October 11-12, 2014
12-3 & 4-7 pm
RSVP for addresses [email protected]

Open Press is a medium to extend the work of the writer, editor, and curator, to instigate new channels of reciprocity among those interested and engaged in what might constitute the literary at any given time. Over the course of two days, Open Press 2014 will feature roundtables, readings, panels, performances, a moveable book fair, and more in four “at home” locations across the Los Angeles area.

The idea of Open Press is to host a series of events (roundtables, readings, panels, performances, a moveable book fair, and more) on-site at each of our homes or headquarters. The co-curators (eohippus labs, Insert Blanc Press, Les Figues Press and the Poetic Research Bureau) have invited one or more literary projects they admire to participate in these panels, readings, etc.

We wish to transform our homes (or headquarters) into temporary public sites where literary practices can be discussed and engaged. In other words, Open Press will be a kind of literary moveable feast, in which we travel to four different sites over the course of two days in Los Angeles, CA.

Hosts: Les Figues Press, The Poetic Research Bureau, eohippus labs and Insert Blanc Press

Guest presses and projects: Counterpath Press, Ricochet Editions, Writ Large Press, The Song Cave, ypolita press, Entropy, Copilot Press, Anomalous Press, Gauss PDF and Phoneme Media

People: Tim Roberts, Diana Arterian, Chiwan Choi, Teresa Carmody, Andrea Quaid, Andrew Maxwell, Joseph Mosconi, Ara Shirinyan, Todd Colby, Jane Gregory, Graham Foust, Amanda Ackerman, Carrie Hunter, Janice Lee, Stephanie Sauer, Erica Mena, Harold Abramowitz, Mathew Timmons, J. Gordon Faylor, David Shook, Andrew Choate, Jay Erker, William Moor, Feliz Lucia Molina, Emily Hunt, and Jen Lagendrost

Join the Facebook event page here.

Read Carolyn Kellogg’s preview of the event for the LA Times.

Event Schedule

Saturday October 11 from 12-3 pm
Les Figues Press will be joined by Counterpath Press (Tim Roberts), Ricochet Editions (Diana Arterian), and Writ Large Press (Chiwan Choi) in a roundtable discussion to ask: What does it mean to make books and curate literary experiences as an artist-run press? Together we will talk about philosophies, practices and materials; or, How can a book be a screen, wall or room of constellating bodies collecting pages into a spiral-bound whole?

Saturday October 11 from 4-7 pm
The Poetic Research Bureau hosts The Song Cave, which began as a chapbook press with a very personal editorial sensibility (largely the work of two people, Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal), and has recently begun publishing perfect-bound books of poetry, translations and essays in handsome editions with a formidable house style. The PRB finds The Song Cave a sympathetic enterprise due to its sustained commitment to small format literature like pamphlets/chapbooks, and for making its archive freely accessible in digital form as online PDFs. The three readers at this event—Todd Colby, Jane Gregory and Graham Foust—are recently published by The Song Cave.

Sunday October 12 from 12-3 pm
eohippus labs will be joined by ypolita press, Entropy, Copilot Press, and Anomalous Press for a panel: We are starting from the premise that our bodies’ sensory capacities have been compromised. For example, our ability to smell or taste has been weakened or coerced. Visual culture is primary at the expense of other sensory engagements. Bodies are continuously manipulated in their many forms of labor. Therefore, we introduce our panel discussion with a set of questions around a central question/concern: How do various literary practices—reading, writing, editing—navigate a body whose sensory capacity has been compromised?

Sunday October 12 from 4-7 pm
Insert Blanc Press presents a performance across multiple media and languages with J. Gordon Faylor of Gauss PDF and David Shook of Phoneme Media. Sharing a vision of the arts as inextricably linked; Insert Blanc, Gauss PDF and Phoneme Media foster creative practices that tend to cross language barriers and drift across lines of digital and print media as well as across mediums from film to printmaking, and writing to painting, photography and etc. These three presses have brought together a diverse collection of artists and writers over the years and for Open Press will present the work of Andrew Choate, Jay Erker, William Moor, Feliz Lucia Molina, Emily Hunt and Jen Lagendrost. The performance at Insert Blanc HQ will include writers, translators, and visual artists that often come to their work through attempts to swim in the gooey center while lingering at the edge of various margins.