A Common Pornography_ A Memoir - Kevin Sampsell [61]
“We publish Please Don’t Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope, a girl I discover in an eighth-grade after-school writing class I taught in 1999…. The chapbook is the bestselling title I’ve ever published.
2002: Another Future Tense release, Grosse Pointe Girl by Sarah Grace McCandless, a book edited by Ritah (who also has two books released on Future Tense), is bought by Simon & Schuster.
Ritah and I get divorced.
The first version of A Common Pornography comes out. I start corresponding with a girl named Barb, who reads parts of the book on the McSweeney’s website.
2003: Barb moves from Los Angeles to Portland, and romance blooms. She moves into “Future Tense Headquarters.”
Haiku Inferno—a “performance group” consisting of me, Barb (a.k.a. Frayn Masters), Elizabeth Miller, and Frank D’Andrea—debuts and performs at various events for the next several years. A book (copublished by Future Tense and Portland’s Crack Press) comes out five years later.
Controversial sex writer Susannah Breslin’s book, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?, comes out in a limited paperback release and quickly sells out.
Happy Ending by Mike Topp, our first New York writer, is released.
We also win our second Literary Arts fellowship this year.
2004: I bravely try my hand at a special fold-out chapbook, a collection of dirty poems by Shane Allison called Black Fag. It’s a tricky production (and maybe not entirely successful due to my folding), but it becomes a hit among queer poetry fans.
2005: I team up with legendary San Francisco publisher Manic D Press to start a paperback imprint through them, simply called the Future Tense series. An anthology, The Insomniac Reader, is the first release.
2006: Fast Forward: Confessions of a Porn Screenwriter by Playboy writer and Believer editor Eric Spitznagel is the second book copublished with Manic D Press.
A chapbook by Tao Lin is scheduled for summer before I pull the plug on the project due to editing concerns. The resulting ballyhoo is discussed heatedly on lit blogs for the rest of the year before Tao moves on to Melville House (we’ve since become friendly again).
2007: Dahlia Season by Myriam Gurba, the third book through Manic D Press, wins the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction.
Elizabeth Ellen’s debut, Before You She Was a Pit Bull, comes out to the delight of short story fans.
After many years of e-mailing about it, Partial List of People to Bleach, a chapbook by Gary Lutz (who is probably my favorite writer ever), is released.
Also after many years, we finally unveil a logo: a long stapler image.
“After many years, we finally unveil a logo: a long stapler image.
2008: After many years of criticizing the shoddy print-on-demand industry, I realize that it has vastly improved and become more accessible—no more 300-copy print runs! Bob Gaulke’s humorous book on teaching English in Japan, Embrace Your Insignificance, is released.
I meet a young man named Riley Michael Parker at Powell’s and give him some book recommendations. A couple of months later, he gives me a short manuscript that blindsides me. I quickly halt everything else to turn it into a chapbook (Our Beloved 26th) .
2009: Oakland writer and artist Chelsea Martin releases Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, our second paperback in a year. It becomes the fastest-selling paperback we’ve ever done.
To learn more about Kevin’s micropress, go to www.futuretensebooks.com.
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About the Author
Kevin Sampsell has been the publisher of Future Tense Books since 1990. His own books include the short story collections Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets. In 2009, he edited the anthology Portland Noir. He works for Powell’s Books and lives in Portland, Oregon.
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