Calamari Archive is a NYC-based repository of literature, art and music. Since 2003, Calamari Archive has quietly published 100+ book and album objects (including Sleepingfish magazine and the acquired 3rd bed imprint). Some of these have been first books by emerging writers such as Brandon Hobson, Miranda Mellis, Robert Lopez, Blake Butler and Chiara Barzini, while others have been resurrected reprints of out-of-print cult classics by established authors such as David Ohle, Garielle Lutz, Stanley Crawford and Scott Bradfield. Calamari Archive shrugs off genre, authorship, marketability and other conventions of traditional publishing, suffice to say we revere language and the book/album format as a canvas on which to make art.

In 2014 the entity formerly known as Calamari Press released the pushy-sounding press from its name to become Calamari Archive, Ink. The word archive more accurately reflects our organizational ambitions, incorporated as such as a collective, as a curated collection. This name change represents a philosophical schism, in response to a shifting publishing landscape that aggressively markets books and albums as consumer commodities, diminishing their integrity as art objects. Calamari Archive eschews copyrighted works and encourages posthumanistic and anon/pseudonymous works, with an emphasis more on the art itself than on the humans making it. This post provides a nuts and bolts account of how we operate.

Submissions are currently being considered for a 20th anniversary print issue of Sleepingfish—texts, art (grayscale), etc. that further the Calamari/Sleepingfish aesthetick. Email submissions (if larger than ~10mb please send link to where it's posted). Deadline is November 1.

Proposals for full-length books or albums are also being considered. If you're not familiar with Calamari Archive (+ we're not familiar with you) then please familiarize yourself with Sleepingfish (lots of content freely available online) and try there first. Authors and artists from diverse and marginalized backgrounds are strongly encouraged to send work. Email to: submission.

 

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