Publishing
SSWA Press publishes new and established voices side-by-side through anthologies on a variety of subjects, special projects, and more. Submission calls for future publication can be found on our Submittable Account.
The Whole Alphabet
In this intensely compelling nonfiction anthology, The Whole Alphabet: The Light And The Dark, a collection of brave and creative authors from across America delve into their most personal experiences to deliver unexpected and original shots to the heart. These boldly-rendered stories and poems are reflections of the authors’ true, lived experiences and are told from the perspectives of teens to octogenarians. Their creations pop from the pages, chronicling the range of their realities, from the raw in the muck to the sparkle in the parades.
Discover your queer neighbors, friends, coworkers, and community — however they identify through the alphabet and acronyms — in this compilation of riveting works, with a refreshing honesty usually reserved for the closest of confidants. No matter what labels we apply to ourselves, or what labels get applied to us, we all grow, we all learn, we all love (and if all goes well, we learn to love ourselves). So dive into this book, explore and enjoy authentic, well crafted pieces, and love.
So Say We All Press is the publishing branch of So Say We All, a 501(c)(3) literary and performing arts nonprofit based in San Diego, CA. So Say We All’s mission is to create opportunities for individuals to tell their stories, and tell them better, through three core priorities: publishing, performance, and education.
Incoming
Incoming is a series of publications (and live storytelling performances, and radio / podcast programming) that provides a forum for veterans, veteran families, and foreign nationals who’ve worked with the US military to tell their own stories in their own words. We solicit non-fiction and poetry nationally, while drawing heavily upon work from our own Veteran Writers Division. Every book you buy helps So Say We All provide veteran writer workshops, masterclasses, additional episodes of the Incoming public radio program, and more books. Thank you for helping us serve those who’ve served!
Incoming: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen
2019
The second volume in the Incoming series, “Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen,” features the true stories of veterans and military family members told in their own words, straight from their own mouths, about what comes from the boredom, loneliness, and need for escapism that pervades military life. Uniquely hilarious, poignant, and bizarre, this collection opens a window into the unexplored side of military culture when things start getting weird.
Incoming: Veteran Writers on Returning Home
2016
As the inspiration behind the radio series of the same name, this beautiful paperback anthology contains true stories from veteran and active duty writers across the US and its bases abroad, told in their own words, straight from their own mouths, on the topic of returning from deployment and transitioning back into civilian life. At times poignant and darkly humorous, the wit and insights of these voices are an important and well-wrought addition to a conversation we all need to be having. Your purchase of the book not only helps So Say We All continue to produce the radio program, it helps the contributing writers spread their work, and if you gift it for a veteran or a family member of a veteran you know, we hope it will speak to them as well.
Black Candies: The Journal of Literary Horror
Black Candies is SSWA’s journal of literary horror with a commitment to diverse voices. Black Candies is a place where “genre” is not a dirty word. It’s a place where respectable and serious writers can indulge their darkest and weirdest tendencies. It’s a platform for authors to create intelligent terror. Black Candies: A Journal of Literary Horror wants to unsettle you. We have several anthologies available:
Black Candies: See Through
2013
For this issue, 17 writers offer their own disturbing interpretations of the theme “See Through.” With more than half of the stories written by women, Black Candies aims to correct the trajectory of the male-dominated literary journals, as well as provide a home for notoriously underrepresented women horror writers.
Black Candies: Surveillance
2016
We’re never alone. Paranoia has replaced privacy. Secrets are the new currency. The strangers who watched from the street now watch from within. For our third issue of Black Candies, we found 11 smart, terrifying stories that explore the theme of “Surveillance” in explicit, implicit and abstract ways. These stories not only touch on the contradiction of the securities of our modern era, but unearth the deeper terror, paranoia, and anxiety that results.
Black Candies: Gross and Unlikeable
2017
Here at Black Candies, we’re always striving to create a better platform for women writers, who are often underrepresented in horror, genre, and speculative outlets. For this special issue of Black Candies, guest-edited by Natanya Ann Pulley, we exclusively feature work from those who identify as women.
Black Candies: The Eighties
2018
We’re living in a loop. Things keep repeating. The eighties almost killed us, and now they’re back to finish the job. Black Candies: The Eighties features 23 stories of analog horror that slice through the late-night whir of VHS, the big hair, and neon parties to prove that nostalgia is the real murderer behind the mask.
The Radvocate
What started in 2011 as a poorly-xeroxed cry for artistic solidarity in the form of a zine, morphed into an open-sourced platform of expression. A like-minded community of artists was formed: poets, authors, artists, photographers, columnists, videographers, journalists, and many more joined together from all over the country to make the eclectic issues a reality. In those flimsy paper copies, the soul of The Radvocate was forged, an irreverent but proud spirit which carries on to this day. The Radvocate is a new kind of literary arts journal from the San Diego-based literary arts non-profit So Say We All. Get Rad.
The Far East Project
The Far East Project is an ongoing attempt to create a people’s history of San Diego’s East County through the prism of its residents’ perspectives, curated through solicited stories, poems, photography, journalism and more. In addition to this online archive, The Far East publishes print and digital books featuring exclusive content, periodically produces showcases throughout the Southern California region, and leads initiatives to strengthen the community and its economy through art.
Its first collection of stories by and about East County, “Everything Just As It Is,” was published in 2012 as a people’s history of the region told through non-fiction and poetry. A paperback version was released for San Diego City College in its literature and creative writing classes, where participants in the Project are invited to speak and read each semester. — Currently sold out.
Last Night on Earth
We asked 22 authors to write from the perspective of their lives – as they lived them at the moment in reality – if they had woken up one morning to learn the world would end in 24 hours, answering the implicit question, “what would you do?”
Strip away the illusion of having a future and inject an overwhelming need to act, and what you get is “Last Night On Earth,” a single novel written by different authors from all over the world, chronicling the final day of their lives in the face of a coming apocalypse. Evocative of “War of the Worlds” (without the aliens) meets “Our Town” if it were all produced by Ira Glass, “Last Night On Earth” is a lyrical experiment at discovering meaning in mortality. — Currently sold out.
A collection of true stories from writers and interviewees from our podcast None of the Above, plus many more writers. This book features amazing true stories from people who had to overcome difficulties many of us couldn’t even imagine. Get inspired, laugh, and cry as you read and accompany these authors on their journeys. —.
FORTHCOMING.