Sagging Meniscus Press
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Sagging Meniscus Press is an independent publishing house based in Montclair, New Jersey,[1] founded by Jacob Smullyan in 2014. The press publishes poetry, nonconformist fiction, and literary nonfiction. It also publishes Exacting Clam, a literary journal.[2] The press is a fiscally-sponsored project of Fractured Atlas.[3]
Founding and early years
Smullyan established Sagging Meniscus Press in late 2014 with the initial aim of publishing Hoptime, a novel, in memorial to a late friend.[4] The press's name derives from a Hoptime passage[4]: "They slopped around in the mud awhile, and finally cast their nets into more abundant waters, namely, the Ocean-At-Large, with its enormous meniscus sagging tautly over the chiffon of my mind."[5]
The press quickly expanded to publish writers whose work had been previously distributed through informal or unconventional channels. Early contributors include Joe Taylor, editor of Livingston Press; novelist Charles Holdefer; and MJ Nicholls,[6] who has published eight books with the press.[4] Nicholls in turn introduced the press to several authors who became key figures in its catalog, including Marvin Cohen, Lee Klein,[7] Doug Nufer, and Jeff Chon.[4]
From 2015 to 2020, Sagging Meniscus book covers were designed by Royce M. Becker, who died in late 2020. The art director is now Anne Marie Hantho.[5]
Growth and recognition
Smullyan has acknowledged the challenges of promoting books under a deliberately unconventional brand name, noting that it "discouraged some of the more respectability-conscious gatekeepers" while sometimes functioning as "an anti-establishmentarian secret handshake."[4] A turning point came in 2020 with the publication of Guillermo Stitch's novel Lake of Urine,[8] which received attention from major literary outlets including The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times,[9] the latter featuring it three times.[4][10][11] The Times Literary Supplement described it as "one of the strangest novels of the year" while The New York Times praised Stitch as "a caustic humorist with serious intent."[10][11] Stitch's earlier novella Literature™ won a gold medal at the 2019 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards.
By 2025, the press had published roughly 125 books.[4]
Books
Approximately half of the Sagging Meniscus catalog is fiction. The remainder is poetry (about a third) and nonfiction, including memoir, essay, and criticism.[4] The press has described its literary orientation as drawing on an early-to-mid-twentieth-century heritage, ranging from the modernism of Kafka, Mann, and Joyce to Dada, Surrealism, Oulipo, and the Beats.[4]
Notable authors published by the press include Marvin Cohen, who published nine books with Sagging Meniscus before his death in March 2025;[4] Guillermo Stitch; Lee Klein, author of Like It Matters; Doug Nufer; Jeff Chon, author of Hashtag Good Guy with a Gun; Jake Goldsmith, founder of the Barbellion Prize; and British critic David Collard, author of Multiple Joyce (2022)[12][13] and A Crumpled Swan (2025).[4] Other press authors include Jacob M. Appel, Tomoé Hill, Dawn Raffel,[14] Lee Upton, Tyler C. Gore, and Kurt Luchs.[4][15]
The press has two imprints: the main Sagging Meniscus imprint for full-length works and Sagging Shorts for shorter works.[5]
Exacting Clam
Exacting Clam is a quarterly journal of arts and ideas published by Sagging Meniscus Press, launched in 2021.[2][4] The journal publishes essays, fiction, poetry, criticism, and visual art, and is edited by a collective of approximately a dozen press authors, with Guillermo Stitch serving as executive editor.[4]
Several books have emerged from Exacting Clam columns, including Thomas Walton's Unsavory Thoughts (2025), Goldsmith's In Hospital Environments (2024), and Tributaries by Kurt Luchs.[16][4]