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ShareEver since the founding of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1936, Iowa City has been an artistic and creative oasis in the middle of vast fields of corn. It seems that nearly everyone here is working on a novel, a play, or a book of poems, and there are plenty of publishing opportunities as well, as the town is also home to a number of small press magazines and publishing houses. Most of these presses are supported by grants, and they publish only the most rarified and unreadable experimental work. When I heard about the latest new small press, Impetus, I was expecting that they would fall into this same category: a snooty, pretentious, ultra-serious house, turning out unreadable manuscripts that demanded a doctoral dissertation to explicate. When I arrived at their main office, however, I was shocked to find myself knocking on the door of a small apartment located squarely in the center of Fraternity Row. I was greeted by Jennifer Banash, one of the founders of the press and its first published author. She and her partner, Willy Blackmore, invited me into their stylish flat, which reminded me more than anything of a cross between the old Playboy mansion and the set of a James Bond film. Chrome and white shag, the best of 1960s and ‘70s high-concept pop modernism, mix with nostalgic gestures to the icons of both the past and the present. One wall is devoted exclusively to images of Marilyn Monroe, while others display pages from tabloids, shots of the Andy Warhol factory scene, and classic Paris apartment paintings. Wearing her trademark white sunglasses, Jennifer invited me to sit down at the kitchen table, and we discussed the press over a cup of ginger tee.
 Hollywoodland: An American Fairy Tale Author: Jennifer Banash Impetus Press August 2006, 353 pages, $17.95  The Dream Sequence Author: Kate Hunter Impetus Press September 2006, 127 pages, $13.95 |
Jennifer is currently a doctoral candidate in the department of English at the University of Iowa, yet she is far from a traditional academic. In addition to her studies, she has written three novels during her time in Iowa, all of which do more to engage popular culture than academic discourse. Her partner Willy is an artist and bookmaker, studying at the prestigious Center for the Book. Willy’s great grandfather was John Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Willy even interviewed for a position at this company until he realized that they didn’t know how to pronounce his great grandfather’s name correctly. He subsequently decided to venture into independent publishing and make a name for himself instead.
How does Impetus Press compare with larger publishing companies?
[Jennifer Banash] Publishing is becoming more and more limited. The big houses, like Random and Harper’s, are only looking for blockbusters. They all want the next Da Vinci Code. That’s terrifying, because it’s become a business where huge companies are eating up little ones and everything is sold to the highest bidder and art has been—if thought about at all—thrown by the wayside. Instead of being a space that welcomes new writers and rewards risk, it’s mostly just either the same voices over and over again or it’s total nepotism—the moral equivalent of incest—where the only people who are getting heard are people with some kind of inside connection. Of course everyone is aware of the problems with mainstream presses, so we don’t have to talk about that. Basically they’re just the devil.
Your website also says that you dislike “the rigid constraints of experimental presses.” What exactly do you mean?
[JB] There are a lot of small presses, but they tend to serve only the most serious or experimental kinds of work. It makes sense, because small presses need to have very specific goals in order to get anything done, but the rules have become too specific. Over the years I’ve often submitted my work to small presses and each time I received a ridiculous list of requirements. Are you Native American? Are you concerned with women’s issues? Are you having your period? Is it 28 days since your last bank deposit? Presses like FC2 will ask: “Does your work make sense? If so, you should probably go someplace else.” It’s gotten to the point where publishing is so completely polarized that if you’re not writing purely mainstream fiction or radical experimental fiction, there’s no place for you. There’s no space for something that doesn’t belong at either a commercial press or a very small press, and there are tons of talented writers out there who just aren’t getting heard because they fall through the cracks.
Were you doing something different in your own novels that didn’t fit the needs of either the commercial or experimental presses?
[JB] When I sent out my latest book, Hollywoodland: An American Fairy Tale, I was told by mainstream editors who requested the book that it was too highbrow and that I should be with a small press. The small presses, however, weren’t convinced that readers of serious literary fiction would be interested in stories about Hollywood scandals or the porn industry. These were seen as lowbrow topics, and because of the book’s strong pop bent these editors thought I belonged with the big lumbering consortiums. Both the commercial and avant-garde publishing industries really want to see a split between two types of readers, and I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Basically, they believe that if you’re a New Jersey housewife you read Valley of the Dolls and if you’re a New York intellectual you read Paul Auster, but I certainly enjoy both. I think this is just a way of patronizing the book-buying public, and it creates lines of elitist pretension that don’t really need to be drawn. We’re trying to break that down. Willy and I founded Impetus Press because we definitely believe that this market exists and there are a lot of readers who don’t necessarily want to choose exclusively between highbrow and lowbrow, who want serious literary fiction that takes popular culture as its muse.
How did the press begin?
