Hello, and welcome to Overgrowth Press. Here, we publish fiction, poetry, and photography.

We are a fully independent, self- and patron-funded online and print publication, unassociated with any existing publications, universities, or institutions.

Our issues and features are heavily curated in accordance with a key belief: Inspired art can elicit a complex emotional or psychological reaction from its consumer which direct communication cannot. Content is ineffectual without form, and an artist with mastery of their artistic form can make provocative, interesting, meaningful art despite the presence of an obvious message or stated purpose.

“Mastery” is a powerful word, and represents a level of skill and ability that many believe to be impossibly rare, yet exhibitions of mastery are stocked in surplus, tucked away in the notebooks, negatives, and computer files of many unknown and under-known artists. Unfortunately, too few of these works ever reach an audience, as their complexity, subtlety, and unconventionality often deem them “ambiguous,” and thereby “not easily gulped as entertainment,” and thereby “non-lucrative,” and thereby undeserving of publication.

We believe that, regardless of its capacity for monetization or its surface-level palatability, inspired art deserves recognition. That is exactly what we seek to provide: a handsome gallery collecting and lovingly presenting the fictions, poems, and photographs of artists striving for mastery.

In doing so, we face an unfavorable reality: “Disney’s Marvel’s The Avengers: The Next Generation – The Dark Squad” will outsell whatever film David Cronenberg directs next, more people will read Rupi Kaur than Terrance Hayes, and E.L. James will undoubtedly sign more books than Garielle Lutz has ever been asked to. There are two approaches to dealing with these harsh truths. The first and most obvious is to engage in self-torturous lamentation—to complain endlessly to your spouse as you bemoan the lack of color and contrast in Netflix’s latest hundred-million-dollar outing, to read Moby Dick aloud to your cat and ask, “Will our century’s Melville die undiscovered, his masterwork carelessly stored away in his granddaughter’s attic to be eaten by moths and mildew?” This approach is understandable, but not particularly productive or enjoyable.

The second approach, which we have chosen, is markedly more Confucianist. As a blade of grass bends in the wind, so too will we bend in the current media climate: momentarily fazed, perhaps, but left ultimately unmarked and unmoved by our environment. How can one maintain this position? Through a simple moral recalibration of what gives art “value.” The creation and appreciation of art, and the resultant enlightenment and enjoyment, are of far more value to any individual than our fickle and unholy dollar (so long as that individual is comfortably past a tier or two on Maslow’s hierarchy). As someone who fully expects to profit zero dollars from this platform, but is committed to maintaining it until either my body or the internet dies, I feel that I may speak on this with some authority.

All of this stated and formally documented, I am forced to acknowledge a second, less devastating, but still suboptimal truth: website maintenance and book printing do cost money. Despite this hiccup, Overgrowth is committed to providing both our audience and contributing artists a premium platform, online and in print.

Here is how our finances work:

On principle, we do not believe in charging submission fees, and do not believe any artist should ever be asked to pay a publication for a copy of their own work. As such, any artist who is published in a printed collection will receive a courtesy copy of that collection. Additionally, 50% of the profits from the sales of any printed work are divided evenly between all contributing artists.

All other funds received from our online store and Patreon go toward website maintenance, printing costs, and promotion of this platform. In the event that we are fortunate enough to receive a surplus of funds, those funds will be used to compensate our editors and readers for their time and labor spent on this project. There is a “Support Us” tab above, for anybody interested.

Last bit here, but an important bit!

You may note that unlike similar publications, Overgrowth does not have a masthead on our website. This is not because our team is hideous or unaccomplished. We launched our project with the expectation that it would be a small, local publication. To our surprise and great excitement, Overgrowth quickly gained a significant online following, and experienced far more web traffic than originally anticipated. We’ve been fortunate enough to receive submissions from as far west as California, and as far east as Istanbul. While we celebrate our good fortune, we have decided it best to maintain at least a paper-thin layer of anonymity. Effectively, this means not posting our full names and pictures directly on the internet.

For anyone who wishes to directly evaluate our editorial team’s character or acumen, look no further than the contents of the publication itself! It represents each of us more fully than any thumbnail or miniature biography.

And finally, thank you to everyone who has submitted to us, sponsored us, encouraged us, interacted with us on socials, and chatted us up at local events. There’s nothing more fun or fulfilling than engaging with what you love, especially alongside other people who love it too.

Sincerely and with gratitude,