art made with curiosity, community, and sincerity
who am i?
my name is sam. or sarah. i am the owner of chthonic press. i am a writer, game designer, and educator living in olympia, wa. i take my inspiration for this press directly from the town around me. i moved to the pacific northwest in 2024 and fell in love with the local arts scene, the way it was so intertwined with the town’s community. i started this press so that i could make art directly into and alongside my local community.
what type of art do i make?
i’m a multimedia artist. i write, design tabletop roleplaying games, and do visual art. i view art-making as a form of community-building. much of my writing and games are formally experimental, using form, structure, and language to grapple with the individual’s connection to the communities, institutions, and power structures around them.
in other words, i make art that is depressing, but also sometimes funny and absurd…art that is incidentally very difficult to explain at a ten year high school reunion.
why start a press?
i got my start as an artist in hyper-competitive environments that prioritized prestige over all else. as time went on, i found myself feeling increasingly disenchanted with the atmosphere. sometimes my work was published, sometimes not, but the whole process felt deeply impersonal and disconnected from the reasons that i initially had for wanting to make art. every possible relationship with another artist felt tainted by competitiveness.
i moved to olympia, wa in 2024 and fell in love with the local arts scene. inspired by the diy music and games scene, i started this press as a way to take agency over my own art-making process; and to create infrastructure for making art directly alongside and intertwined with my local community.
what’s the future of chthonic press?
this whole thing is an experiment! there will be quite a bit of exploration and trial and error along the way. my goal is to start publishing in 2027. i aim to release a mix of writing, games, and visual art, interspersing smaller projects (like zines) with full-length books, games, and collections.
currently i am not planning on accepting submissions. however, once i get the press off the ground, i am interested in more long-term collaborations and in promoting the work of other artists. if you have an idea, please feel free to reach out!