[JB] Impetus Press started in August 2005. At that point I’d had an agent for two and a half years, and I was tired of getting rejection letters that said: “She’s a fantastic writer, we love the way she writes, but there’s no way we can sell this. It’s too commercial for the smaller presses, and it’s too experimental for the mainstream.” I was so tired of everything being beyond my control, and I thought that if the climate of publishing is so dire then other people must be in this same situation too. If I’m not getting heard then who else isn’t getting heard, and what can I do about it? After complaining and moaning about this one day, Willy just looked at me and said, “Let’s start a press.” So we did it.
Are you worried that some people might see this as a vanity project?
[JB] I could have self-published years ago, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. The most satisfying thing for me is not seeing my own book in print, it’s working with authors, having the kind of dialogue that I always dreamed of when I had an agent. Being able to give that to my authors is satisfying in a way that publishing my own book for vanity’s sake would never have been. At the end of the day it’s not about vanity. If you’re a writer, and you just want to see your name in print, then find another job. Because this job isn’t about getting a pat on the back from the establishment. It’s about writing really good books year after year in isolation, receiving no accolades from anyone, and persevering nonetheless.
[Willy Blackmore] The other difference is that mainstream presses have become impersonal bureaucracies. My great grandfather worked directly with his writers. It wasn’t this whole long chain with agents and assistants to the editor. Today the industry works like a machine, and sometimes it’s a maze trying to figure out who’s responsible for what. We’re trying to go back in a way to how publishing used to be, because we work with our authors directly one-on-one. We read unsolicited manuscripts, and we don’t expect authors to convince agents that their books are profitable before we see them. After all, we’re not trading stock. We see ourselves as nurturing their careers, giving them space to grow as artists, and a safe place to do it. And it’s very important to the publishing process to have that relationship.
How are you able to compete when publishing books is so expensive?
[WB] In terms of small presses, like us, you can function out of an apartment with a laptop. I can design the whole book that way, and then with digital printing it’s possible to actually make the book without these heavy expenses. Not that we’re sacrificing quality. Digital printing and the net make it easier to go against this conglomerate system of publishing. The resources are there if you look for them, and they can be surprisingly affordable.
[JB] The Internet has really been a major tool in how we’ve gotten in touch with people and learned about their work. Publishing in the US is very New York-centric. Being out in Iowa, it’s like “How do you crack the code?” We got listed on Gerard Jones’ website Everyone Who’s Anyone. It’s basically a comprehensive list of all the presses in America ranked from most important to least important, with contact information, allowing authors to directly e-mail agents and editors, thwarting all that gate-keeping. It’s easy to see why he’s made more than a few enemies. I emailed him a brief description of Impetus, and he said, “It sounds great. I’ll put you above Random House.” Random House was number one on the list, so we ended up being the first press listed on the entire website for a period of time (he took us down after awhile). Because we were listed above Random House in order of importance, we also got a ton of queries, a ton of writers contacting us and submitting work. This shows that you don’t have to be in New York. With the power of the Internet, the industry has become decentralized.
Have you also considered electronic publishing?
[JB] In terms of technology, I guess we are a throwback company in some respect, because we’re committed to books as physical objects, and we sincerely hope they never disappear. Willy is a bookmaker first and foremost—he’s trained in book design. The book is a tactile experience and not just text on a screen. The relationship between the text, pages, binding, and construction of the book is important to the experience of reading. I even like the way books smell, but I guess that’s neither hear nor there.
Tell me something about the authors in your catalog. What kind of work are you most interested in publishing?
[JB] There’s no formula. We’re looking for interesting creative work, and because we’re so small we really have to love the books we choose, but our authors are all very different. Kate Hunter’s novella, The Dream Sequence, is a psychoanalytic noir story about memory loss, addiction, and urban witch doctors. It’s a serious novel about the self, but also an investigation of the strange techno-medical world we live in today. It’s exactly the kind of book that’s too experimental for the conglomerates and yet too engaged with popular culture to attract the interest of most small presses. In the fall we’ll be publishing Jamie Clarke’s novel Vernon Downs, a roman à clef about a man who moves to New York to work for Vernon Downs, a character loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis. Jamie Clarke was Ellis’ assistant for a time, and without giving away the plot or the surprise of the novel, it’s really about identity, as the narrator tries to take over Vernon’s life by impersonating him. Fires is the next book, scheduled for release around Christmas. It’s a novel by Nick Antosca about a young college student who discovers that his high school football coach molested and killed a young boy. He’s then drawn back home to explore the events of his past at the same time that a fire rages on the boundary of his town. Basically the book explores the limits of pain, desire, and memory.
How do you plan to distribute and market the books?
[WB] Basically we’re going to do what every press does. We’re going to organize readings for our authors, get them heard, and make their books accessible to readers. All of these books will be available [at] Amazon, Powells, and Impetus Press, and eventually they’re going to be available in independent bookstores around the country as well.
What do you see as your long-term goal?
[JB] The goal is to make enough money to keep the press running without compromising our integrity or the integrity of our authors. Basically we just want to get voices heard that otherwise wouldn’t be.
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Anthony Enns holds a PhD from the University of Iowa where he currently teaches.
