Ugly Duckling Presse is an American nonprofit art and publishing collective based in Brooklyn, New York City. It publishes poetry, translations, experimental prose, performance texts, and books by artists.
History
Through the efforts of the volunteer editorial collective, UDP has published more than 500 titles to date from the late 1990s to the present.
A micro press and a non-profit, UDP innovated distribution methods not traditionally seen in publishing, such as subscriptions, and gathered its early audience with guerrilla marketing techniques.[1]
Publications
Ugly Duckling Presse (UDP) focuses on new, international, and "forgotten" writers, and specializes in projects which may be difficult to produce at other presses.[2] Formats produced include full-length books, chapbooks, and broadsides. The publications often contain handmade elements and letterpress covers.[3] The Presse states that these details "call attention to the labor and history of bookmaking".[2]
As of 2007, Ugly Duckling Presse also created "paperless" works in collaboration with various visual and performance artists. These may be performed, or produced through media such as digital video, CD, or tree bark.[3]
Premises and personnel
The Presse maintains a workshop and letterpress studio in the Gowanus neighborhood in the industrial complex of The Old American Can Factory on the Fourth Street Basin of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Its current editors, as of 2024, are Yelena Gluzman, Anna Moschovakis, Daniel Owen, Kyra Simone, Rebekah Smith, Lee Norton, Chuck Kuan, Silvina López Medin, Marine Cornuet, Serena Solin, and Milo Wippermann. [4]
Past editors are Matvei Yankelevich, Katherine Bogden, Michael Newton, Abraham Adams, Emmalea Russo, David Jou, Phil Cordelli, G. L. Ford, Ellie Ga, Ryan Haley, James Hoff, Marisol Limon Martinez, Filip Marinovich, Julien Poirier, Linda Trimbath, and Genya Turovskaya.[5]
