Established in 2016, Fonograf Editions is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit press and literary record label based in Portland, OR. Places like The Paris Review Daily and Poets & Writers have previously written about our creation and development and our books and records have been featured and reviewed at places like The New York Times, Artforum, The New York Times Book Review, Frieze, Harper’s, and The London Review of Books.
Fonograf Ed. is distributed by NYU Press (print) and Asterism (audio).
We are a proud member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).
Our mission
Fonograf Editions exists to take risks that push the boundaries of sound, text, and genre. We value the interdisciplinary, experimental, and unclassifiable, and we strive to bring to life works that resist, bend, and break expectations. We prioritize public access by making a component of each of our releases available for free to the public (such as streaming audio online) and by hosting multiple free community events each year.
Editors:
Jeff Alessandrelli is a writer living in Portland, OR.
Adie B. Steckel is a writer living in Portland, OR. They work for a nonprofit HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ health and social services organization and write indexes for academic texts.
Ellena Basada is a writer from Oregon. She focuses on prose for Fonograf Editions.
Designer:
Mike Corrao is a multimedia artist and author living in Minneapolis, MN.
Editorial Assistants:
Joshua Stanek (he/him) is a poet and musician based in Portland, Oregon. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at Portland State University.
Eva Sheehan (she/her) is a writer and book publishing professional living in Portland, OR. She earned her MA in Book Publishing at Portland State University. She is originally from Atlanta, Georgia and is working on writing her first poetry collection.
Anya Maria Johnson is a Brooklyn-based writer and an MFA candidate at Sarah Lawrence College. Anya has held editorial positions at several journals––currently, she is the Poetry Editor at Exposition Review. Her most recent publication, “Our Hysterical Country,” for which she won the John B. Santoianni Prize for Excellence in Poetry, is available on poets.org.
Board of Directors:
Gabrielle Civil is a Black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. Her latest performance memoirs include (ghost gestures) (2021) and the deja vu (2022).
Allison Cobb (pronouns she/her) is the author of four books: Plastic: an Autobiography, Green-Wood, After We All Died and Born2. Cobb’s work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National Poetry Series; has been a resident artist at Djerassi and Playa; and received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Allison works for Environmental Defense Fund and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Erika Stevens has over two decades of experience in publishing. She is a literary agent with Salky Literary Management, where her clients span genres and disciplines. She worked with Coffee House Press as editorial director shepherding the press’s lists and acquisitions program. Academic presses she has worked with include the University of Georgia Press, Duke University Press, UNC Press, and the University Press of Florida. She has taught in the Graduate Program in Book Publishing at Portland State University and in the Sierra Nevada College MFA program. Authors she has worked with have been awarded or named finalists for the National Book Award, the Hurston Wright Award, the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Award, the PEN/Osterweil Award, the Whiting Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kate Tufts award, the NBCC Award, and others.
Aditi Machado is a poet, translator, and essayist. Her books include the poetry collections Material Witness (2024), Emporium (2020; James Laughlin Award), and Some Beheadings (2017; The Believer Poetry Award) from Nightboat; and a translation of Farid Tali’s novel Prosopopoeia (Action, 2016). Her writing appears in journals like BOMB, Chicago Review, jubilat, Lana Turner, Volt, and Western Humanities Review, as well as in chapbook form. She serves as an Advisory Poetry Editor for The Paris Review and works as an Associate Professor at University of Cincinnati.
Lex Orgera is the author of the fragmented memoir, Head Case: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms (Kore Press, 2021), and two poetry collections, How Like Foreign Objects and Dust Jacket. She is additionally a book editor, publisher, and plant lover living in North Carolina.
Nick Twemlow is the author of the poetry books Palm Trees (Green Lantern Press, 2012) and Attributed to the Harrow Painter (University of Iowa Press, 2017) and his short films have played Tribeca, SXSW, Slamdance, and other film festivals. He co-edits Canarium Books, and is responsible for literary and poetry collection development at the Rose Library at Emory University.
Knox Gardner is the publisher and editor of Entre Ríos Books, a poetry press based in Seattle— gay-owned & queerly run. His interest is primarily in collaborations. His debut collection Woodland with music by Aaron Otheim was a CLMP Firecracker Award finalist in 2019. A believer in community play, he organized a three-mile hopscotch across his neighborhood, started the Jackson Street Jazz Walk, and swaps soup when he can.
The founder of Fonograf and its Executive Director and Publisher, Jeff Alessandrelli is a writer based in Portland, OR.
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Generous support for Fonograf Editions has been provided by Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), The Kinsman Foundation, Literary Arts, The Oregon Community Foundation, Oregon Cultural Trust, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, The Poetry Foundation, and individual donations. Thank you!
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Fonograf Editions welcomes tax-deductible donations of any amount. Your support is highly appreciated!