Curbside Splendor is pleased to announce our new imprint Trnsfr Books! Headed by Alban Fischer, Curbside's resident designer and typically to blame for the pulse-pounding beauty of our books.
In the beginning, Trnsfr was an irregularly published journal that combined excellent writing with innovative and invigorating art. Now, Trsnfr Books will publish one to two books per year, including the journal, the latest of which can be ogled (and purchased) here.
And finally, a letter from Trnsfr Books Editor-in-Chief Alban Fischer:
"When I set out in 2008 to start this journal, I had no idea what I was doing. Of course I had some vision of what I wanted it to be, to become, and the kind of writing I wanted to publish. But I had no notion of how to go about realizing such a project. I knew no one in the larger literary community, no one in publishing. What seemed to me the natural first step, however, or at least a good a start as any, was its design, a discipline about which I also knew nothing.
Thus commenced a self-initiated year-long crash course in graphic design. Along the way I discovered that although I’d never given it much thought, design was in fact very important to me. A lover of books from an early age—and not just for what they contained, what they gave, but how they felt, how they looked—it was paramount that I get right the journal’s physical identity. I wanted it to be more than a brief selection of writing one greedily consumed before moving on to the next magazine. I wanted it to be an object one might cherish. And I wanted that to be part of Trnsfr’s appeal—the promise that readers would get something more than a journal, something more than just a few days’ literary diversion.
Something else I had no idea of then was that this—graphic design—would eventually become my career. And perhaps somewhat ironically, this career would also eventually become something of an impediment to Trnsfr’s longevity. As my schedule became increasingly hectic with design work, in addition to a day job, I could no longer devote the proper time and energy to the journal, and I was forced to put the project on an indefinite hiatus. For a long time, I thought it had reached its end.
If you’ve been a reader of Trnsfr, you know that what has also been paramount from the start is the quality of the writing. I’ve had the great pleasure to publish some of today’s most unique and creative voices, including many who have gone on to celebrated careers. And now, with the support of Curbside Splendor, a publisher for whom I’ve designed some forty-odd books, and one of Chicago’s leading independent presses, that standard for the new, the exhilarating, the quirky, will continue. I can’t think of a more intelligent, passionate, and magnanimous group of people with whom to renew and carry on this vision. And so to that purpose, next year we will launch Trnsfr Books. Look for Late Stories from Stephen Dixon, and The Hypothetical Man by Paul Maliszewski and James Wagner, as well as future volumes from John Colasacco and others.
With that, I hope you enjoy the new Trnsfr, its look, its reinvigorated spirit, as much as I have enjoyed putting it together."