Spotlight on Self-Publishing: An Interview with Emily Larned
I stumbled across a rather curious academic paper a few months ago, it was by an artist/writer and letterpress printer called Emily Larned, the piece was called The Intimate Books of Anaïs Nin – Diarist as Letterpress Printer. I was interested to chat with Emily. As a writer/publisher of chapbooks and zines myself - I always love to chat with like-minded people and she was kind enough to answer a few of my questions for Black Flowers.
I read that you began your self-publishing career with zines. Do you remember the very first zine you read and why it made such an impact on you?
It was the concept of zines that appealed to me, rather than a specific zine. I had never seen a zine when I started publishing them. I learned about zines from Sassy Magazine, which was an American teen girl magazine in the 90s that was very feminist and progressive for its genre. Sassy had a zine-of-the-month feature, and also reviewed Mike Gunderloy’s book “The World of Zines.” I asked for that book for my birthday in February 1993, and published my first issue (Muffin Bones #1) the next month.
What appealed to me about zines then is the same as what appeals to me about micro-publishing now: the DIY ethic of making everything yourself. Writing, designing, illustrating, printing, mailing: every aspect of production. And then the community that is created by sending out each issue to an individual person through the mail: a very one-to-one connection, that is further fostered when the recipient sends you something in exchange.
It is interesting to read your history. You created a zine, had your own imprint, printed a catalogue of work, obtained degrees, co-founded ILSSA and now you work as an academic. Did you always want to teach?
Teaching as a profession had never occurred to me until four years after I graduated from college. I had always been focused on my own art/writing/publishing work and hadn’t realized that teaching could be a simultaneous activity, an “in addition to” rather than “instead of.” But I had always loved reading, learning, and school. While an undergraduate, I was a RA (resident advisor) for an artsy summer program for high school students, and also organized art workshops and a student-led class for my fellow students, and twice served as a TA. After graduating I co-founded the education department at Booklyn Artists Alliance. Looking back now, it makes complete sense I became an educator.
I first came across an essay you wrote about Anais Nin and her time as a self-published author. You mention a vast difference between her hand-made version of her books compared to the ill-designed versions put together by publishers. Do you think this is why we as writers and artists enjoy self-publishing? Is it a sense of control over every aspect of our work?
Yes! Nin wrote quite a bit about the necessity of publishing her own work, as she had difficulty finding mainstream publishers to accept her material. But later in life, she lamented how tawdry the mass-produced books are, and said she would love to return to making her own books such that she could make them the way she wished them to be, if only it didn’t take so damn long. (And I hope you get a chance to handle the handmade Gemor books, if you haven’t yet: they are gorgeous, especially Under A Glass Bell.) I think many of us value in handmade things a certain energy transferred from the creator to the object, and I think of this energy as being the maker’s commitment to the work. Crafting an unformed idea into a tangible artefact is transformational for both maker and object. I don’t know of any activity more rewarding.
In the same article, you mention that Anais wanted to have her work published so she could “connect with others”. Do you think this sense of community has been lost over the years or do you think we are in fact gaining this community with the use of social media?
That sentiment Nin wrote in her diary is very similar to what Andre Breton wrote, that “one publishes to find comrades.” This rationale for publishing resonates with me, although of course print’s primacy has been challenged in this regard. If one’s goal is simply to find other like-minded people, it seems social media would be more efficient, yes? But is just finding their people what Nin and Breton meant, exactly, by this sentiment? Isn’t it perhaps more like “I wish to make my work, and I wish to find those who like my work, because chances are good I will also feel a connection to them and their work, and the world will become a more meaningful and satisfying place for us all.” The making the work creates a public for the work, and this public for the work forms a community. It is both the making of the work and the finding of the community that is important. In my own experience small-scale publishing is much more conducive to this than online formats. There are some contemporary writers/makers producing novel, rather amazing, and mind-bending work on social media, but I am definitely not one of them, nor do I feel a kinship with people whose work I admire online: it is just too remote, they seem so far away, and 4k or 44k or 444k likes makes a human scale connection feel impossible. I know other people have found their communities through social media, but not me.
Self-publishing has always had a bad name. People often feel that self-publishing simply means you are not good enough to get your book published by big corporations. What are your thoughts on that?
Perhaps because I started self-publishing so young, as a teenager, it never occurred to me to send work to a publisher. I’ve always been interested in every aspect of the publishing process — making the whole thing by hand — so “being” published would be just a different thing all together than “being publishing,” which I suppose is what my work entails. My orientation is toward the content and the form being an inseparable whole, rather than a written text in search of a form to reach a large audience. That said, I do think there are some of my projects — especially the feminist archive projects — that would benefit from a publisher, so the books could reach a broader audience, and potentially have a greater impact. Perhaps that will come in the future. But even if I do work with publishers, I think I will still first make publications by hand: for me it is akin to sketching, to thinking things through.
With the online world being such a dominating factor these days, what are your views on online publications?
I prefer tactile formats. I know there is a ton of wonderful online material that I am missing out on, simply because I am overwhelmed by the quantity, and do not want to spend more of my time staring at screens. I love objects and material culture. I wish to hold things in my hand, see how they’re bound, turn pages, feel the paper texture, note quirks in printing.
Have you been working on anything or have anything coming out soon you would like to share?
For the past several years, I have been working with feminist archives, recontextualizing and republishing work I find. Since September I have been working with the amazing Kay Codish, a lifelong activist and feminist theater director who from 1992-2008 directed the New Haven Police Academy. She transformed a militaristic boot camp into what we might describe today as a socially engaged art school, where future officers would conduct their own research in the community and share their findings through making art with local youth. In the fall I made a print installation from her archive, which was an exhibition at Artspace New Haven. Last month, I published an interview to accompany a reissue of a 1996 booklet she produced to share her work at the Academy. Now, I am beginning a book about Kay’s work, including many artefacts from her archive as well as interviews with former students, officers, and activists. This is a project that I think could benefit from the greater reach of a publisher . . . and yet in order to make this book a reality, I also must approach it as if I am making the whole thing myself, by hand. The way forward is still through. Coming out much sooner than that book, which I anticipate will take years: I am about to print the letter and envelope for the ILSSA spring 2021 mailing, which includes the beautiful “A Womanifesto for Making Time” written by one of our members, the artist Maria Epes.
Check out her website right here
