How I Started My Press With Discount Guillotine

I first met Maya Cordero through a screen for a Discount Guillotine poetry workshop that she was running along with Feral Dove. I was taken by the breeze of her voice as she shared industry insights with the cohort – advice that was striking and obviously hard-earned. Not long after, I found myself in Abney Books in Stoke Newington, at a poetry reading organised by the London branch of Discount Guillotine. There I met Salomé Mercier, the brains behind the London operation, and came away with a couple of new favourite poets.

As I got deeper into the Guillotine-verse I came to profoundly admire their tentacular reach across oceans, countries and continents, creating community through presence and a common love for poetry and words. They publish books and magazines. They regularly update their website with snappy, profound and political poems, with stunning, unique visual design. They offer translation services to authors. They host poetry and fiction workshops, and readings all across the globe (so far they’ve stepped in England, Scotland, France and the US). The heart that goes into the project is so evident it almost burst at the seams.

I sat down with Maya Cordero, founder of Discount Guillotine, to ask her how the project came to be, how it runs, and what her visions are for its future. Spoiler: Guillotine dreams BIG.

Arcadia Molinas: Let's start at the beginning. How and when did Discount Guillotine start?

Maya Cordero: I started Discount Guillotine in June of 2024 with my ex. I had been out of the poetry world for a while – very heavily involved for many years and then got burnt out. I was touring a lot. I was running another press. But then I did a reading with Dirt Child, which is an amazing press based in New York and LA, and it really inspired me to jump back in full steam.

How does Discount Guillotine differ from the press that you started in the past?

We're very focused on creating a physical community, whereas in the past, my community was almost exclusively digital. It’s been a part of the recruitment process; you have to guarantee that you're going to book shows in the city that you live in. That was the idea behind expanding: to have these various communities flourish. I haven't even been to London. I haven't been to Glasgow. I haven't been to Berlin. It's amazing to me that there's readings happening there now that are partially my responsibility. 

You have such a dedicated team that offers writers not only publication, but translation, readings and other essential opportunities for writers too. I’m so impressed by all your work.

That’s definitely a core mission behind what we're trying to do: to make sure that opportunities are available for everyone. 

What is your process in terms of submissions? What are you looking for, what kind of voices are you interested in? 

The entire team works on submissions, and we all have different things that we're looking for, which is a big part of how we've been able to find such a diverse range of artistic styles. We’re a queer-run press, and we’re aware that there is so much writing from and about trans lives that doesn’t fit the very narrow space that mainstream publishing has been carving for queer people. The submissions we get from trans and queer writers seem to encompass so much more than the typical narrative on body dysmorphia that is most likely to be represented in mainstream literature. 

If you had to describe Discount Guillotine's style, in a sentence or couple words, what would you say? 

That's hard, I'm a rambler. Discount Guillotine's primary intent is to be subversive and to share art that is disruptive to any perceived power structure. We’re not looking for one group of people. We're trying to confront the various power structures that surround us with an intention of amplifying the voices of people who wouldn't be as readily recognised by traditional publishing presses. 

I will say that I think sometimes people hide their personhood and emotional vulnerabilities behind forms and big academic words. We definitely like things that are stripped down and more emotionally forthcoming and present.

We’re a queer-run press, and we’re aware that there is so much writing from and about trans lives that doesn’t fit the very narrow space that mainstream publishing has been carving for queer people.

I got to know you through your workshops. You were such an excellent workshop leader, by the way. I thought that your listening skills were incredibly sharp and active. Is there something you find especially rewarding when running the press and all its adjacent projects? 

All of it. Discount Guillotine is so many things and I make no money from it. I don't think that it would have continued to expand into all these different categories if it wasn't specifically for the fact that it is all deeply rewarding to me. The workshops have allowed me to connect with people one-on-one and help them create things. That has been really inspiring for me and has really influenced my own personal writing and style. Helping people travel, host touring acts, and being able to book people across multiple cities has also been incredibly rewarding. I like helping people get out of their city and connect with new people. 

How would you describe DG’s community? 

Queer people and weirdos. [Laughter]

I think the name Discount Guillotine naturally helped us gain the audience that we wanted to gain. At the beginning, I was just making memes and posting them to be on people’s feeds. There was one with a magic wand that said, “Is this a discount guillotine?” I think that series of weird shit-posts helped us curate a very specific kind of audience too.

I don't know if you can speak to any of this, but in London right now, literary parties are all over the press, in Vogue Magazine and The Guardian. There's been so many features about literary readings and how they’re cool again. I can attest to this too: there are big crowds and a bigger appetite for the blend of writing, hanging out and being weirdos together. Have you felt this at all?

People need these spaces, particularly now when the far-right is rising globally—at least in all the countries that we currently function in—and there’s an increasing societal pressure on queer and trans people. We need to find ways to create and maintain consistent connections and to do it in spaces that aren't necessarily focused on alcohol or consumption. 

 And sharing your writing is also integral to that feeling of connection, it facilitates vulnerability, which then creates real community.

Absolutely. This is a very writer thing to say, and isn't necessarily fair to other art forms, but I do think that writing and particularly sharing your writing face-to-face is unique in that there's nothing between you and your audience. You can't really hide behind its structure or appearance the same way that you can in other art forms. It makes the audience feel more connected to you. 

At the beginning, I was just making memes and posting them to be on people’s feeds. There was one with a magic wand that said, “Is this a discount guillotine?” I think that series of weird shit-posts helped us curate a very specific kind of audience too.

Reading something out loud changes the entire effect of the writing. I've been super obsessed with this idea recently and I love going to readings because of that. I think that embodying the words can change everything. 

