Not With a Bang: Finding Our Future in Community

Tobi is creating our future, and the future is a conga line with a chicken in the lead. I like that future. I believe in it.

When our grants writer called our Deputy Director to say that she’d read the Submittable notice that Red Hen had been turned down for the Literary Arts Fund, she was in tears. It wasn’t an email. Just Submittable. She thought it was her fault that Red Hen had not gotten the grant; that she wrote a bad grant, and here we are. Tobi assured her that we are all in this together. We all edited the grant. And no, we’re not going to close.

The day I found out about the Literary Arts Fund, I went through a huge storm of emotions. At first, I thought, it’s over. There is no more Red Hen. I have been full tilt for so long, I thought, and I cannot carry this press. I was at the Embarcadero in the Bay, and I had walked two miles there to buy Dandelion chocolate, which I am obsessed with. I did not buy the chocolate. Later, when I saw Mark, he said, “I’ll buy you sushi.” I had just finished the final edit of Little Soldiers.

“We’re not eating sushi,” I said. For me, sushi is a happy food, a celebration food. I didn’t know how we were going to live, let alone celebrate. I hitched my wagon to the idea that people cared about literary culture and would support it. I stood at the Embarcadero, and I tried to feel like my life was still going on, but it felt like it had stopped.

This is the hardest funding year since 2008. Presses are folding. When I recently met with Major Jackson, he said, “How are you holding on?”

I said, “By my fingernails.”

We lost the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. We lost three of our largest donors, who made up 20% of our funding. Then the local funding went to fire relief. At that point, we were down about $400,000, and we could barely breathe. I work as the Development Director, Editor, and Executive Director, and I had to hustle. Fundraising took over, but no one was writing checks.

Poetry publishing is on the edge, too. We were turned down by the Poetry Foundation for $25,000 in funding. The Poetry Society of America was one of the recipients of the funding. The Poetry Society of America is renowned not only for the Poetry on the Subway program, but also for the Poetry in the gardens and throughout the city of New York. It is a beloved institution, and raising money is not easy even in New York. At the time, I wished that they could have discussed the funding field with other leaders in the literary community—such as Chelsea Kern, the Programs Director at CLMP, or Amy Stolls, who was the literature director at the NEA—to get a fuller sense of what part of poetry was in peril. Distribution and printing costs have skyrocketed. Presses have gone out of business or been absorbed, SPD is gone, and just staying afloat is a challenge. If no one is publishing poetry books, then where does poetry go?

Our board doesn’t understand why we would publish poetry. It’s expensive, and it doesn’t have the selling potential of fiction. We’ve gone from publishing twenty books of poetry to fifteen to eight. To hold my ground at eight, I need funding. In my dream world, we have donors and a board that wants to see our poets continue.

The Poetry Society of America has a bit of an reserve and an endowment, and I was glad for them when they received $20,000 in support, but Red Hen Press has neither. Let’s face it, the PSA is 100 years old. When Red Hen is 100 years old, we also will have an operating reserve and an endowment. I hope we have an operating reserve by the time we hit thirty-five years. It’s a sign of financial health. Matt, the executive director, runs a tight ship and does an excellent job. I admire the good sense with which the PSA is run, and I aspire to it. But for younger organizations, finances continue to be a struggle.

We operate on the money we bring in month to month, and each year, I wonder if we can keep publishing the poetry of exceptional artists like Jason Schneiderman, Douglas Manuel, Afaa Weaver, and Brenda Cardenas.

And although I’ve said a lot about poetry, 17 of our 25 yearly books are prose, and if we could raise the full funds for a new website and a dedicated salesperson, those books would sell better. But it isn’t so simple. Last year, the fires blew the roof off our press. Then there was flooding. Then thieves climbed onto the building and cut out the copper from the air conditioning units. They might have made $200 for the copper. The units cost between $50,000 and $60,000, that claim caused our insurance company to cancel us. As I drove to the Bay Area Book Festival this week, Tobi was on the roof of the building, figuring out how to lift the air conditioning units up there with a crane, then protect them with 600-pound cages. All of these things have demanded our attention, pulling us from our mission, our focus, our goals.

By July 1, 2026, we need to decide how Red Hen continues. I’ve only talked to three people besides Tobi and Mark about our next steps. One immediately suggested we close up shop and that I get another job to support our family. She even had job suggestions. Another suggested that we continue publishing books without staff. That does not work.

But one suggested that the community would come together to help us raise the money to keep Red Hen going. She offered to help directly by giving money and joining the board. My friend Doug Manuel says that when things are rough, notice who steps up. This friend is stepping up in every way possible, with her brains, her wallet, and her work. It’s easy to feel very much alone in all this, and I am so grateful. (She is also named Kate. It’s a good name.)

People who believe in community lean into community. We are doing everything we can to lean in. I have been working seven days a week since becoming Publisher and CEO in January 2024. I haven’t been paid for three months. I’m going to keep working, but if it were up to me, I admit, I can’t carry this press into the future alone.

Sugar is poured unevenly in the publishing business. Presses without endowments and large operating reserves often go overlooked. I wonder where the sugar was poured for the Literary Arts Fund. I wonder if there was ever actually a chance for Red Hen Press, or if we only imagined there was.

Meanwhile, Tobi has powers and is hatching a plan, one that includes rebuilding our board. Our staff continues to march ahead. Our work goes on, but we need more support to be sustainable, to survive into the next year. Tobi is our community whisperer, the one who speaks in the clearing in the woods, and they help us believe that if the community wants Red Hen, it will happen.

The night we found out about the Literary Arts Fund, we had tickets to a play called Exotica, where performers dressed up like animals and performed aerial stunts. There were two dancing chickens (you really can’t make this up) who got all of us on our feet to conga through the adjoining restaurant. Maybe it was our new board member and Tobi, getting everyone up and dancing, to remind us that we are all in it together.

At some point, they had a “slut contest” to see who would dance on the bar and strip. The twenty-somethings lined up, but nobody took off more than a jacket. I just couldn’t let this pass. I got up and danced the slut walk, off came the jacket and the top. My bracelets and rings flew in all directions. Sometimes, you have to do it yourself.

Tobi is creating our future, and the future is a conga line with a chicken in the lead. I like that future. I believe in it.

We Kates don’t give up easily. I won the slut contest and walked off with the champagne. Red Hen Press will not go quietly into this good night. Tomorrow is another day.