Blue Square Press and Mud Luscious join forces!
Last month, I heard that Blue Square Press had signed on as an imprint of Mud Luscious Press. I was all over that in a matter of minutes. Having worked with Blue Square Press (BSP) in the past, I was familiar with their work and their history. Earlier in the year I had reviewed Ben's novel , and Blue Square Press's first release, Flowing in the Gossamer Fold. And a few weeks back I read their second novel, Jack Boettcher's Theater State (I owe them a review on this!!). Ben is a peach, and has been extremely supportive of TNBBC, even agreeing to write an article for my On "Being Indie" series. So, naturally I was curious to know why Ben Spivey (author and co-founder of BSP) made the decision to merge.
When interviewed for this mini-ini, here is what he had to say on the matter:
Why the merge with Mud Luscious Press?
I think of when Square Co. Merged with Enix in the early
two-thousands. Square and Enix were independently publishing some of the best
rpgs around. I was a fan of both companies growing up. I loved Square for games
like Final Fantasy 4, 6, Tactics, 7 and 9, Xenogears and Chrono Trigger. I
similarly loved Enix for Ogre Battle (SNES), Dragon Warrior 7 and Star Ocean the
second story. I'm not exactly sure why they merged but I assume it was because
they were reaching a similar audience and could accomplish more working
together. We merged because we felt like that. We're on a similar path. We have
different aesthetics but we compliment each other. Essentially we were running
different paths to the same goal, but now we have a partnership with a direct
red-phone-line to close friends who we'll oar through the seas and the years
with.
What does the merge mean for Blue Square
Press?
MLP has a large readership base and we benefit from the
new eyes in our direction. We're working on a lot of new things with the support
of J.A. Tyler and Andrew Borgstrom such as ebooks, different distribution
methods, and new ways of acquiring interviews and reviews for our authors and
their books. It's sort of like when Richter Belmont finally meets Maria Renard
in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Things get a little easier, you can take a step
back and focus on moving forward in bigger ways.
What can Blue Square Press readers expect from you in
the future?
We're ecstatic about our upcoming titles. Sean
Kilpatrick's fuckscapes will be
out this December. Its been an amazing experience working on that book. It's a
beautiful and brutal collection of poetry. And so far for next year we have two
books lined up: M. Kitchell's Slow Slidings, which I view as a innovative horror
text and Darby Larson's Irritant which is a 700 page tome unlike anything I've
seen before. We're working on and looking into things like publishing games that
also function as literature. Things are only going to get more interesting as we
go. We'll continue down this path.
**Check back tomorrow to see the mini-ini I conducted with their new partners-in-literature, Mud Luscious Press!**
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