Yeah, I'm always interested to hear people read poems that I've seen written down. We have a lot of artists who we published online and in the print journals, read for us, and it always surprises me what I take away from the readings that I didn't take away from the book or vice versa. The emphasis that is placed in certain parts and the way that the poem flows is always different than the way I perceived it. It makes me read differently as an editor too. I try to imagine as many perspectives as possible and not just lean on my own of what the work should sound and feel like in pacing. 

That's interesting. I wonder if editors should go to more readings to get a different sense of the work?

Definitely. I think a lot of editors get stuck on their own stylistic preferences and their own perceptions of what is and isn't good. I love the fact that in Discount Guillotine it's always different people reading poems for the online journal.

What are some of the challenges of running Discount Guillotine?

I have put myself in some situations where I was putting in thirty/forty-hour weeks trying to get books out in time. I wanted to disrupt things in the publishing scene and make a name for ourselves. But I've definitely overextended it at times, and I think that's been the hardest part: reeling myself in. We started booking shows in August of last year and have done approximately 44 events. We published four books and a print journal between February and now. 

The other hard part is that all the collaborators on our team are volunteers, so everyone commits what they can. I don't want anyone to feel like this is a job because it's supposed to be fun. 

We need to find ways to create and maintain consistent connections and to do it in spaces that aren't necessarily focused on alcohol or consumption. 

What would Discount Guillotine world domination look like? 

I'm still figuring it out, but we have big plans. I have flirted with the idea of trying to find funding and investors for creating a physical space but economically right now, with tariffs and everything else, it just doesn't seem like a good time. A substantial number of small presses in the U.S. just lost grant funding due to the current administration. Ultimately, if we want to provide the best platform we can to as many people as possible, we need legitimate funds. I want to be able to provide advances to our authors. I want to be able to pay people to be in the print journal. 

As of right now the biggest thing that we're currently working on is hosting a poetry festival in Glasgow next summer. 

Fuck yeah. Tell me more about the festival. What are your plans for it? 

I want to give a big shout out to this amazing festival in Philadelphia called Reunion, hosted by Catch Breath. Philadelphia has one of the most incredible arts communities I've ever seen and been a part of. I really love the presses and the organisations working down there. I want this festival to be somewhere between Reunion and fucking AWP. That’s what world domination would look like. I wanna be the next AWP.

One thing that I've noticed from doing this and having all these cross-city connections with people, is that everyone knows each other. We're all aware of each other's work and we're all fans of each other. The small press community is very tightly knit. I do know a lot of the people who have performed in London even if I haven't met them personally. I think that there needs to be a tangible physical location where we can all meet up and talk about things and share our work with each other. I want to do my best to facilitate that in a way that doesn't require that every single person invests hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be there. I want to figure out how to get poets paid. 

Get poets paid!

Get poets paid. It's a core mission. When I came up in poetry, I was more in the slam poetry scene. I started doing readings when I was 16 and I got paid – and I grew up in an incredibly small town of 7,000 people, the city nearby was like 40,000 people. There were competitions and prizes that were happening around me and I was winning a couple hundred dollars at a time. I was getting paid to perform places and it's only when you get into this niche, more subversive scene, that people stop getting paid and stop expecting to get paid for their work. I've had touring poets just outright refuse to let me pay them and it's frustrating because – it's your work! It's something that you created and even if it's not much money that we're able to offer, your work still has value. As a low-income person, I'm like, No, you get paid every time you can get paid. Make sure you're being fully compensated. 

People get locked into the idea of being accepted by an organisation as the ultimate goal. I've seen a lot of authors get themselves into bad contracts with presses that frankly don't have their best interest in mind or can’t deliver them the results that they deserve. 

Your art is also so wrapped in a sense of self that it can come with all these contradicting feelings of putting a worth on what you do.

That’s why we offer incredibly competitive contracts for the position we're in financially. We started with only my funding, but we offered 70% of royalties to the author as well as 10 author copies. We never wanted to take money from the artists. The 30% that we take is only so that we can afford to publish more books. We've made a lot of our money through merch sales. That communism t-shirt that we made was so popular.

It's a great t-shirt. 

It’s been a contested shirt. 

What I find most compelling about small presses is when you can tell there's a real person behind it, when the aesthetic identity is clearly tied to a personal narrative.

I agree wholeheartedly, every press that I care about has a very unique voice and story that is tangible and visible, which is then tied again to the core tenants of the project itself, which is platforming individual stories. 

That's beautiful, I love that. Is there anything that we haven't touched upon that you would like to talk about a little bit? 

None of this is possible without my team and I wouldn’t be able to do this in the same capacity in any way if it wasn't for Salomé, we have two Sophias now, Meredith, Olivia, Betsy, or Mads. It’s impossible without them and their motivation. They keep me grounded and contribute to the voice and motion of Discount Guillotine. Their presence is deeply felt. Beyond that, just, I don't really see a point of us slowing down in the future. I think the only way for us to continue to build is going to be through creating spaces that more people can use. We want to be a resource for everyone. I want to be able to assist people with every aspect of the writing industry and help people share their work and help them get out there. 

I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Absolutely. From one press to another, I think having those relationships and links is so essential. I hope to see you in Glasgow next year.

Fingers crossed. It's going to happen regardless. I don't need an institution's ‘yes’ to throw together something that could ostensibly be a DIY festival. I think that there is a need and desire, and I think that people will be there. 

Yeah. I'll be there!

I'll see you then.

Arcadia Molinas is the online editor of Worms.