Kintsugi Books
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold or other precious metals; it does not seek to conceal the fractures, but rather highlight the beauty of their mending.
Kintsugi Books, likewise, seeks to find artistic voices in the liminal, in the gaps, in the disparate, and in the broken. Kintsugi Books seeks to explore all points along the spectrum of rupture to repair. As such, hybrid forms, mixed media works, and collaborative pieces are given priority, though any artist exploring these areas is invited to submit. Additionally, Kintsugi Books seeks to offer voice to those who are marginalized, particularly queer folk and people of color who dwell in these "golden" gaps.
Books At-Cost is the first series from Kintsugi Books, but there are plans for others: Rejection Letter Books, intended for authors who have experiences multiple rejections for the same piece; Graduate Publishing Assistant, intended for MFA/MA students seeking to publish artistic works grounded in academic research; Dark Polari Books, intended for artists exploring the limits and problems of language and identity politics; and PanLexIcon, intended for imprisoned writers.
Books
We Make Our Own Light
Edited by Dudgrick Bevins
An anthology of Queer Southern artists tackling the theme of place and sexuality, how they shape and influence one another, the role of the metropolitan and the rural in Queer identity, and what it means to leave an return.
While still in progress, We Make Our Own Light is anticipated to be over 200 pages long and feature at least forty artists and writers.
The Archives
By KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ
The Archives is an experimental, hybrid, poetic narrative following the development and dissolution of a long-distance, polyamorous, kink relationship during the lockdown. Navigating the distance between the East Coast and the Midwest, a deadly virus, and the complications of open marriages, technology becomes the only aid for a queer couple seeking comfort and love in terrifying time – not just for themselves, but for their families and the world. To help illustrate the complexities of the relationship in The Archives, photos and QR codes (that link to digital audio clips) are woven into the text to lift the story off the page. Complex and contemplative, The Archives is an astounding in both subject and methodology.
Light Travels Further than Sound
By Allen Lanning and Dudgrick Bevins
A conversation in poetry not unlike the works found in the L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E school, Lanning and Bevins explore their relationship with each other, with time, and with words. Each poet has a distinct voice and each is willing to take different risks, including making and avoiding making art out of the other poet's life. An ongoing negotiation of boundaries unfolds until, like the poets did as teenagers, they fall asleep exhausted from talking only to dream about those same ideas.
Pointless Thorns {Ocean Poems}
By Nate DeWaele and Dudgrick Bevins
Pointless Thorns (Ocean Poems) is a work of conceptual poetry in diptychs composed as a work against itself. As Bevins wrote the poems he actively resisted narrative and theme, working as Pollock did with his paintings: each line is a drizzle and when an image appears the poet turns his back on it. In an aleatoric act, Bevins used an online title generator both to conclude and inspire each work. DeWaele then distilled the frantic energy of each poem into an image teetering somewhere between Op Art and Miami Deco with surrealist sensibilities. The result is thirty hinged tablets before you.
Kintsugi Artists
Get more information on each of our artists!
Nate DeWaele
Dudgrick Bevins
Nate DeWaele is an American multimedia designer who was born and raised around Boulder, CO. He started painting at an early age and continued painting into his early 30s till he moved to Florida following the death of his mother-in-law. He worked as a salesman serving over 300 accounts throughout Florida and moved on after a year to sell to accounts across the eastern half of the US. Because he was out of town so much, he stopped painting and put more of his energy into career advancement; to this day, he regrets not taking pictures during his travels, since then is mad avid.
Creatively, he keeps an eye out for photographic digital assets that he’ll play with, chew on and experiment with. He likes to work with chaotic visuals, and distill them to minimalist designs that allow the chaos to make its point.
Dudgrick Bevins is a queer interdisciplinary artist from Deliverance country in the north Georgia mountains. He lives and creates in New York city. He teaches literature and creative writing to high school students in Harlem, where he is also an MFA students.
His writing and photography have been published in two books by bd-studios nyc, Georgia Dusk (with luke kurtis) and Route 4 Box 358. His chapbook, My Feelings are Imaginary People Who Fight for My Attention, is published by Poet's Haven Author Series. His poetry has appeared in various online and print journals.
For a complete list of publications and to stay up-to-date with Bevin's work, go to www.dudgrickbevins.com.
Allen Lanning
KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ
Allen Lanning emerged from the darkness fully formed. Raised on spring water, sassafras, and nightshade, he studied literature on unmade beds, borrowed couches, and in between probation hearings. He has at least one child, and in another life kept tarantulas as emotional support animals.
Currently he is looking into the void — Grand Canyon ghosts at his heels. He wants to understand “how” people speak.
KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ is the author of woman, depose (FlowerSong Press 2021). She is originally from northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) from City College of New York (CCNY) where she is currently an English Department Adjunct Assistant Professor. KRISTINE has been a Pushcart Prize nominee, finalist in the Glass Poetry Chapbook Contest, Flash Fiction Contest finalist for F(r)iction, and recipient of a CCNY English Department Teacher-Writer Award, Rifkind Fellowship, and former Poets Afloat resident.
Submit Your Work
Free Open Readings
We are currently reading for Books-At-Cost. This is a NO PROFIT book publishing endeavor for artists who want their work made available to the world. In the "Description of Work" field either copy and paste your work or email a copy to KintsugiBooks@gmail.com.
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