Burrow Press is the March Hare to Stetson University’s Mad Hatters. Founded in 2010 by Stetson University Master of Fine Arts (MFA) alumnus, Ryan Rivas, this literary publisher produces award-winning collections of poetry and prose which, in the words of Rivas, include, but are certainly not limited to, “absurdist short stories about fatherhood, retellings of fairy tales in Florida folklore, the queering of the Florida man myth in poetry form,” in print and online through the BP Review. Burrow Press partners with Stetson University by providing MFA and undergraduate students a comprehensive overview of the literary publishing industry, what it looks like to edit a manuscript and publish a book, and how to participate in the local literary community as educated literary citizens through readings, discussions and creative writing publishing projects. These experiential learning opportunities patch the educational gap between the theory and the practice of publishing at Stetson University.
Curiouser and Curiouser
In 2019, Burrow Press was in search of a new home, fresh soil to settle in where the literary publisher could focus on publishing while continuing to serve the larger literary community. As an alumnus, Rivas swiftly recognized that Stetson’s MFA program “did not have a literary magazine or literary press at all,” Rivas said, “and so we kind of were fit into a missing piece that was waiting to be filled” Rivas said. Now, Burrow Press’s affiliation with Stetson University allows students who are curious about publishing firsthand learning opportunities in abundance.
“One of the values of the press being at the university isn’t to publish students or faculty,” Rivas specified, “but to be, particularly for the MFA program… a publishing resource.” Students in the MFA program attend quarterly panels on publishing where they may engage with guest professionals and ask questions about publishing in their field of focus, poetry or prose. Burrow Press also hosts an annual “submission party” for creative writing-inclined students who are not necessarily looking to publish but hoping to learn etiquette for submitting pieces to the publishing world. “Students can come and ask questions about what editors are looking for, how they submit their work, and how they figure out where they want to send their work,” Rivas said. For intrigued undergraduates, Rivas teaches a class called Workshop in Literary Citizenship and Publishing, every fall semester.
Outside of the classroom, students can volunteer for Burrow Press. After going through the publishing panel and submissions party, MFA students traditionally help to screen submissions, proofread, and edit issues for Burrow Press’s online literary magazine, the BP Review, according to Rivas. “So, it’s not like, ‘oh, here, just immediately do this.’ Anyone who decides to volunteer will get a background orientation on how things work and how we do things, and then they’ll get their assignments and go do them,” Rivas encouraged. There is no getting lost on this rabbit trail.
Going Back to Burrow Press’s Roots
A little over 15 years ago, “Burrow Press started as a publisher that became more responsive to the local literary community,” Rivas said. He and co-founder Jana Waring originally hoped that Burrow Press would help them to meet like-minded writers from Central Florida. Even the literary publisher’s name had what Rivas described as a “mundane and silly” origin story. Amidst a brainstorm of other ideas, Rivas “asked Jana what her favorite writer was… and she said, ‘Augustine Burroughs,’ who was a memoirist at the time, [and] had a popular book out,” Rivas began. “I was like, ‘Okay, Burroughs… Well, what about Burrow [Press]? …And we’ll spell it like ‘burrow’?’”
It was not until Rivas and Waring decided they would publish an anthology of ten fictional short stories by Florida writers and host an event celebrating that Burrow Press blossomed into so much more. “A bunch of people came out. We did not expect that,” Rivas admitted with a chuckle. “Writers came out, their friends came out – their friends happened to also be writers. They understood what a literary press did, and there really wasn’t one in Orlando and there hadn’t really been one, and so this community formed around this first book.”
Inspired by this community, Rivas invented a retrospective rationale for Burrow Press’s name: “Writers are known to kind of burrow themselves away. Reading and writing are both solitary practices, but we were so community engaged. I always thought, ‘well, you can’t burrow very far in Florida before hitting water,’ so you’re forced out into the world… creating this literary community and these events and things around the publishing company as well.”
Sowing Seeds at Stetson University
Not only has Burrow Press’ collaboration with Stetson University fostered flowering relationships with the Master of Fine Arts program, English and Creative Writing departments and the Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center, but it has also created a literary community of knowledge amongst students and professors that Rivas confessed was lacking in his education.
“Many, many, many years ago, I felt the ‘what to do after graduating with my creative writing degree’” angst, “and what the publishing world looked like was very opaque and mysterious. I didn’t get any practical real-world experience or advice,” Rivas said. “With Burrow Press being at Stetson, I really get to, in a more consistent and formal way, peel back the curtain of what publishing is to both the MFA and the undergraduate students via my class, and that’s really rewarding to me because it is something I never felt I had when I was an undergrad.”
Rivas’s philosophy for students interested in publishing is simple: “You have to start somewhere, right? And you should probably start where you’re at.” Unearth the publishing wonderland at Stetson University with Burrow Press.