HOW THE WISING UP PRESS WRITERS COLLECTIVE DEVELOPED
The Wising Up Writers Collective was inspired by the talent of many of the writers who contributed to our anthologies and who also felt a special affinity to the social commitments of Universal Table, who understood us when we said we wanted our books to be catalysts for conversation and who had the same approach to their own writing. We have enjoyed watching their work develop over time, increasing in integrity and authority with the encouragement of publication. We have found it particularly rewarding to offer this encouragement at a point in a writer's life (whether 28 or 82) when it would make a significant difference in their artistic and personal development.
We understood that for us as writer/publishers publishing individual works by other writers needed to be a collective activity if we were really interested in building sustaining and sustainable relationships. We see the Collective as a way of creating a network of positive, mutually empowering and amplifying creative relationships between us and the other writers individually and together. The Collective creates a rigorous artistic standard and supportive social context for all members. We also see the Collective as having as its core purpose creating larger social conversations, an approach that appeals to writers who see their books as an opportunity to be in richer and more fluid relationship with others around subjects of mutual concern - in real time, real life.
Here are some of questions we ask writers publishing through the Wising Up Press Writers Collective: Would you write this book even if wouldn't be published? Is this book the best you can make it? Who do you want to be in conversation with through this book? After writing this book and creating a home for your own experiences, what stories and experiences of your readers are you now able to hold more generously and respond to more fully? And we ask ourselves, often, What is the conversation that is made possible through the mysterious mediation of a book that is not possible in any other way?
We are pleased our books sell but what concerns us most is how well our books serve as catalysts for more insightful conversations. We work hard to create affordable, beautiful books with evocative and complex stories and we want these books to make real changes for the better in the lives of those who write them and those who read them. For the better, for us, means feeling that you and what you hold most dear also has a place at that universal table we all hunger for.
Mutually rewarding self-sufficiency on a sturdy shoe string is our style at Wising Up Press - a style that we extend to the Collective. Everyone involved in the Collective contributes, as we do, to the general publishing fund for the Collective and also, as we do, volunteer their skills to help support the Collective in ways that speak to their own interests and sense of community as well - as readers, developmental or copy editors, proofreaders, publicists, sponsors of home readings across the country, developers or facilitators of workshops and discussion groups. We're in this for the long term, which means our books never need to go out of print, our books don't need to be remaindered. We can share them this year and for many years to come. We delight each time one of them finds a true home in someone else's heart as they have in ours - and are willing to take the time to let that happen.
If our approach and goals speak to you and you are interested in learning more about us, please read further.
COLLECTIVE OVERVIEW
SUBMISSION PROCEDURES
SUBJECT AREAS
EDITORIAL BOARD
COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCES
If, after reading through these materials, you think this approach is suitable for you and that you have a manuscript that would fit well with our interests and social commitments, submit. We assure you that your manuscript will be thoughtfully read.
If you have other questions, please write or call:
collective@universaltable.org
404/276-6046.
Heather Tosteson & Charles Brockett, Publishers
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