Publishing-in-Transit: Rescue Press

Caryl Pagel is the author of three books of poetry — Free Clean Fill Dirt (University of Akron Press, 2022), Twice Told, and Experiments I Should Like Tried At My Own Death — as well as the essay collection Out of Nowhere Into Nothing (FC2, 2020). She is a publisher and editor at Rescue Press and the director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. She teaches poetry and nonfiction at Cleveland State University and in the NEOMFA program.

Daniel Khalastchi is an Iraqi Jewish American. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he is the author of three books of poetry — Manoleria (Tupelo Press), Tradition (McSweeney’s), and American Parables (University of Wisconsin Press, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry). He is the cofounder and managing editor of Rescue Press, and he lives in Iowa City where he directs the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Writing. His fourth book, The Story of Your Obstinate Survival, is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press in spring 2024.

Sara Deniz Akant is a poet, educator, and performer. She is the author of three books – most recently, Hyperphantasia (Rescue Press 2022), which was a New York Times book of the year, a Boston Globe book of the year, and a Massachusetts Poetry Must Read – as well as Babette (Rescue Press 2015, winner of the Black Box Poetry Prize), and Parades (Omnidawn 2014, winner of the Chapbook Prize). She teaches poetry as a Professor of the Practice at Tufts University, and co-curates the Kan Yama Kan reading series in Brooklyn.

Sevy Perez is a multidisciplinary designer and the Creative Director of Rescue Press. Over the last ten years, Sevy’s produced over 100 books, journals, and magazines, with his most recent work for The Hopkins Review winning CELJ’s 2022 Phoenix Award. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he guest lectures.

Cole Swensen is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a collection of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A book of hybrid poem-essays, Art in Time, was published by Nightboat in 2021. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Award and has been awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, and the National Poetry Series. She has also translated over twenty volumes of poetry, prose, and art criticism from French and won the 2004 PEN USA Award in Literary Translation.