Dispatches Blog

Following up on Wet Cement Press's interest in the corporate takeover of language (as reflected in Giulio Maffii's book Copia) we wanted to share a short excerpt from Emily Brayer's Meeting Notes, a longer hybrid work that was submitted by the pseudonymous Emily, to our most recent New Constructions contest. Though we can't publish the whole thing, someone else should! This work so perfectly captures the insidious ways our current culture has of de-meaning language when its

"Is the reader a copy of the author, or is the author a copy of the reader?" Borges suggested that whether one is the reader or writer is largely a matter of chance." Giulio R.M. Maffii [Editor’s Note]: If we are to believe in the wisdom of chance, and why wouldn’t we, reading unsolicited manuscripts is a kind of grail adventure. Most of the encounters lead nowhere, but then, something different arrives. Something you’ve never seen before, but that also seems strangely fami

WCP's 2025 Best Gift Book Letter’s to Boulders is a lithospheric ekphrastic hybrid masterpiece. Merging elements of the field guide with imaginative prose poems, and gorgeous color photographs, the book is already finding wide appeal among earthlings of all kinds. [Look for a feature in Orion Magazine in early December, and look at our WCP book shop page to see more. We recently talked with Karen to learn more about the book’s origins and influences. “When I was g

In WCP’s recent New Constructions Hybrid Book Contest several entries stood out for their originality and power. Finalist Ben Miller’s work was among our favorites. He graciously agreed to share a small sample of his timely graphic brilliance here. Enjoy. BR Miller writes: “I employ varying approaches to developing hybrid texts, but one element unites all: the aim of offering readers a transformational experience, just as each expression makes me, in some sense, a new kin

by Barbara Roether _________________ Munich was full of pale ochre buildings flowing out in long angular avenues, calm and uniform in a...

Congratulations to Michelle Murphy and Tony Wallin-Sato!

Chengru He's WCP book, I Would Vanish Into Its Stronger Existence is a finalist for the 2024 Big Other Award for Nonfiction

Looking forward to the New Orleans Poetry Festival, which begins tonight. Drop by the WCP table on Saturday or Sunday if you're around....

Wet Cement Press will be attending the AWP book fair for the first time, March 27-29, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, booth 654....

Barbara Roether [A the foot of our road at noon, September 27th] Notes from the Flood: On September 20-21st Wet Cement press was...

b. July 7th 1947 d. December 23, 2023 printer, publisher, poet, friend “Turtle Island books were imagined with no less modest an idea...

Editor's Note: What is the role of a writer in times of conflict? In this piece Merle Bachman the author of "Thank You for Being: A...

Wet Cement author Susan Schultz exercises her attention to the world with a shifting depth of field, that brings into brilliant focus...

Barbara Roether I Among the wandering monks that populate traditional Zen stories and paintings, the motif of two friends often appears....

(Translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra) This graphic novel emerged from the tumult of emotions that I felt in confronting...

(Translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra) This graphic novel emerged from the tumult of emotions that I felt in confronting...

The house still asleep. On a pillow, her black hair Tangled as seaweed. How will you know when others Rise to shadow the sidewalk?

(Translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra) The Big Pause began as an act of catharsis in a time of crisis. Working on The Big Pause...

In the week leading up to Easter 2020, I began making sketches for a graphic short story about the corona crisis.

Setting up a show of pre-Columbian art at the Esther Robles Gallery A Brief History of the Esther Robles Gallery in LA by Jaime Robles...