Wherever Garret Dennert is, something good is happening.

Don’t tell Garrett Dennert this, because I’m superstitious and selfish, and if he finds out, the magic might suddenly go away and I’m certain my life would fall apart. 

Garrett sat behind me in our creative nonfiction class in 2011 at Grand Valley State University, and then a year later we both found ourselves together again in Seattle, WA, and everything good that has happened in my life since then can be traced back to him. 

You see, Garrett was the one who told me about dating apps, and how it was a good way to meet people in a new city, especially in Seattle, because no one originally from Seattle is excited to meet anyone who isn’t also originally from Seattle (when a Seattleite meets another Seattleite it’s common to name the hospital where they were born, as in, “uhh yeah, from here, Northwest Hospital, 1987”). 

When Garrett says you should do something, you do it. I made a profile so I could meet other people not originally from Seattle who were also living in Seattle, but I ended up only going on one date. It was on June 17, 2013 and it was with Megan, and six years later our daughter would be born on that same day. Needless to say, I haven’t gone on a date since meeting Megan. And that’s why I’ve kept my mouth shut about Garrett, because if I start talking about him, I might lose everything. 

Even after I left Seattle to follow Megan back to her home state of Minnesota (Northfield hospital, 1990), I’d still visit with Garrett once a year, meeting up for coffee, to catch up about writing and work and to maybe rub his coffee mug for good luck. 

In late 2017, during my holiday visit to Seattle, I told him I was kicking around the idea of starting a press. Garrett had started his own, Orson’s Publishing, in 2016 in response to his frustrations with traditional publishing. Likewise, I too was fed up with the whole publishing ecosystem: the agents, the editors with big egos, the unfair contracts, and the way publishers made you feel like they were always doing you a favor. I had recently stumbled into publishing a career development book with a small business education press (Sustainable Evolution) and had a great experience. And that’s when it clicked for me: small presses are the future of publishing. Garrett told me to go for it. And when Garrett tells you to do something, you do it. 

11:11 Press was founded in early January of 2018, shortly after that conversation with Garrett, and can you imagine how many times his phone went off in that first month? In the first year? I emailed Garrett weekly with questions, sent frantic text messages that led to long phone calls, and all of it felt like we were onto something big. 

And we were. We were coconspirators in an underground movement against the big publishers. Well... kind of. We knew what it was like being on the other side of the table and enough was enough. Ok, ok, so there wasn’t a big organized underground movement, and we weren’t out to get the big publishers, but we did say things like “man, it sucks when agents just drop the ball on you” and “dude, those guys suck” and “I liked when my publisher did ... but I wish they did more ...”. We didn’t really talk about goals either, but if we had, we both would agree that we started publishing companies so authors could have a fighting chance, so they could be treated humanely and with respect. 

More so now, two and a half years later, small press culture and how smaller presses operate is up in the air. Garrett and I, we were two blind men trying on glasses and what worked for Orson’s didn’t always work for 11:11, and vice versa. When we got to a fork in the road with a printer or marketing idea, Garrett went one way and I went the other and we shared what happened. Sometimes we’d switch our approach. Sometimes it worked. Some things worked better. And some things were a throbbing bass drum, a cheap wine headache, a “I’ll never do that again” hangover, and when that happened, we both knew to stay the hell away from whatever poor choice one of us had made. 

If you’re still looking for the point to all this, here it is, and I can’t say this loud enough: Orson’s publishing made 11:11 Press a better publisher. And everything I care about now can be traced back to Garrett Dennert. 

Take, for instance, in 2018 when Garrett ask me to blurb a book for an unknown first-time author. This 21-year-old kid who was still in school at the University of Minnesota. Garrett wanted to have a blurb from a local author, and even though I technically wasn’t a published author in the same genre, “having a local author would really help.” So, I said I’d take a look, but no promises. The digital ARC sat unread in my inbox for a couple of weeks. But it was Garrett. You can’t say no to Garrett. 

