Happy New Year! We’re now a few days into 2024, and 2023 gave me so much to be grateful for. Most specially, it gave me And Then Publishing, and it gave me you!

Thank you to all who started this journey alongside me. Thank you to all who followed us on Instagram; to all who celebrated the release of our first chapbook, Awaken, with us and to all who purchased a copy; to those who kept up with us on YouTube and followed our WordPress blog; and anyone who jumped on board at any point in the adventure. I’m so excited to accompany you into 2024!

2023 offered me so many blessings in other aspects of my life as well. In 2023, I successfully defended my Masters thesis and graduated from Miami University with my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. It was difficult to move on from a program I was so deeply involved with and cared so much about. I’m thankful that it prepared me well for my next step in my career—I started in the fall as an Associate Lecturer in the Blugold Seminar at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire teaching rhetoric, which I really enjoy!
(Shout out to my UWEC colleagues who have asked me about &TP, I appreciate you!)

Like many others, I am always excited about the fresh perspective and hope for the shiny new year, yet daunted by the weight of possibility and expectations. And Then Publishing is still not quite a year old (we launched in late April) and I’m struggling with the high expectations I have for myself and the micropress. Social media algorithms, small business gurus, and bigger presses with employees and investors make me feel like &TP had to be constantly relevant, constantly producing. I am so proud of everything we’ve done so far, and I want to make more books and other products for you all to enjoy and share—and I promise we will!—but my life was full steam ahead this year, and all of the pressure and responsibilities and dreams I had for &TP built up. My ideas stayed as seeds and couldn’t get enough water and sunlight to grow into something I felt comfortable sharing.

Struggling with my own hesitations as a result of being an inexperienced new small business owner and bookmaker squashed a lot of my excitement to create. To be honest, I wrote several drafts of a post sharing with you all that I had gotten a teaching position and that the press would be moving will me from Leelanau County to Wisconsin never saw the light of day. How does it affect my business that my “Leelanau County-based micropress” was no longer physically located in Michigan? Does my branding change, does it alter my audience? I had so many ideas for zines and smaller publications, but what if people aren’t interested? I didn’t have the answers.

I realize now, maybe because of the light shining off of the bright new year or simply because of the passage of time, that there’s no way to find those answers unless I charge head on and try stuff out. There’s no way to know how my audience feels unless I share things with them, with you. There’s no way to grow unless I stop hesitating; I have to keep creating, keep making decisions. Not everything I do will be right or perfect, which is difficult for me to realize, but that’s reality. And I’d much rather live alongside And Then Publishing in reality than keep us stifled in my dreams.

So here’s to the new year and for auld lang syne! I hope you’ll have the courage to make mistakes and the permission to create. Thank you for being here with us now, before, and in the future.

with love,
&tp