A Novella is Born: Come Help Us Celebrate the Release of Monster Party by Lizzy Acker! Dec. 11, 7pm, Amnesia, S.F!

Small Desk Press is excited to announce the release of



Monster Party

by Lizzy Acker



Please come celebrate at the book’s launch party!

When: Saturday, December 11th 7:00 PM

Where: Amnesia, 853 Valencia Street, San Francisco

With readings by Jim Nelson, Anisse Gross, Adam Moskowitz, Marisa Crawford, and the author.



For more information or to buy the book, visit smalldeskpress.com

Or contact the editors at info@smalldeskpress.com

To view the Facebook invite click here:Monster Party Book Launch




Praise for Monster Party:



“I remember the first time I read Irvine Welsh and thinking ‘my god, how does this guy do it?’ Meaning, not only write with the terrible awful beauty he does, but also how does he go on living if he knows this stuff? I felt a similar thing when I finished reading Lizzy Acker’s MONSTER PARTY: How does she do it? Write that way and keep on keeping on even after she knows this horrible life stuff? This book is the real deal – with a voice that is true and truly its own, characters mushing towards and away from each other in pathetic, funny, wounded human, fucked-up ways that will break whatever is left of your tired heart.” - Rebecca Brown, The Gifts of the Body



“If there is a genre called Southern Gothic, shouldn’t there be a genre called Northwest Abjection? And voila! here is a shining example. Lizzy Acker’s novella seems awkward, unresolved, and right, like she’s some kind of corn-fed Zen mistress, imminence pouring like daylight into her intolerable fables of life’s hilarious randomness. Meanwhile, the search for love and perhaps most importantly the attempt to somehow get through the day twist emotions and plotlines. What a wonderful book!”

- Robert Glück, Jack the Modernist



“Lizzy Acker’s Monster Party is a rager of vulnerable tomboy bravado. This is the girl who you want holding back your hair at the end of the night, totally in touch with the ridiculous sickness of life – all its sad absurdity, useless longings, flares of courage and derring-do. There’s a goofy punch of love fist-kissing the the heart of this book, bruising its tough poetry with melancholy humor. Totally awesome.” - Michelle Tea, Valencia

Sarah Fran Wisby -- Litseen's "Best SF Reading of the Week"

Read Full Review Here

Sarah Wisby » Kaleidoscope Reading Series from Evan Karp on Vimeo.

Small Desk Press Wants You to Like Literature Again

SMALL DESK PRESS WANTS YOU TO LIKE LITERATURE AGAIN. I MEAN, NOT LIKE YOU EVER STOPPED, BUT WE WANT YOU TO REALLY LIKE IT. WE ALSO WANT YOU TO FEEL ALIVE, TO ACT CRAZY, TO APPRECIATE BODIES AND TOILET HUMOR, TO MAKE ART, TO FORM WEIRD CONSPIRACIES THAT PLOT THE OVERTHROW OF SOMETHING UGLY, TO SIT QUIETLY AND LISTEN IN A TIME WHEN LISTENING IS NOT REALLY IN FASHION. COME OUT AND SEE OUR AUTHORS READ. YOU WON'T REGRET IT OR YOU MIGHT REGRET IT, BUT THEN YOU HAVE PROBLEMS THAT MERE LITERATURE ALONE CANNOT REPAIR.

SARAH FRAN WISBY
ALI LAWRENCE
DUSTIN HERON
LIZZY ACKER
& JEANNINE HALL GAILEY

OCTOBER 9TH AT 6 PM. ADOBE
BOOKS, 3166 16TH ST, SF, CA

Jeannine Hall Gailey Wins the Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Contest!

Read Jeannine Hall Gailey's winning poem, "They Are Not Regenerating," at We Who Are About to Die

Matt Rohrer Interviews Matt Rohrer about Small Desk Press, but calls himself Melissa Broder

Get the real scoop on how Small Desk Press was started, the kind of writing we look for, and how we make the world a little brighter for unpublished consecrators of poop at

We Who Are About to Die

M: What do you look for in a potential Small Desk Press book besides a hairy author?

Our authors are not usually terribly hairy so it’s funny that you mention that. We like stuff that is taboo and raw and gutsy in terms of content and/or form. I’m a sucker for writing about sex and blood and poop and death and all that bodily stuff. We also tend to publish work that’s not perfectly polished: that has raw emotional content and maybe a few sloppy lines. Sometimes we work a lot on a manuscript with an author if we feel like it could be better, which is something that takes a lot of time but I think this goes along with our mission of publishing emerging writers. Sometimes we publish work as is. It’s also nice to publish people who you think you might like to work with. You end up communicating a lot with a person who you publish. Luckily the people we’ve published are all pretty cool, but I can’t imagine how much it would suck to publish someone who was a jerk. And we all know people who are great writers and total jerks.

Monster Poetry Contest -- Last Chance to Submit!

Your last chance to submit your work to the LIZZY ACKER MONSTER POETRY CONTEST is THIS SUNDAY, so please get on it!

The contest winner will receive a free catalog of all Small Desk Press titles – including Monster Party when it's released this fall – plus publication on http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/.

Please send submissions to contest@smalldeskpress.com by August 1st, 2010, and write "Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Submission" in the subject line. Please include a cover page with ONLY the title of the poem. The winner will be notified by email.

What I Kind of Liked About You . . . .

Small Desk Press book designer and founding member Jacob Evans is posting great stuff over at What I Kind of Liked About You, wherein all posts begin with the line "What I kind of liked about you . . . ." as in "What I kind of liked about you was the vomit of information, the barf of language, always coming out of you . . ." Imagine the possibilities . . . . .

Jacob lives in Hanoi, where he teaches English and rides a Russian motorcycle.