Ugly Duckling Presse

This text, Chefjec writes, is something of an “arbitrary sequel” to a text which “both demands to be read, yet remains silent.“

Submissions for the seventh issue of Second Factory are open now through December 4 🍇

Opening tomorrow! Join us at at 7pm for a conversation with Anada Werner, author of the UDP chapbook PUNT (edited by Lee Norton), and Milo Wippermann. We’ll talk about short poems and letterpress printing and how the studio stab-stitched 500 chapbooks.

This conversation is an opening event for a new exhibition at Poets House called Autonomy in Practice: A Brief History of UDP Chapbooks. We couldn’t be more excited about having a curated selection of our archive on display along with some letterpress materials from our studio.

Meet UDP’s brilliant Contributing Editors 🔥 Contributing Editors read and solicit manuscripts during open reading periods, and edit books along with the Editorial Collective.

All editorial work at UDP is volunteer, and as we prepare to launch a new season of books, we want to introduce you to all the people who make it possible.

Studio photos by Ana Rocha, 2023 ❤️

Meet the current members of UDP’s Editorial Collective! All editors are volunteers and meet once a month to plan and organize. As a collective, we make decisions about the Presse and our books, working closely with the studio staff and the board of directors. As editors, we individually and collaboratively read, solicit, and edit manuscripts along with UDP’s contributing editors.

“in the face of nothingness / a handbook for exorcists”

Preorder this urgent, investigatory, bilingual chap now 🌊

We’re so excited to welcome our 2024–25 apprentices to the studio! Our nine-month program introduces apprentices to all aspects of small press publishing. Welcome Sara and James ❤️

“This book is for the soft animal inside, the one who grieves and the one who survives.” —Lara Mimosa Montes

Preorder Señal #23 now ❤️

We hope to see you in Berlin this weekend!
Tonight 5–9, Saturday & Sunday 12–7

Preorder this collection of Iana Boukova’s rigorous yet unpredictable poetry today 🪡

UDP is always changing, and our studio staff is comprised of people old and new. We’re all part-time, wear ten different hats, and make decisions collaboratively and in conjunction with the volunteer editorial collective and our board of directors.

In our current configuration, we want to introduce you to the folks who run the UDP studio!

ID: (clockwise)

Serena Solin handles typesetting, production schedules, print brokering, and facilitates communication between all the parties that make our books happen.

Keri Kelly facilitates the distribution of books, organizes volunteer days, and handles outreach to customers, bookstores, and libraries.

Marine Cornuet runs the Presse’s operations, finances, development, events, general coordination, and co-manages publicity.

Milo Wippermann designs and letterpress prints book covers, runs social media and communications, co-manages publicity, and leads workshops.

“cucurbit: Holster. To love bite. Liminal. To circus. Replace. To abbey. Fez. Fistula. Faction. Fight. To torch. Succumb. Inversely. &. Glimpse. Bonibon. Zàâá. Amphora. Verter. So much. How many. Cats. To smile. Yes. Oz. Bellows. Grindingly. Bien. So.”

from “Box of Honey (Example)”

Preorder at the link in bio 🗃

Here’s to the spritz, spritz—preorder now ⚡️

Preorder this beautiful, sense-altering, experimental translation now ❤️

Preorder our November books now 🔥

Link in bio ❤️

Special edition! I WANT SOMETHING OTHER THAN TIME by Lewis Freedman is a series of 64 poems written by hand, each titled with the eponymous refrain. In a numbered edition of 50, this chap includes a foldable essay insert.

Begun in 1963 and only published in its final form in 1984, galáxias incorporates literary allusion, citation, and words and phrases in at least a dozen languages, making it a formidable experiment in polyglot poetry. In this series of 50 “galactic cantos”—in homage to both Dante and Pound—de Campos follows James Joyce’s cue in conceiving of galáxias as a “defense and illustration” of the Portuguese language and its poetic possibilities. Translated by Odile Cisneros, with Suzanne Jill Levine, Charles Perrone, Christopher Middleton, and Norman Potter.

Order your copy from our website and Asterism Books!

And now, introducing UDP’s fall 2025 authors and translators—including titles chosen from last year’s Open Reading Period! From experimental self-redactions, to a previously-untranslated q***r East German novella, to intimate letters between artists, this season of books will destroy and rebuild you.