About the Press

Sand Paper Press is an independent publishing venture based in Key West, Florida, in operation since 2003. With an abiding interest in poetry, the Press is also focused on short fiction, Latin American literature in translation, and essays.

Given the illustrious roll call of poets who have passed through Key West, it is only fitting that Sand Paper has gravitated toward poetry. 2010 saw the publication of Harry Mathews’ The New Tourism, the American avant-garde legend’s first collection of poems in 20 years (named a “Book of the Year” by the Times Literary Supplement). In 2011, the Press releases The Last Books of Héctor Viel Temperley, a bilingual edition of the late Argentine poet’s Crawl and Hospital Británico, translated into English (by poet Stuart Krimko) for the first time.

Future plans for Sand Paper include release of the 1945-46 “Key West Notebooks” of Charles Olson, illuminating a seminal but little-studied period of the influential poet’s life. Also forthcoming is an anthology of poems and other documents by contemporary Argentine writers Fernanda Laguna and Cecilia Pavón, co-founders of the Buenos Aires gallery and independent press Belleza y Felicidad. 2013 will feature a collection of essays by poet/art critic/editor Christopher Stackhouse.

Key West has long been a hub of literary endeavor, attracting authors as diverse as Elizabeth Bishop, Judy Blume, Annie Dillard, James Merrill, Shel Silverstein, Charlie Smith, and Wallace Stevens. The city’s unique subtropical environment veers from the disarmingly beautiful to the unforgivably tacky; and engenders a combination of concentrated revery and embodied, even hedonistic, pleasure that sets Key West apart from other literary haunts. This geographical site, distinguished by its distance and difference from the metropolises that dominate the landscape, is treated by the Press as a crucial local asset, a specific point of reference in the physical world, and a philosophical foundation.

Books are designed by David Janik and distributed by Small Press Distribution.