We’re thrilled to have fellow creative misfit and community builder Amanda Earl join us today to talk about her incredible Small Machine Talks podcast, which celebrates and amplifies the voices of artists who have been traditionally excluded from conversations on creation and focuses on the joys and frustration of the creative process.
Welcome, Amanda!
Q: One of the things that strikes us about your podcast is how it seems to be artist-centric. What we mean by this is that while it is absolutely relevant for people who don’t live and work in the arts (and would be a powerful way for them to tap into this creative force in their world) it is especially honed into the process of creating, as opposed to a promoting a marketable finished product. Is this an angle you intentionally set out to pursue, or one that arose organically?
Also, your new book! Tell us about it!
A: The Small Machine Talks, since its beginning in 2016, has always been at the intersection of community and creativity. Over the years, we have moved from focusing on the poetry scene of Central Canada to prioritizing creators and cultural workers who have been systematically excluded from the literary canon all over the world. This falls in line with the mission of AngelHousePress, the sponsor of the podcast. All of AngelHousePress’s activity is centred on promoting and publishing these voices.
I started AngelHousePress in 2007 to be what I expected would be a press that made chapbooks. We did that for several years, along with two online magazines: NationalPoetryMonth.ca to celebrate poetry beyond borders and boundaries, and Experiment-O to celebrate the art of risk, with a separate imprint for transgressive prose, DevilHouse.
Through the work we were doing, and my other creative endeavours: writing and editing poetry, prose and visual poetry I learned about many writers, artists and visual poets from all over the world. After a few years, I started to publish chapbooks by writers and visual poets outside of North America, which I loved to do, but shipping overseas to contributors and their fans is expensive, and my husband and I live in a small apartment. We don’t have room to store chapbooks.
With AngelHousePress, I didn’t want my focus to be publishing only Canadians or locals. I do this already with Bywords.ca, a twenty-year-old online magazine and site that publishes poetry by current and former Ottawa students, residents and workers and promotes Ottawa’s thriving literary, spoken word, storytelling and nonfiction events through a calendar.
I liked what we were able to do with our online magazines, NationalPoetryMonth.ca and Experiment-O. I liked that we didn’t have to limit ourselves to a small number of copies as we did with chapbooks, or black and white only, and that we could publish creators from all over the world, especially those who are being systematically excluded by the literary and artistic canons.
For Bywords.ca, we’ve always been able to pay our contributors, thanks to funding from the City of Ottawa. For AngelHousePress, because we do not focus on just one specific region or genre, we aren’t eligible for funding.
We didn’t pay our contributors until 2021, when we launched The first AngelHousePress Caring Imagination crowdfunding campaign. We combined this campaign with the promotion of small presses around the world, who have generously donated bundles of limited edition chapbooks, books and merchandise to help us raise money to pay our artists. The campaign was successful and has now become a regular part of our program, taking place in February yearly so that we can pay contributors for both NationalPoetryMonth.ca and Experiment-O.
I think paying artists is important, particularly those who are systematically excluded. As Jacqueline Valencia writes, “"Many writers of colour struggle to get a foot in the door of the literary scene and do not have the privilege of giving away their time and labor for free." Conceptualism in the Resistance, The Town Crier, Puritan Magazine, April, 2017.
In 2022, we were able to start a site, https://caringimagination.com/, which provides resources for creators and cultural workers who want to do their work with compassion. It includes links to resources with advice about choosing sensibility editors, workshops and residences for BIPOC writers, making accessible sites, writing descriptive text and more. I also have a bit of money that was donated separately that I’m using to commission guides, aimed directly at writers and artists. We have had two guides so far, one by me on running a crowdfunding campaign, and another by Rae White on gender inclusivity recommendations for literary events and festivals.
The Caring Imagination has an advisory committee made up of women and nonbinary artists from Australia, Canada, India, UK, and USA.
Other AngelHousePress initiatives are an essay series on AngelHousePress.com.
I am very happy with what we’ve achieved and will achieve in the future with lots of learning and listening to the voices that matter. AngelHousePress is a defiant and feisty intersectional feminist, queer and quirky small press, a home for those that have been silenced for too long.
Beast Body Epic is a collection of long poems provoked by my near-death health crisis in 2009. I published it through AngelHousePress and it came out in September. Beast Body Epic is for anyone who’s circled the drain or knows someone who has. The book is about having the shit kicked out of you and surviving. More information is available on AngelHousePress.com. There will be a virtual reading from Beast Body Epic on Sunday, November 12, 2023 2pm EST with Amanda, Sandra Ridley and Christine McNair. You can sign up here: www.tinyurl.com/beastbodyepicNov1223
More about Amanda:
Amanda Earl (she/her) has been a working writer in multiple genres for over twenty years. Her mission is whimsy, exploration, and connection with fellow misfits. She has published poetry, visual poetry, short fiction and a novel. Earl is a pansexual polyamorous feminist writer, visual poet, editor, and publisher who lives on Algonquin Anishinaabeg traditional territory. Earl is managing editor of Bywords.ca, editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry (Timglaset Editions, Sweden, 2021) and fallen angel of AngelHousePress.
Her poetry books include Beast Body Epic (AngelHousePress, 2023), Trouble (HemPress, 2022), and Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014; Invisible Publishing, Canada, 2019). In 2024 a digital chapbook entitled Seasons, an excerpt from Welcome to Upper Zygonia will be published by Full House Literary.
More information is available at AmandaEarl.com and https://linktr.ee/amandaearl. You can also subscribe to her newsletter, Amanda Thru the Looking Glass for sporadic updates on publishing activities, chronic health issues and the inner workings of AngelHousePress, calls for submissions and more.
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/kikifolle
https://www.facebook.com/AmandaEarlWriter
https://www.instagram.com/earlamanda
https://zirk.us/@AmandaEarl
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