309 Books: a New Teen Focused, Teen Run Imprint
At the end of Summer ‘23, we began to work with a group of 11 California-based teen poets calling themselves The 309 Collective. Not only are they each individually incredibly talented, but collectively amazing.
The 309 Collective was formed by a group of young writers that Chiwan worked with at CSSSA (California State Summer School for the Arts) in July 2023, with the goal of Writ Large being there for them as mentor, advisor and partner. We wanted them to learn to support each other, understand they have autonomy even within the publishing industry and help them with each step as they established themselves (individually and as a collective) in the literary world.
It has been an amazing experience so far in this short amount of time.
Late last year, they started a monthly open mic for teen writers and musicians called Next Line Open Mic that’s been held in Highland Park.
They’ve been accepting submissions for the premiere issue of their online literary magazine, ETERNAL.
More recently, The 309 Collective was invited to take part in the first annual NELA Poetry Festival.
And they have been working with another group of teen poets, The Imperfect Poets from Riverside, CA, to establish an annual teen literary festival. It is scheduled to happen in late July of this year! (If you have access to a venue that can hold performances and workshops for a couple of hundred teens on a Saturday, hit us up.)
Add to this the newest of their projects: 309 BOOKS.
Yup. We are launching a new imprint that the young writers will be running, from submissions, editing, designing, promoting, selling. The entire creative and business stack.
They’ll be publishing their own books. They’ll be accepting submissions from other teen authors from around the country (world?). We’ll be there as they learn to edit manuscripts. They’ll learn how to work with authors ethically and respectfully. They’ll learn to hustle for each other. They’ll learn to shield each other.
In a way, it’s like a combination MFA/MBA in publishing at the school of Writ Large. Without the student debt. Or all that other MFA nonsense.
We (both WLP and 309) will be writing down all our process and experience with this so that we can share it with other young people who want to do this.
From forming the collective to the open mic to this publishing company, we have wanted to make these things can be easily recreated by others.
For us, this is the best way to create a better publishing and literary landscape.
MOVE OVER
by Bella Giammalvo
The first of many zines and books to come from 309 Books.
The first title from 309 Books is Move Over, a zine by 309 member Bella Giammalvo. Bella, a high school senior, is also the host of Next Line open mic.
She’ll have copies for sale at the NELA Poetry Festival.
But we have 50 copies for sale on the 309 storefront on the Writ Large website. $5. Free shipping. Order yours now.
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For transparency, all money earned (after production cost) from sales of 309 books and merch will be held for The 309 Collective in the WLP bank account. It will be there to be used for their needs—individual payouts or funding a new project or donating to whichever cause they want to give to.
At some point, we hope to hand over the keys of 309 Books completely to them so they can run it as their independent business, as their own publishing company.
So please join us in celebrating this exciting day. Welcome to the world, 309 Books!
Other Large News:
We will soon be launching a Patreon, so that in addition to raising funds for our building and our other projects (such as the one above), we will be able to interact with our patrons in a more personal way on an ongoing basis.
Another part of our fundraising campaign will be a silent art auction. Coming this summer with some incredible work from favorite artists.
Our newest titles! Grasping at This World Just to Believe by Tanzila Ahmed (official release 4/1) and be/trouble, 2nd edition by bridgette bianca (4/15).
