Committed to the pursuit of “bold and innovative craft and sentences,” Driftwood Press was established in 2020 by James McNulty and Jerrod Schwarz as an extension of the quarterly magazine they’d founded in 2013 in Tampa, Florida. The defining characteristic of Driftwood Press is its diversity: in stories, styles, topics, authors, and perspectives. Though McNulty admits that presses that “choose to narrow themselves to a specific niche are far easier to market,” he says he wants Driftwood to “resist being closed in a box of our own making.”
The press, which recently relocated to Austin, Texas, publishes around a half dozen novellas, poetry collections, and graphic novels each year and is open to submissions of novellas and poetry collections year-round, with a reading fee of $19.99. (There is no fee for graphic novels.) McNulty says the fees support Driftwood’s writers, who receive a 20 percent royalty; stipends for interns; and compensation for the press’s submission readers. Speaking to Driftwood’s affinity for novellas, managing novella editor Dan Leach says the short form delivers “the impact of a 400-page novel in one-fourth the page space,” adding, “They do more with less.” Literary graphic novels are also a distinctive specialty of the press. McNulty says graphic novels “can utilize the strengths of both written and visual mediums in a new way,” the combination of which leads to compelling artistry.
Driftwood Press books, which are notable for their sleek covers and creative designs, are developed in collaboration with authors, who provide inspiration to the editors. Recent titles include the poetry collection Girl at the End of the World (September 2024) by Erin Carlyle and the graphic novel Optometry (November 2023) by Xiang Yata. McNulty acknowledges the challenges that small presses regularly face—“it’s important to be open and honest about how the system is poised against small presses and how that makes it difficult for us all to remain operational”—but he pairs pragmatism with optimism. “Stay realistic,” he says. “Stay ethical. Stay passionate.”