I opened the document, the file title was something like “MOM CORRAO ARC”, and I started reading the first page of Man, Oh Man. It was one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s still one of my favorite books. Jump ahead in time to this moment, 11:25PM on May 04, 2020, and as soon as I finish writing this, I’ll be sending the draft to Mike Corrao for edits because he is now a co-owner of 11:11 Press and we talk daily about books and upcoming projects. Gut Text, Mike’s second book, is THE book that put 11:11 Press on the small press map. And his follow-up, a Gut Text 2 of sorts, Rituals Performed in the Absence of Ganymede, will be published in January of 2021. 

You see, if it wasn’t for Garrett, I’d still be some washed up scumbag walking around Alki beach trying to find myself. Writing poems in the sand and watching as the waves wash them away. This is the type of thing Garrett does for people. This is why he’s my good luck charm. And that’s why the real point is so hard to get to. I wanted to write about how sad and happy I am. Sad to learn about Orson’s Publishing closing their doors and happy to learn that Garrett will be a father this summer, but somehow I ended up writing about how much Garrett has meant to me and my life and how, without Garrett and Orson’s, 11:11 wouldn’t be where it is now. I wouldn’t be where I am now.

It’s almost midnight and I’m tapping this out on my phone, lying beside baby Zoey because her teeth are popping through her soft red gums and it’s hard to sleep when you’re in that much pain, and as I’m lying here, next to Zoey, who is between Megan and I, I can’t help but think that Garrett is making a really good decision. 

Garrett, your baby, your Seattle baby who will be able to name drop their hospital to Midwesterners who relocate to Seattle, the same Midwesterners who are ruining the city. I wish for moments like this for you, for you to be able to be still with your family and enjoy the time you have with them, because publishing is harder than both of us ever thought it would be, and sometimes I want out, too. It’s still more fun than it is stressful, but there isn’t a week that goes by when I think: “why did I ever get myself wrapped up in all of this?” 

And then I think: “No wonder small presses fail. It’s so hard to survive. It’s so hard to sell books. And it feels like the only people who get attention online are annoying or negative or mad about something, and I don’t want to spend my time around that kind of unproductive attention-seeking behavior.” (Note: Orson’s went off all social media for this reason in February of 2019)

In these quiet moments, I sometimes think about the bookstores who haven’t paid us for books they’ve sold, and I don’t know where we’ll find the money to publish books in 2022. I think: “I hope this continues.”

In quiet moments, when all I can hear is breathing, I think: “Something like 11:11 should exist. It needs to exist. And it really isn’t all that bad.”

Later, when it feels like I can’t breathe, I think: “I really hope this continues.”

Readers and authors who have never been on the publishing side will never know how deep the mud is we slop through. Some days I wonder if the sacrifices I’m making (time and money) for authors and readers and Art is fair to my kids, fair to my family. But raising kids isn’t the same as running a press and we can’t go separate ways at the fork and share what happens because our choices with children carry the weight of lifetime consequences. I know I can’t make up for lost time with my kids. And I know that time away from them, even if I am only mentally adrift, can lead to severely negative repercussions, because I grew up like that, in a home where work was always a priority over family, and I promised myself I would never do that to anyone. 

But you did lead me to Megan. And you led me to Mike. And both of those led to Hannah and Sam. And we have a pretty solid team. And great authors who understand how much effort goes into every book. There are so many great people in my life who will keep me and the press in check. And as much as I hope this continues, I hope more for family, and that our conversations will continue, even if it’s about diapers or about all the terrible parenting books no one should ever read. I hope to visit Seattle soon, so we can meet up at Bauhaus Coffee, so we can talk about family and work and books and art, but mostly, I hope that you’ll stand up from your seat and buy a muffin or use the restroom, so when you’re not looking, I can rub your mug again for good luck. 

Andrew // Evening 04 May 2020

Andrew is the Co-Founder & Publisher at 11:11 Press. This was written in response to Orson’s Publishing’s announcement on May 04, 2020, that they will be closing their doors this summer.