Wednesday Aug 27, 2025
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
A Celebration of Independent Publishing.
Join us for a night celebrating six authors from six independent presses, each offering a distinct voice shaped outside the confines of commercial publishing. The evening will feature short readings and a conversation on the possibilities and urgencies of independent literature, followed by a post-event reception.
Tickets are $5 to reserve and include one drink ticket for wine at the post-event reception.
About the Presses.
Astra Publishing House is dedicated to publishing books for children and adults that celebrate excellent storytelling, have a strong point of view, and introduce readers to new perspectives about their everyday lives as well as the lives of others.
Autofocus Books is a publisher of artful autobiographical writing in any genre or form: personal essay, memoir, autofiction, confessional poetry, journals & diaries, letters & e-mails, image-text, mashups of some of these things, and/or any other thing that makes art directly from the life of its writer. The press specializes in relatively brief books that fit, and occasionally stretch, the boundaries of our literary interests.
Joyland Editions is a nonprofit independent press founded in 2025. Joyland Editions publishes two novellas every year.
LittlePuss Press is a feminist press run by trans women.
Melville House is an independent publisher located in Brooklyn, New York.
Shabby Doll House is a publisher of art & literature founded by Lucy K Shaw.
About the Readers.
E.N. Couturier is an award-winning journalist and recreational farmer. Organic Matter is her first book. Her work has appeared in numerous Maine news outlets, on local radio and in publications including New World Writing, Peripheries, Eclectica Magazine, FRiGG, and jmww, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.
Kristen Felicetti is the author of the novel Log Off, published by Shabby Doll House. She edited the literary magazine The Bushwick Review for more than a decade and is now based in Rochester, New York.
Sasha Fletcher is the author of, most recently, the novel Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World. He lives in Brooklyn.
Cora Lewis is the author of the novella Information Age, published in July 2025 by Joyland Editions. Her short stories have appeared in The Yale Review, Joyland Magazine, Epiphany, The Cleveland Review of Books, Reed Magazine, The Cream City Review, and elsewhere. She currently works at the Associated Press and lives near Sunset Park.
Anton Solomonik is a writer and illustrator living in Brooklyn, NY, and the author of Realistic Fiction. He’s the co-host of the World Transsexual Forum, an open mic series for trans writers. His work has been described as “whimsical, yet heavy-handed.”
E.Y. Zhao is a writer and editor from St. Louis. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and BA in history from Harvard College. Her debut novel, Underspin, is forthcoming from Astra House on August 23, 2025 and Doubleday UK in March 2026.
About the Moderator.
Lena Crown is a writer, editor, and educator from Northern California. She currently produces, edits and hosts Awakeners, a Lit Hub Radio podcast about mentorship in the literary arts, and is an editor at Autofocus.
Michelle Lyn King is a writer and editor, and the founder of Joyland Editions.