Shanna Compton’s most recent books are Creature Sounds Fade (Black Lawrence, 2021) and Midwinter Constellation, cowritten with 31 other poets (Black Lawrence, 2022). Her other books include Brink (Bloof, 2013), For Girls Other Poems (Bloof, 2008), Down Spooky (Open Book Award Winner, Winnow, 2005), and several chapbooks. Her poetry and essays are widely published, appearing in Best American Poetry, the Nation, American Poetry Review, McSweeney’s, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere.
A book artist and small-press advocate, her activities as a publisher and editor include everything from the lit zine she put out in Austin, Texas, to working for an imprint of a major commercial publisher (and a few fashion catalogs) after moving to New York City. She co-curated and co-hosted the Frequency Series at Brooklyn’s Shockwave Bookstore from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, she founded the independent micropress Bloof Books, drawing on her experiences as an editor and book designer at LIT, the magazine of the MFA program at the New School, and Soft Skull Press in Brooklyn. In addition to her work with the poets of Bloof, she works as a book designer for some of your favorite small presses, and creates visual art as a printmaker and collagist. She lives in Blue Hill, Maine.
To view some of Shanna’s book design work, visit her portfolio site. Some of her prints and collages are available from Hi Water Press.