Millions Millions • While I stared out over the acres of independent...

While I stared out over the acres of independent presses all housed in Brooklyn, there was, too, the humbling knowledge that the last thing the world needs is yet another Brooklyn press. We moved to Ohio shortly thereafter for family support in raising our daughter…There were positive aspects to being socially isolated: we were able to focus on crafting Two Dollar Radio into the publishing house we always hoped it might one day become. For a while I managed a Lebanese restaurant chain, and then I managed a frozen custard shop. I would rise early to work on Two Dollar Radio, before putting in hours scooping hummus or custard, and then come home and work more on Two Dollar Radio. To unwind after the kids were in bed, my wife Eliza and I would sit on our front porch and drink and talk about the books and the company. We no longer felt like just another Brooklyn press. I’ve thought this before; I’ve written this before: in the process of becoming what you want to be, you realize who you are. We had to move to Columbus, Ohio, in order to discover our identity as a press.

Eric Obenauf, “Dispatch from the Edge of Literary Culture.”