April at UDP

It’s only three weeks until the pub day for our spring season, and we’re sewing and printing and getting ready for readings. Below you’ll find the next four weeks of events, including our Spring Studio Party on May 7. There’s still time to sign up for our annual subscription to get every single spring title.

In other news: the editors of our annual periodical Second Factory will be accepting submissions beginning next week! And if you’re going to be in New Orleans, you can hear past Second Factory authors read on Sunday the 19th at NOPF.

Hope to see you at a reading soon,

Yrs, UDP

Spring Season Highlights

We’re highlighting three titles from our forthcoming spring season: Winter Night Rabbit Worries by Yoo Heekyung, translated by Stine An; Double Serpent by Sam Max; and Magic Episodes and Other Synchronicities: The Transhemispheric Correspondence of Scott Burton and Eduardo Costa, 1970–1980, edited by David J. Getsy and Patrick Greaney. Preorder these titles at the links below, and if you’re a reviewer or educator, feel free to get in touch with us at publicity [at] uglyducklingpresse [dot] org.

Preorder WINTER NIGHT RABBIT WORRIES

Winter Night Rabbit Worries is Yoo Heekyung’s fifth poetry collection, published in Korean in 2023. Structured as a series of stories, the book presents narrative and linguistic architectures that dissolve the opposition between those materials that construct the this and the that side of life—past and future, truth and falsehood, memory and fantasy. As readers move from one story to another, they will encounter a dizzying yet tender experience in which the boundaries between self and other unravel, and new stories begin to take shape.

Preorder DOUBLE SERPENT

In a penthouse in Manhattan, Connor plays dead for his wealthy older boyfriend Felix. Elsewhere, in a dark, wet basement in 1999, he plays Double Serpent with his invisible friend while he waits for Fake Dad to finish his business upstairs. Using a brilliant triple-helix structure, Sam Max’s playscript threads fantasy together with Connor’s past and present, creating a thriller in which there are Fake Dads and real daddies, surgery and blood play, childhood scarring and adulthood dissociation. In Double Serpent, sex and intimacy both redeem and reinflict.

Preorder MAGIC EPISODES

When Scott Burton (1939–1989) and Eduardo Costa (b. 1940) met in New York City in 1968, they developed a close friendship that lasted until Burton’s death. In letters from the 1970s and 1980s, they gossiped and shared thoughts about the rapid changes taking place in the art world, queer life, and their work as writers and artists. Burton and Costa’s letters show a vibrant transnational queer artistic friendship and offer a new perspective on the struggle to establish conceptual, critical artistic practices in the Americas. As Costa moved from New York to Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro, he and Burton discussed the art communities of North and South America, including Costa’s friend Hélio Oiticica and the lasting influence of Marcel Duchamp. Both artists found the letters to be a source of emotional and intellectual nourishment—as will their readers.

Open Call: SECOND FACTORY Issue 8

UDP is excited to welcome submissions for issue eight of our annual periodical, Second Factory. The submission portal will open on April 16 at 12:00am EST, and close on April 30 at 11:59pm EST. You can find more information here.