The Contemporary Small Press: Making Publishing Visible addresses the contemporary literary small press in the US and UK from the perspective of a range of disciplines. Covering numerous aspects of small press publishing-poetry and fiction, children's publishing, the importance of ethical commitments, the relation to the mainstream, the attitudes of those working for presses, the role of the state in supporting presses-scholars from literary criticism, the sociology of literature and publishing studies demonstrate how a variety of approaches and methods are needed to fully understand the contemporary small press and its significance for literary studies and for broader literary culture.

The Contemporary Small Press: Making Publishing Visible addresses the contemporary literary small press in the US and UK from the perspective of a range of disciplines. Covering numerous aspects of small press publishing-poetry and fiction, children's publishing, the importance of ethical commitments, the relation to the mainstream, the attitudes of those working for presses, the role of the state in supporting presses-scholars from literary criticism, the sociology of literature and publishing studies demonstrate how a variety of approaches and methods are needed to fully understand the contemporary small press and its significance for literary studies and for broader literary culture.

Bringing together internationally leading scholars and practitioners whose work engages with the continued importance of literary experiment, this book takes up the question of 'reading' in the contemporary climate from culturally and linguistically diverse perspectives. New reading practices are both offered and traced in the works of avant-garde writers across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including John Cage, Erica Hunt, Joan Retallack, Caroline Bergvall, and Uljana Wolf, among others. Exploring the socio-political significance of literary experiment, the book yields new critical approaches to reading avant-garde writing..

An in-depth analysis of the work of one of the twentieth century's most innovative writersKathy Acker's body of work is one of the most significant collections of experimental writing in English. In 'Kathy Acker: Writing the Impossible', Georgina Colby explores Acker's compositional processes and intricate experimental practices, from early poetic exercises written in the 1970s to her final writings in 1997. Through original archival research, Colby traces the stages in Acker's writing and draws on her knowledge of unpublished manuscripts, notebooks, essays, illustrations, and correspondence to produce new ways of reading Acker's works. Rather than treating Acker as a postmodern writer this book argues that Acker continued a radical modernist engagement with the crisis of language, and carried out a series of experiments in composition and writing that are comparable in scope and rigor to her modernist predecessors Stein and Joyce. Each chapter focuses on a particular compositional method and insists on the importance of avant-garde experiment to the process of making new non-conventional modes of meaning. Combining close attention to the form of Acker's experimental writings with a consideration of the literary cultures from which she emerged, Colby positions Acker as a key figure in the American avant-garde, and a pioneer of contemporary experimental women's writing.Key FeaturesExamines unpublished manuscripts, notebooks, lecture notes, letters and manuscripts from the Kathy Acker PapersFeatures eleven previously unpublished images of original manuscripts, correspondence, and colour illustrations from the Kathy Acker PapersUtilises major archival study of Acker's experimental compositional practicesSituates Acker as a late modernist writer and a key figure in the American Avant-Garde

Explores the challenges and significance of experimental writing Offers a forum for reflecting on the significance of avant-garde writing for the twenty-first century Explores the way in which contemporary experimental writers engage with socio-political issues Utilizes unpublished archive materials bringing to light a number of previously unpublished works Includes innovative readings of significant avant-garde writers previously neglected in the critical canon Bringing together internationally leading scholars whose work engages with the continued importance of literary experiment, this book takes up the question of 'reading' in the contemporary climate from culturally and linguistically diverse perspectives. New reading practices are both offered and traced in avant-garde writers across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including John Cage, Kathy Acker, Charles Bernstein, Erica Hunt, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Rosmarie Waldrop, Joan Retallack, M. NourbeSe Philip, Caroline Bergvall, Uljana Wolf, Samantha Gorman and Dave Jhave Johnston, among others. Exploring the socio-political significance of literary experiment, the book yields new critical approaches to reading avant-garde writing.