by Katelynn Schoop

I first met Halli Villegas at Humber College as part of the book publishing program. We had heard from many, many people representing large, multinational publishers and small presses alike, leading to a sense of sheer exhaustion. It was a lot of information. I distinctly remember Halli’s enthusiasm and intense sense of determination around developing a successful and intellectually relevant press.

http://tightropebooks.com/ 

[October 2008]

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Halli Villegas: Although I started Tightrope Books without a business partner it couldn’t exist without the support of many people, including the authors. Because of this I don’t really consider it a solo operation. I have associate fiction editors, and a poetry editor. On different manuscripts I work with different substantive and copy editors, and I have worked with a variety of designers and artists on the books. I now have a publicist who works part time for Tightrope. I’ve also been luck enough to be mentored by writers and publishing professionals that I really admire.

HV: I see my role as a sort of air traffic controller or quality control. I believe in choosing the best people to do the job and letting them have sovereignty over their role, trusting that the creativity and capability I recognize in them will be brought to the work we are doing together. I take care of the business side and to a certain extent dictate the aesthetic. I guess that’s what I consider the fun part —seeing what a group of creative people can come up with when they are given a framework and the support needed to realize a project.

We are now doing about six books a year and I edit very few of them. There are a lot of good editors out there who need the work and often authors have people they like to work with. I don’t want or need my name on every book. Sometimes the author will want to work with me because we have done another project together, or they think I will be the best person for the job. I love to edit, but I have to put my time into thinking about selling and promoting the books and writers, and taking Tightrope to the next level.

HV: Tightrope’s earliest mandate was to be subversive and urban, and multi-arts. I wanted to subvert any preconceived expectations of what a Tightrope Book might be. But it is being applied to individual titles instead of to the list as a whole— people say, "What’s subversive about Fraser Sutherland? Or about ghost stories?" I see something subversive in publishing Fraser alongside someone like Stacey May Fowles and saying that they both have relevance to Tightrope’s audience, or in treating genre fiction like serious literature. I’m not interested in "traditional subversiveness", like de Sade or Tropic of Cancer. Subversive doesn’t really work in the mandate in that sense.

The mandate also grew to include being writer-centric, since that is an important part our mission. I want the writers to have as enjoyable an experience as you can when your art bumps up against commerce.

Mandates are tricky things. I think they have to be flexible to actually work In the long run our aesthetic shapes the list and as a group of curious, eclectic individuals that aesthetic is constantly growing and changing.

HV: Coming from the US where support for small presses is just not in place, I think of Canadian publishers as lucky in many respects. Having said that the longer I am in the business the more changes I see in the criteria for government support. It’s becoming more and more difficult for small presses to continue. If you start from the idea that support for the publishing industry is an absolute, then you can see why so many presses are feeling that the system is letting them down. Presses are being held accountable as businesses in the current government, but the sales outlets have been shut down with the closing of so many independent bookstores and the buying policies of Chapters and Indigo. I think that there should be an emphasis in the granting agencies on programs to help publishers develop alternate sales strategies such as selling through the web, more money for developing strong marketing/publicity plans, and being able to hire the manpower to see them through. We need support for groups like LPG in order to increase international sales through international rights sales, distribution in the US and UK, and supporting sales reps in these territories. Instead publishers are penalized for not being able to sell in the current traditional channels without being given the tools or the opportunity to begin to explore new options.

HV: Since I do have a tendency to judge a book by its cover, it’s important to me that the book cover and size entice a reader to pick it up and glance through it. The cover becomes an important signal to what is inside the book, what the author is about in terms of style, and how to approach a book. At the level of independent press we don’t have a lot of sell quotes for covers so that doesn’t really become an issue, and in fact makes it even more important that the book attract with its design. Often independent press books have beautiful covers with fabulous papers, but they put an average reader off as they look too precious, or esoteric. If you’re looking for a wider readership then you have to strike a balance between being beautiful and being approachable. That’s what we think about when we design our books at Tightrope.

HV: I would say that I have been extremely fortunate in the ongoing support and positive response to Tightrope books in the literary community. From the beginning one of the things I have tried to do with my own time and with Tightrope is to support not just my own writers and projects, but writers from other presses and projects that other writers or literary groups are doing. I have given advice to other presses that were starting up, done pro-bono grant writing, donated books to and sponsored other literary events, arranged readings for writers, and in general helped make connections between people. I don’t have a personal blog or website where I blow my own horn and say, "Hey look at all the great things Tightrope and I are doing. Now support me." I don’t believe in that. I just believe in doing what needs to be done.

On the corporate side I was recently told by a publicist from a large press that its time for me to become the face of the press. This is very hard for me; I don’t even host Tightrope launches. But if this is what has to be done in order to reach general audiences I’ll do it because that is what we want for our writers.

HV: The big project for Tightrope right now is the yearly anthology The Best Canadian Poetry in English. This first year it is guest edited by Stephanie Bolster, along with advisory editor Molly Peacock who will stay on with the series. I have brought on a managing editor to work as a liason with the fifty poets who were selected from last year’s literary journals. For this book alone I have had guidance from David Lehman, Debbie De Groot at Mesiner, De Groot & Associates, Marilyn Beiderman at M&S and Kevin Hanson at Simon & Schuster. To me this project sums up a lot of what Tightrope Books is about. It has brought together talents from across the writing community, will open up Canadian Poetry to a much wider audience by contextualizing it on a yearly basis, will promote the literary magazines that are represented, will bring another source of recognition to the 100 poets included. We hope to have readings and launches across Canada, as well as in, Toronto, New York and London.

Celebration and excitement about writing. Put simply, that’s what Tightrope is about.