen and Morgan H Thomas Win 2022 Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers,” Lambda Literary, June 7, 2022, https://lambdaliterary.org/2022/06/ching-in-chen-and-morgan-h-thomas-win-2022-markowitz-award-for-exceptional-new-lgbtq-writers/.

Publisher Highlight: Insert Press

Posted on September 30, 2025July 22, 2025 by Bee Lehman

Insert Press was found in 2005 by Mathew Timmons to focus on interdisciplinary and/or hybrid works.[1] Initially, Insert Press focused on poetry in chapbook form, but over the following decade turned to increasingly toward “translation, poetics, artist books.”[2]

Readers can find information about their publications and local, LA events on their Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/insert.press/).

Recent Titles

Take a look at at some of their recent titles.

Cover for Complete Theatre — Oscar Mandel, Complete Theatre: Twenty Plays, Forty-Three Fables (Insert Blanc Press, 2024).

Cover for Pigs in Delirium — Jorge Carlos Fonseca, Pigs in Delirium, trans. David Shook (Insert Press, 2025).

Cover for The Pain Itself — Kevin McPherson Eckhoff, The Pain Itself (Insert Blanc Press, 2021).

Cover for Modal Rose — Daniel Hockenson, Modal Rose: Coda (Insert Blanc Press, 2022).

Cover to Nadaísmo — Gonzalo Arango, Nadaísmo, Bilingual edition (Insert Press, 2025).

Cover for Street by Street — Pablo Jofré, Street by Street, trans. Shook, with Alex Horghidan (Insert Press, 2023).

Cover to Being Work — Dorothy Dubrule, ed., Being Work (Insert Press, 2024).

Cover to Senorita Etcetra — Arqueles Vela, Senorita Etcetra, trans. Julianna Neuhouser (Insert Press, 2025).

For More at UC Berkeley

For more at UC Berkeley, take a look at this publisher search for “Insert Press” through the UC Library Search.

EndNotes

[1] “About Insert Press,” Insert Press, accessed July 10, 2025, https://insert.press/.

[2] Matthew Timmons, Publisher Questionnaire: Insert Press, interview by Asterism, Blog, May 15, 2025, https://asterismbooks.com/.

Publisher Highlight: Mammoth Publications

Posted on September 2, 2025September 5, 2025 by Bee Lehman

One of the amazing, small presses that we’ve acquired material from is Mammoth Publications (https://mammothpublications.net). Mammoth was founded in 2003 and is located in Healdsburg, CA. It was initially founded to provide a space for poets including Eddie Two-Rivers (Wikipedia) to release their work. Authors Thomas Pecore Weso and Denise Low served as co-publishers until 2023, releasing two-to-four books and/or chapbooks a year. Denise Low still heads Mammoth, continuing to release excellent works of poetry, memoirs, and more.