When did you start publishing? Why did you start publishing?

i stated publishing under the name of housepress (http://www.telusplanet.net/public/housepre/) in november of 1997 as a means of publishing my own work - the first book from the press was a joint edition with poetic immolation press of "William S. Burroughs: Ghost of Steel" which set the tone for housepress publications to come - 26 Signed & Numbered Copies with handprinted linocut covers on Ontario flax Art Stock and 3 hole saddle-stitch sewn binding. neil hennessy & i wrote "Ghost of Steel" as a response the then recent death of william s. burroughs...

Briefly describe the type of work you publish.

housepress is dedicated to publishing radical poetry (& some theory, essays, letters, etc) - so basically i consider publishing concrete/visual, language and disjunctive poetry as well as anything that just strikes my fancy.

Do you accept unsolicited submissions?

i do BUT i think that a person should be familiar with a press before they send work - make sure that what you are writing fits in with the rest of the press' back catalogue - read and closely consider before you send otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time...

How do you decide what to publish?

i believe that books should be a translation of the writing itself - that is, the text and the presentation should work together and complement each other - you can see the act of publishing as a means of enabling the publisher to comment on the text by translating into paper choice, illustration, font style, etc - so keeping that in mind, i usually chose texts which i find challenging or exciting and that i think would  be interesting to work with - and often a lot of this has to do with the author, are they interested in working co-operatively with small presses? do they have an interest in small press, etc... and on top of all that - i chose a text because I like it ...

How many chapbooks have you published? (both number of books & volume of books)

179 separate editions (not including reprints) in 4 years - which is almost an item a week for 4 years - chapbooks, pamphlets, leaflets, collections, anthologies, etc...

Any advice for people thinking of starting a small press?

quality. dont be in a hurry to publish something, WAIT and consider what has come before - bob cobbing said that the world already has quite enough poetry, and there isnt a reason to write unless you can add to the quality & not the quantity... as well this is my opinion is a TRADE economy - selling books is nice, but the exchange of work is better.

Additional comments?

not that i can think of other than read a lot of other small press - seek out the nooks & crannies of small press publishing - the number of presses that just show as brief blips is staggering but those who have been around usually have done so because of the quality of the work they have produced - look for work from room 3o2, fingerprinting inkoperated, thuja, friends of runcible mountain...

housepress
1339 19th ave nw
calgary alberta
canada t2m 1a5
housepress@home.com 
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/housepre