Introducing Shiraki Press

While using my sabbatical to explore a pivot into writing as a profession, I decided self publishing made the most sense for me, and that necessitated a deep dive into what it would take to set up a functional publishing pipeline. My wife, Brianne, a producer by nature, saw an opportunity to support this venture and tap into some of her own interests by helping manage that pipeline, especially in an editorial capacity. As we talked through that, we realized we could leverage this effort to help bring other authors’ work to market as well.

Thus, Shiraki Press was born. We are a very new, very indie press, targeting hopepunk novellas for adults. And we’re currently accepting submissions!

Brianne is the managing editor: she’ll be handling acquisitions, development, editing, market positioning, etc. I’m the principal designer: I’ll be focused on cover designs and artist commissions, print and ebook layout and typography, marketing assets, the website, etc.

What is hopepunk?

The term “hopepunk” was coined by Alexandra Rowland in 2017 in a Tumblr post:

The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.

It was later expounded upon in her essay One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives, which she describes as “the closest thing that I’ve written to a hopepunk manifesto”:

Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.

Here’s a pastiche of ideas that feed our perspective on hopepunk:

• Standing against the dark and lighting the way to worlds that could be
• Seeking hope, community, and joy amidst the chaos
• Love is more durable than fear; even small acts of kindness are revolutionary
• Hopepunk can exist in any genre, but its roots are in speculative fiction, especially fantasy/sci-fi

Hopepunk is where optimism and imagination meet action. The “hope” is cozy, comforting, and inspiring, but it’s the “punk” that seeks to make that real, and to defend it at any cost.

Our mission

Our current mission statement for Shiraki Press is:

• To seek hope, community, and joy amidst the chaos
• To build a community of authors and readers who are to driven to imagine—and act toward—a better future
• To foster and support our authors as they establish and grow their careers
• To present their books as attention-deserving and praise-worthy products in a challenging marketplace
• To connect their stories with the right audience, not just the biggest audience

It’s very important to us to not only publish hopepunk stories, but to also conduct business in a hopepunk way. There is, of course, a natural tension between these concepts: a business, by necessity, is an agent of capitalism, while hopepunk is very often anti-capitalist. Navigating this tension is central to our mission. (It’s also an inevitable fact of the reality we currently live in; revolutionary acts do not take place in the world they imagine, but in the world they wish to change.)

About AI

AI feels like an unavoidable topic in the publishing industry. For Shiraki Press we’ve adopted a no-AI stance:

• We do not accept AI-generated submissions
• We do not commission or use AI-generated cover art or content
• We do not use generative AI tools in our publishing pipeline

The loudest argument in the space is currently about copyright and plagiarism. That’s obviously important to me as an author and us as a publisher, but there’s an even more critical issue motivating our stance.

Today’s generative AI tools require unbelievable amounts of energy to run and produce terrifying amounts of climate-damaging emissions at a time when the world is careening towards ecological collapse.

Under these circumstances, using these tools is not only unethical, but outright irresponsible.

What about my own writing?

I’m definitely still writing! Shiraki Press is an extension of that, not a replacement.

I’m currently working on a publication path for Briarcliff, and I’m still making progress on that Crossroads draft that goes out for workshop critique later this month.

There’s also an open call for submissions for the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume XII this month, which I’m considering submitting to. A month or so ago, Brianne made a half-joking suggestion that I try writing a sonnet, to which I enthusiastically replied, “A horror sonnet!” And then this call showed up. Coincidence?

As far as Shiraki Press is concerned, the idea is certainly for some of my own writing to be published through the press as well, but there are two considerations there:

1. Not everything I write is going to be appropriate for, or published through, Shiraki Press. I’m writing Crossroads as an example of our target hopepunk vibe, but my horror work—like Briarcliff and The Deep—very likely won’t land here.
2. My work doesn’t get special treatment or otherwise pre-empt that of other authors. When it comes to publishing, I need to meet the same standards and go through the same process as everyone else.

Our outlook

Everybody says books don’t make any money, and small presses make even less. But, like most small presses, we’re not in this to maximize returns; if that was our goal, we’d be in finance, not the arts.

We would be very unhappy in finance.

We’re in this to bring stories into the world, to build a community of authors and readers around our shared values, and to make some kind of positive impact on this hellscape we all find ourselves trapped in.

That’s the vision; that’s the “hope”. Now comes the “punk”, where we actually do it.

Submissions are open now.