Elisha May Rubacha lives
and writes in Peterborough, ON. She was a finalist for Peterborough's
Outstanding Emerging Artist Award (2018), and shortlisted for the PRISM
International Creative Non-fiction Contest (2016). Her chapbook too much nothing was published by Apt. 9 Press (2018). She is the editor and designer
of bird, buried press.
bird, buried press is
located in Peterborough, and publishes writers and artists from or living in
Ontario.
Q: Tell me about your press. How
long have you been publishing, and what got you started?
A: bird, buried press publishes
writers and artists from or living in Ontario, and frequently produces work
with one-of-a-kind features. July 16th 2020 marks our fourth
anniversary. I had been making zines since before I knew they were called that,
so the press was a natural progression from there, but wouldn’t have happened
if Justin Million hadn’t come in to my life almost exactly one year before we
launched.
Q: How many times have you
exhibited at the ottawa small press fair? How do you find the experience?
A: I think my first time at the
fair was in spring of 2017, and I’ve been to most of them since. Ottawa treats
us Peterborough folks very well, and it’s always worth making the trip. I
especially love when I get to sit near Cameron Anstee of Apt. 9 Press, and
Michael e. Casteels of Puddles of Sky Press. As someone who has done a lot of
live bookmaking as performance, it’s a pleasure to watch others casually doing
their thing while people browse their collections.
Q: Would you have made something
specific for this spring’s fair? Are you still doing that? How does the lack of
spring fair this year effect how or what you might be producing?
A: It’s hard to say. The press has
gotten very behind since I started working full time as the knowledge transfer
specialist at Nourish, a community food initiative in Peterborough. I have
several projects waiting in the wings, but I probably would’ve just sold
through back catalogue including the last ten copies of Justin Million’s
apocalyptic poetry narrative Kill Your Way North, which I made for Artspace’s
annual Book + Zine Fest here back in February.
Q: How are you, as a small
publisher, approaching the myriad shut-downs? Is everything on hold, or are you
pushing against the silences, whether in similar or alternate ways than you
might have prior to the pandemic? How are you getting your publications out
into the world?
A: The biggest slow down for me has
been the fact that my printer broke part way through printing Kill Your Way
North. Those last ten copies I mentioned are actually still sitting on my
desk unassembled as a result of not being able to get the printer fixed to
print the final pages. My plan is to print on the lesser of my two printers,
and market them as “pandemic copies”. For a book about the apocalypse I think
this is actually value added. These will be available through the bird, buried
press Etsy once I get around to making an insert describing the differences
between them and the previous forty copies, and finally finish the assembly. My
desk has started to spill on to the kitchen table as a result of this delay, so
Justin will definitely be relieved to see them completed and get our dining
area back.
Q: Have you done anything in terms
of online or virtual launches since the pandemic began? Have you attended or
participated in others? How are you attempting to connect to the larger
literary community?
A: I helped Justin with the
virtual launch of his Apt. 9 Press tradebook Ejecta: The Uncollected
KEYBOARDS! Poems, but I haven’t done anything digital for bird, buried
press yet, mostly because there is nothing new out to promote. We have seen a
few virtual poetry readings from the comfort of our couch, including Jeffrey
Blackman’s weird and amazing Tree Reading Series performance. I also attended
several events during the Pen to Published conference. It’s nice to see the
literary community trucking along through this, though I do worry about artists
doing so much work for free. The arts are undervalued as is, and if we give too
much away, people will get even more accustomed to exploiting us.
Q: Has the pandemic forced you to
rethink anything in terms of production? Are there supplies or printers you
haven’t access to during these times that have forced a shift in what and how
you produce?
A: One major hurdle for me right
now is that my one functional printer can’t handle card stock so printing
covers isn’t possible for the time being. If I do choose to print a book
anytime soon, it will be with the limitation of having to make covers by hand.
This is definitely within the aesthetic of bird, buried though, so I see it
more as an enabling constraint.
Q: What are your most recent
publications? How might folks be able to order copies?
A: The freshest titles I have,
aside from Kill Your Way North, are PTBO NSA by Katherine Heigh,
and Subtitles by Albert Choi. Heigh’s book is a collection of found
poems inspired by casual encounters ads on craigslist from Peterborough and the
surrounding region. It’s very X-rated, and has an undercurrent of closeted
rural queerness. Choi’s book is fiction, and focuses on a Chinese-Canadian
photographer who travels to China on a work assignment. He looks like a local,
but doesn’t speak the dialect, which leaves him feeling out of place until
suddenly, he starts seeing subtitles whenever someone speaks. These are all
available in very limited quantities on the Etsy.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My mental space is largely
taken up by my day job and my own writing, but I have been working on an idea
for some time that I will start moving on once the world opens again and I can
sell in person. I won’t go in to too much detail, cause the heart of the idea
is in its visual impact, but I hope to put out a call for submissions from poets
living with chronic illnesses. If that describes you, make sure to follow us on
Facebook so you see the call when it rolls out.
No comments:
Post a Comment