20th Anniversary Spotlight: Steven Zultanski
Our 20th-anniversary celebrations continue with another Author Spotlight interview. Today, we’re shining a light on Steven Zultanski. We have had the pleasure of publishing three poetry collections by Steven including Agony, Cop Kisser, and Honestly. Steven is one of our longest running authors, and is an early example of our approach to publishing; nurturing long lasting relationships with writers who are taking risks so we can celebrate their work over time.
In our Q&A with Steven, he shares what it means to be part of the Book*hug author family, and highlights a title by Book*hug Co-publisher Jay Millar that has left a lasting impression on him. Happy reading!
B*: What does being part of the Book*hug Press author family mean to you? Please share an anecdote, reflection, or backstory about your publishing experience?
Book*hug was the first press to support my work. I am grateful to Jay and Hazel for taking chances on younger writers, for giving strange work a home, and for imagining literature to be an inherently international endeavor. Ten years ago, it felt like poets in Canada and the US were more connected; now, sadly, things are more fragmented and a lot of writing doesn’t make it past national borders. Book*hug has stayed true to its ideals of publishing writers from all over the world, trying to sustain conversations between disparate literary scenes and traditions.
B*: Can you share another title from the Book*hug Press catalogue that has left a lasting impression on you as a reader? Tell us about a book that has been a touchstone for you, one that you found meaningful, interesting, or simply loved.
Jay MillAr spends so much time publishing, editing, and promoting other writers that his own poetry doesn’t get the credit it deserves. When I was a student, before I ever met him, I loved his book Mycological Studies, published by Coach House. On Book*hug, I’d recommend esp: accumulation sonnets, from 2009, a series of deft and disjunct poems that treat the sonnet as a machine for filtering snippets of overheard or fleetingly encountered language. A lovely book.
