LitFest: The Art of Publishing & Community Solidarity

SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 2026 | 11-12:15 PM

TULSA ARTIST FELLOWSHIP FLAGSHIP | 112 N. BOSTON AVE • TULSA, OK

The University of Tulsa, in partnership with LitFest, Art Directors Club, and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, presents Publishing from the Ground Up, a symposium about independent publishing and the creative communities it sustains. Join us on Saturday, April 25, for two roundtable conversations and a workshop with creatives who are working at the forefront of literary and art publishing across the US.

The second panel in the Publishing From the Ground Up symposium is moderated by M. Wright, and will feature graphic designers who publish in collaboration with artists and activists: James Ewald (partner at Velvet Jam Press, publisher of Meta Flop, and co-organizer of the Oklahoma City Art Book Fair), Eric Von Haynes (founder of Flatlands Press, president of Chicago Printers Guild, and co-owner of Quimby’s Bookstore, Chicago), Emily Larned (founder of Alder & Frankia Press, co-founder of Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts, and book arts instructor at the Women’s Studio Workshop, Bridgeport, CT), and Jimmy Van Luu (co-founder of the design studio Group Project, and its publishing division Riso Riso, Austin). The two panel discussions will be followed by a hands-on bookbinding workshop.

PUBLISHING FROM THE GROUND UP

Full Schedule

9:30 AM - 10:50 AM |

11:00 AM –12:15 PM |

1:30 PM –3:00 PM |

ABOUT LITFEST TULSA

Tulsa LitFest brings together diverse literary artists and writers to collaborate and inspire, enriching the Tulsa community. The free festival includes events ranging from open mic nights and live readings to a small press book fair and a jazz show, presented in a variety of bookstores, taprooms and museums near downtown. Tulsa LitFest is presented by the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa, Whitty Books, Tri-City Collective, and Fulton Street Books and Coffee and is supported by Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

ABOUT THE MODERATORS:

M. Wright is an associate professor of graphic design and creative director of TU’s Third Floor Design Studio. She received her MFA in visual communication design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, after an undergraduate degree in comparative literature at Princeton University. Over the past 20 years, she has built a creative practice that specializes in collaborations with artists and cultural institutions. Her design work has garnered national and international awards, and has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, and Barcelona. Her work is in permanent collections including the National Design Archives, the Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at Columbia University, and the Artists’ Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is co-founder of the queer-feminist art and design collective AK/OK, whose work has been presented at venues including the Brooklyn Museum, Oakland Museum of California, Bishopsgate Institute (London), SOMA (Mexico City), and Stockholm University of the Arts. As co-director of OK Stamp Press based in Tiotià:ke, Montreal, she investigates artistic publishing practices with an emphasis on social justice and sustainable production methods.

Matt Carney is the Editor-In-Chief of The Pick Up. He was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and has worked as an editor, reporter and nonprofit manager since earning his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. He has contributed writing to Outside, This Land, The Tulsa Voice, KOSU, Oklahoma Gazette, Tulsa World and The Oklahoman. He now lives in midtown with his wife, daughter and son.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Boris Dralyuk is a poet, translator, and critic. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA, and has taught there and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He currently teaches in the English Department at the University of Tulsa. His work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Republic, London Review of Books, The Guardian, Granta, and other journals. He is the author of My Hollywood and Other Poems (Paul Dry Books, 2022) and Western Crime Fiction Goes East: The Russian Pinkerton Craze 1907-1934 (Brill, 2012), editor of 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution (Pushkin Press, 2016), co-editor, with Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski, of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2015), and translator of Isaac Babel, Andrey Kurkov, Maxim Osipov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and other authors. He received first prize in the 2011 Compass Translation Award competition and, with Irina Mashinski, first prize in the 2012 Joseph Brodsky / Stephen Spender Translation Prize competition. In 2020 he received the inaugural Kukula Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Book Reviewing from the Washington Monthly. In 2022 he received the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize from the National Book Critics Circle for his translation of Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees. In 2024 he received a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2024-2026 Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Formerly the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, he is currently the editor-in-chief of Nimrod International Journal.

ABOUT TULSA ARTIST FELLOWSHIP

Established in 2015, was created as a place-based initiative by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) that addresses pressing challenges faced by contemporary artists and arts workers living in and joining Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa Artist Fellowship believes the arts are critical to advancing cultural citizenship and supports community-invested practitioners who intentionally engage with our city. Our exhibitions and events are free, documented, and archived.

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

accommodates wheelchairs and strollers. Variable seating is provided, along with areas for distanced standing and wheelchairs. Family-scale private washrooms are available to support visitors with disabilities and caregivers who need access to increased square footage and changing tables.

Tulsa Artist Fellowship strives to provide a welcoming and accessible experience. All exhibitions and events are free, documented, and archived.

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Host or Publisher Tulsa Artist Fellowship