Small Press Interviews: Meet Moonstruck Books

Tell us a little bit about your press and what inspired you to start it up.

Spend enough time in the publishing industry and you see its ugliness, inequities, and grift. Rather than become cynical, we decided to start our own indie press. We wanted to answer the question: how can publishing do better?

We decided it was important not to build our press on the backs of hardworking writers, as many others do. We also wanted to publish the highest quality fiction we could find, pay people fairly, and never compromise on our creative standards. All these things are possible, and we put our money where our mouths are. We pay professional rates for short fiction and offer a better-than-industry-standard percent of royalties. We choose authors who may have been passed over by traditional publishing and deserve a piece of the spotlight. Since opening our doors in 2023, we've published five excellent books and have five more in the pipeline. We're incredibly lucky to work with some of the best indie authors in horror and connect with such an incredible, supportive community.

What advice do you have for authors?

Work to dismantle oppressive structures of power. Each of the books we've published actively challenges patriarchal power; we aim to provoke, discomfit, and inspire readers looking for a crack in the edifice. Books are still respected in our culture. They're powerful objects in themselves. When you write, remember that you are making something that has the power to change someone's life and alter their thinking. The best advice is: remember your power. Exercise it. Be fearless in your writing. And if you don't know how to do that, read the authors who are doing it. 

How does Moonstruck Books uplift marginalized voices?

Moonstruck Books is a trans-owned press and we work with authors who fall outside the mainstream. There's a detailed list on our website of what that means to us. "Marginalized" has become shorthand for LBGTQIA+ or BIPOC and can feel like a marketing term. We define "marginalization" in many senses. Our anthology Nightmare Diaries was the embodiment of our values and included a wide range of writers: Black authors, people of color, self-educated writers, non-urban writers, blue collar and working class folks, and other folks who are decentered in traditional industry models. The best horror comes from the margins and the experience of living in the shadows. We publish work that explores those dark places, through the lens of people who walk that path daily. We're not interested in the overwhelmingly white, cishet, industry-stamped, algorithm-friendly, all-too-binary bestseller world. 

Find out more about Moonstruck Books here.