How I Started My Press with Wonder Press

For the past 15 years, New York’s Wonder Press has been publishing work from authors such as Juliana Huxtable, Precious Okoyomon, Chariot Wish, Tibiezas F. Dager and Maya Martinez – writers who have since featured in Worms. Worms and Wonder share an interest for unusual writers, writers who have practices that span disciplines, and perhaps too, a common passion for perversion and perverts. For these reasons, Wonder Press feels like Worms’ older, unruly cousin – you know, that cousin who you first smoked weed with, or showed you porn on grandma’s computer, or gave you anarchist Emma Goldman books for Christmas.

I met Ben Fama and Chariot Wish from Wonder Press last year, on a hot August day in New York. We went for a meal in Ridgewood and spoke about Moby Dick and baseball. At that point, I was a seasoned attendee of their online poetry workshops, Cool Memories, which I had been taking for a couple of months from my room in London: logging in every Sunday, not unlike church, meeting great poets (not unlike the Bible?), and feeling inspired to write, what I can only hope, were great poems of my own.

Wonder’s cultural offering spans disciplines and is generous with its authors, readers and fans. With the advent of their new publication, BLK MSM, by Mohammed Zenia Siddiq Yusef Ibrahim, I emailed Ben, co-founder of Wonder, and asked him about the origins of Wonder, the highlights so far, and what dreams they hold for the future.

Arcadia Molinas: How has summer been treating you so far?

Ben Fama: Well, The Knicks won the NBA title and our mayor Mamdani fixed everything else so life here is pretty perfect. 

For the uninitiated, describe Wonder Press in 5 words or less.

"Perverted geniuses," so I've heard. (Someone told this to our author Ted Dodson, who relayed it back to me). 

Who are the patron saints of Wonder?

Pasolini, Simone Weil, Gregg Araki and Kevin Killian ;'(

If Wonder were a movie what movie would it be?

Southland Tales (2006)

Can you take us to the origins of Wonder? What inspired you to start a press?

Andrew Durbin and I started Wonder Press in 2011-12 as a fun collaboration to see what it would be like to publish and promote books we didn't think would get published the proper way otherwise. The first book we published was Kate Durbin's "E!" which was as fun and rewarding as we thought it would be. Trisha Low joined us as an editor for a bit. We published books by Kevin Killian, Bridget Talone, Juliana Huxtable. Andrew and Trisha's full-time careers took them on to other things, and of course their own writing and publishing, which has given me a lot to brag about. 

The next big moment in Wonder history was when Rachel Rabbit White's Porn Carnival came out in 2018. Rachel's publicity and events campaign kept us busy until the pandemic. 

Post-pandemic we published Precious Okoyomon's BUT DID U DIE? and Maya Martinez's THEATRICS. Maya's star is rising as a performer and we are here for it. 

I’d love to hear about a facet of running the press you find particularly rewarding, and in what ways running it has surprised you? 

During the pandemic, in 2021 or so, Ted Dodson and I started an online reading series called Club Wonder, and it was really so nice. There was nothing really happening as far as online readings yet—we got "zoom bombed" terribly and all of that online meeting platform stuff was still in its infancy dealing with that—but we had some great readings for a year or so. Dana Ward and his daughter zoomed in from Cincinnati and played a song on piano together. It was beautiful. I think Ted did most of the work for that so thank you Ted.

How do the different practices, forms and manifestations that Wonder encompasses and takes feed into the press project?

Between our reading series, Club Wonder (curated with great care by Annie Lou Martin), our chapbooks, our full-length books, and Cool Memories (our workshop series,) we have a lot on offer – and it emphasizes an unspoken mission to help emerging and new writers find friends here in NYC, that's always been something that's been important to us. Being around other writers that you like and admire is what makes writers most happy, so that's what we try to do as well as make space for people to start finding their way. I also like making things related to the press just for fun, like this "Summer of Poetry" shirt: 

Your new publication, BLK MSM by Mohammed Zenia Siddiq Yusef Ibrahim is due for release this fall. Can you talk to me about what drew you to Mohammed's writing and what the editorial process was like?

Moh's book, like all of our catalog, is a book not really like anything else. Wonder is able to be agile with marketing and articulate projects like this because of the experience and work of our editorial team. And Moh’s poetry – it's wise and patient and paced, when I first heard these poems read I was compelled to query for a manuscript. I go to a lot of readings, I've probably been to over 1000 in my life. Most of them are just okay or are pretty bad, let's be honest. When I heard Moh read, I think with Dave Morse at Molasses Books, I felt there was something legit there. I asked Chariot if they were in touch, turns out they were friends, and the rest is history. 

What are some of your dreams for the future of the press?

I would love to see Wonder keep going as it has for the past 15 years. We have a great team currently, including Chariot Wish, Annie Lou Martin, Mags Chmielarczyk, Nico Bryan. We just did an open reading period that is being curated by Al Anderson. Getting to work with people who have mutual investments in the same values is really important to me. To do this for this long you have to really believe in the transcendental value of certain things, mostly in literature and the work we are putting out. To live the endless summer of poetry. 

Ben Fama is the author of the novel If I Close My Eyes, as well as two collection of poetry called Fantasy and Deathwish. His next book of poems, Wild Roses, will be out with Fonograf in early 2027. He lives in New York, where he works as a substance abuse counsellor. 

Arcadia Molinasis a writer and performer. She is the online editor of Worms.