Since 2001, Omnidawn has produced chapbooks and full-length collections in the genres of poetry, poetics, translation, and fabulist fiction. All of our books are designed to align with each writer’s vision. Ken Keegan and Rusty Morrison began Omnidawn because of their conviction that small, independent presses are extremely important in that they disseminate fresh, lively, culturally pertinent and provocative literature. We believe that a society needs many small presses so that widely diverse ideas and points-of-view are easily accessible to everyone. We took the name omnidawn —- “omni” (in all ways and places) and “dawn” (the first appearance of natural light) —- because we want our books to offer myriad opportunities to awaken to differences that engage the mind and inspire both courage and compassion. In this way, we hope to participate in the constantly evolving conversation that is literature.
Omnidawn books have been reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly, Boston Review, Chicago Review, American Book Review, The Village Voice, The Midwest Book Review, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Pleiades, Rain Taxi, HOW2, The New Review of Literature, Small Press Traffic Newsletter, Electronic Poetry Review, Interim, and ARC (Canada’s National Poetry Magazine). In 2008, Donald Revell’s translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, published by Omnidawn, won the 18th annual PEN USA Award in Translation. In 2005, Martha Ronk’s In a landscape of having to repeat, published by Omnidawn, won the 15th Annual PEN USA Award in Poetry. In 2003, Lyn Hejinian’s The Fatalist, published by Omnidawn, was chosen as one of The Village Voice’s “Our 25 Favorite Books of 2003” (December 10-16, 2003, page 51) and was also mentioned in Publishers Weekly’s “Best Books of 2003” section (November 17, 2003, page 36).
Rusty Morrison’s book After Urgency won Tupelo’s Dorset Prize (forthcoming 2012). The Book of the Given is forthcoming from Noemi Press. the true keeps calm biding its story won Academy of American Poet’s James Laughlin Award, Northern California Book Award, Ahsahta’s Sawtooth Prize, and the DiCastagnola Award from Poetry Society of America. Whethering won the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in periodicals including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Gulf Coast, Lana Turner, New American Writing, Pleiades, Poets.org Poem-A-Day, Verse, VOLT. Her essays and/or long reviews have been, or will be published in Colorado Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Evening Will Come, Poetry Flash, Verse, and in the anthologies One Word: Contemporary Writers on the Words They Love or Loathe (Sarabande 2010) and Beauty is a Verb (Cinco Punto 2011). She received a BA in English from Mills College in Oakland, California, an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California, and an MA in Education from California State University, San Francisco. She has taught in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco, and was Poet in Residence at Saint Mary’s College in 2009.
Ken Keegan has a background in theater, graphic design, desktop publishing, and the founding, management of, and consultation for, non-profit organizations.
Gillian Olivia Blythe Hamel lives in Oakland, California, and holds an MFA in Poetry from St. Mary’s College. Her work has appeared in the chapbook series Calaveras and in phrases/fragments: an anthology from Sustenance Press. She and Bryn Garrehy curate the Underpass Reading Series in Oakland. Gillian also co-publishes speCt!, a chapbook series and book arts imprint, with Peter Burghardt and Robert Andrew Perez. She is a poetry editor for Omnidawn Publishing and managing editor of OmniVerse.
Sara Mumolo is the Program Manager for the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of CA. She co-edits CALAVERAS, an irregular chapbook series, with Alisa Heinzman. Her first collection of poems, Mortar, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in fall 2013 and her chapbook March was published by Cannibal Books in 2011. She curated the Studio One Reading Series from 2008-2012. Some poems appear in Lana Turner, Action Yes, 1913: a journal of forms, Volta, and The Offending Adam, among others.
Cassandra Smith is a poetry editor and book designer for Omnidawn Publishing. She is a visual artist and poet; she makes things and writes things and often these seem like objects more than art. Her work has appeared in various journals and galleries, but it is hard to remember because there is always something new. She has degrees. She has fire. She has been with Omnidawn since the spring of 2007.
Peter Burghardt lives in Oakland, California and received his MFA in Poetry from St. Mary’s College. Currently, he works as a poetry editor for Omnidawn Publishing and co-publishes the chapbook series and book arts imprint speCt! with Gillian Hamel and Robert Perez. His work has most recently appeared in BlazeVox.
Juliana Paslay received her MFA in Writing at California College of the Arts. She has served as the Managing Editor for Eleven Eleven Journal. She received her BA in English from Earlham College and originally hails from Nashville, TN. She hates writing bios but loves writing stories.
Turner Capehart Canty grew up in Montana where he earned a BA at the University of Montana in English. He now lives in Oakland with his girlfriend, and hopes to soon relocate their cats to their apartment. Canty is also an amateur cartographer, and tasseographer, and in his spare time writes poetry and sometimes fiction (!). He detests thievery and blackmail. In his own words “Life for me begins when the lie detector is allowed to be turned off.” Canty hopes that such a life would be brief, but filled with visual and spiritual extravagance. You can find some of his poems in Fence magazine and the Oval magazine.
Liza Flum is a Bay Area native. She holds a BA in English from Harvard, and she has been a fellowship recipient at the Summer Literary Seminars and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. Writing appears in The Harvard Advocate, The Harvard Book Review, The Hanging Loose Review, and elsewhere. It is a delight to be back in the Bay Area and working with Omnidawn!
Sharon Osmond, who lives in Oakland, received her MFA in poetry from Saint Mary’s College. She is a sometime poet and full-time obsessive gardener who provides birds with food and forage. She has adopted two feral cats and feeds them so well that they ignore the birds. She curates and hosts the summer series, “Poets Read in the Garden.”
Gail Aronson is a Midwest transplant currently based in Oakland, California. She received her BA from Knox College and now lives in an apartment by a lake with two roommates and two cats. During the week she can be found working with special needs students, and in her free-time she writes stories, poems, and most often some combination of the two. Her work can be found in MARY: A Journal of New Writing.
RJ Ingram is an Ohio native studying poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California after having graduating from Bowling Green State University with a BFA in creative writing and Russian. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Ilk Journal, Alice Blue Review, and Mixed Fruit, among others. When not writing sonnets, RJ can be found making french toast for friends, tweeting pictures of his three legged cat Brenda (@RJEquality), or calling his members of Congress.
Contact Information:
Telephone: (510) 237-5472
Fax: (510) 232-8525
Omnidawn Publishing
1632 Elm Avenue
Richmond, California 94805-1614
For inquiries regarding OmniVerse, contact the OmniVerse managing editor: ghamel@omnidawn.com
Sales: sales@omnidawn.com
Customer Service: service@omnidawn.com
Submissions: submissions@omnidawn.com
(We do NOT accept unsolicited electronic submissions. Please only use this address for questions or concerns regarding contest submissions.)
Letters to individual authors: authors@omnidawn.com
(Messages will be forwarded to an author you specify.)
All other inquiries: manager@omnidawn.com
For distribution to bookstores, please contact:
Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
Telephone: (312) 337-0747
Trade or publisher inquiries: (800) 888-4741 Orders
Fax: (312) 337-5985
Independent Publishers Group
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610