I love small presses: Galley Beggar Press, Coffee House Press, Two Dollar Radio, Open Letter Press, and Akashic Books. I could go on. All of these publishers have produced the sort of cutting-edge, experimental (sometimes in translation) work that mainstream publishers generally avoid (unless written by a “big name” author).

Unfortunately, there simply aren’t the critics or the space to cover all these presses.* Take the Sante Fe Writer’s Project (or SFWP). If not for Tara Campbell (I reviewed her collection Midnight at the Organporium several years back**), I’d still be ignorant of this well-established independent press. They publish a mix of non-fiction, fiction and poetry, including Tara Campbell’s second novel, City of Dancing Gargoyles. 

I don’t think a book like this gets published without an SFWP. Not because Tara Campbell isn’t a “big name” (although, frankly, she should be), but because it’s so unabashedly inventive and ambitious. Or, as I put it in my Locus review (you can read it in November), “a magnificent, post-apocalyptic buffet of weird magic, unexpected friendships and talking gargoyles”—and that’s not mentioning the gun-toting trees, the falling magicians, the glaring chocolates and the fretting books. Sound bizarre? You betcha. I doubt you’ll find a more imaginative novel written this year.

Whether rightly or wrongly, small presses act as an audition for the big time. If you can crack through the multiple gatekeepers, there’s a chance that a mainstream publisher will take note. They should all be taking note of Tara Campbell. This level of creativity and smarts and heart can’t be ignored. In the meantime—thank you to all the small presses, thank you to SFWP.

*Not least because most major venues—you know who—will typically only give a small press attention if that small press has unearthed an “important” author.

**Published by another small press in the incredible Aqueduct.