WELCOME TO THE BRIDGE BOOKS HOMEPAGE a book publishing division of Bridge
LAUNCHED IN 2022, Bridge Books was founded with the belief that books are the vascular systems of democracy, delivering the intellectual oxygen required for a body politic to actively, inclusively, effectively self-govern and thrive. Bridge Books strives to provide that oxygen through publication of interventionist titles in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art, architecture, dance, couture, cinema, and the broad spectrum other artistic disciplines and related interests as defined by the concerns of the Bridge collective of artists, including work by its members, as well as new, relevant and vital voices when encountered.
News of upcoming Bridge Books and StepSister Press titles, calls for submission and more will be made through our newsroom page. You can also subscribe to our newsletter for news and other Bridge-related announcements, including calls for submission.
Bridge is a proud member of the following alliances:
New & Upcoming
BRIDGE BOOKS: “SURVIVING THE LONG WARS” Co-edited by Aaron Hughes, Ronak K. Kapadia, Therese Quinn, Meranda Roberts, and Amber Zora
Surviving the Long Wars offers a groundbreaking exploration into the complex histories of US warfare and militarism, illuminating the pivotal role of art in cultivating justice, healing, and abolition. Inspired by Indigenous responses to the “American Indian Wars” and artists from the Greater Middle East and South Asia challenging the “Global War on Terror,” this volume examines the intersections between these legacies of creative rebellion and the experiences of contemporary Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) veterans. Informed by the emerging Veteran Art Movement and its ties to global struggles for demilitarization and abolition, the book advocates for solidarity and imaginative resistance against war and empire.
Featuring poetry, speeches, and artworks from the 2023 Veteran Art Triennial & Summit held in Chicago, the collection exemplifies the Triennial’s profound impact and critical legacy. With interdisciplinary insights spanning Native and Indigenous Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Museum and Exhibition Studies, Surviving the Long Wars celebrates Chicago’s legacy of resistance, while confronting erasures of Indigenous history. Renowned contributors such as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Laleh Khalili, Kyle T. Mays, and Junaid Rana offer fresh perspectives on the enduring impacts of US militarism and the potential for unexpected coalitions to emerge. At its core, Surviving the Long Wars is a clarion call for artists, organizers, and scholars to unite against US imperialism, envisioning a future of peace and justice through art and collective action.
SURVIVING THE LONG WARS is organized by Aaron Hughes, Ronak K. Kapadia, Therese Quinn, Joseph Lefthand, Amber Zora, and Meranda Roberts, with support from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Institute for the Humanities Innovation grant, UIC Award for Creative Activity, Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, Newberry Library, DEMIL Art Fund, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Dialogues on the Experience of War Grant. NEH Veteran Fellows include Gina Herrera, Monty Little, Gerald Sheffield, Anthony Torres, Eric Perez, and Natasha Erskine.
BRIDGE BOOKS: “The Genocide House” by Robert Kloss
The Genocide House by Robert Kloss
In The Genocide House—the American—maelstrom—The world—delirium—
Villages—slaughtered and burned—Cities eradicated—in atomic flame—
Young women lie—yearning—in valleys—incinerated—
Dying men—dream of war—murder—Their—dreams of blood pooling—Their dreams—of bodies—posed—erotic—
Visions of flame—Clouds atomic—rising and swallowing—cities—Television screens—winking and shimmering—visions of flame—clouds—atomic—
Aged women—their recollections—sweltering—
Young men—languid—vile—Licking—devouring—Their humid minds—shimmer with—war—murder—Dreams of blood—pooling—Their bodies—posed—erotic—
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Power/Potential” (2024), Edited by Therese Quinn & Miguel Limon
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Power/Potential”
Power: Having control or authority to dictate or influence people and organizations’ behavior and actions.
Potential: Having the capacity to build or develop a positive outcome in the future.
Power and the potential for power shape the relationships we have between ourselves, our institutions, and our governments. We relate these two words in this issue of Fwd: Museums to highlight how those being unjustly or unfairly treated have the potential to create their own power.
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Power/Potential” 2024 (Alternate Cover), Edited by Therese Quinn & Miguel Limon
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Power/Potential” 2024 (Alternate Cover)
Power: Having control or authority to dictate or influence people and organizations’ behavior and actions.
Potential: Having the capacity to build or develop a positive outcome in the future.
Power and the potential for power shape the relationships we have between ourselves, our institutions, and our governments. We relate these two words in this issue of Fwd: Museums to highlight how those being unjustly or unfairly treated have the potential to create their own power and invite submissions related to this theme.
BRIDGE BOOKS: “My Eyes, Your Gaze” by Darya Foroohar
Bridge serialized Darya Foroohar’s “My Eyes, Your Gaze” on social media throughout fall 2023, and in a flip-book in the Bridge Member’s Section, culminating in publication of the full graphic novella in spring / summer 2024. From the theories of urbanist Georg Simmel to the bars of rapper Megan Thee Stallion, there has been no dearth of work exploring how cultural expectations of physical presentation have shaped people’s relationships to both their bodies and those around them. My Eyes, Your Gaze is a graphic essay on the cultural perception and conception of the body, especially as it relates to gender and sexuality. Using her own experiences as a thread tying the piece together, Foroohar engages with both queer, anticolonial, and feminist theory in addition to modern pop culture to explore the ways in which the concept of the physical body is intertwined with the legacies of colonialism, misogyny, and queerphobia.
BRIDGE BOOKS: “An Archaeology of Holes” by Stacy Hardy
An Archaeology of Holes by Stacy Hardy
An Archaeology of Holes is an excavation and an evisceration of love, loneliness, alienation and what it means to be human. Working between fabulism, dark realism and autofiction, these stories propose the creative and liberatory possibilities of holes, which are everywhere: in bodies, in the ransacked earth, in erased lives and memories, in forgotten loves and lovers and the endless massacres.
“I welcome the way Stacy Hardy’s fiction gives me the shivers, disturbs my understanding of myself and the world around me. Her stories guide me, sometimes lodestar, other times mischievous will-o-wisps, always revelatory. Through lenses both forensic and fantastic, Hardy holds up to her strange light the human body and the body politic. For fans of writers like Clarice Lispector, Leonora Carrington, Rikki Ducornet, Kathryn Davis, or Carmen Maria Machado, for fans of crossing the veil to slip off their skin and dancing around in their bones, of picking through their own trash, of rediscovering themselves after despair, heartbreak, and loneliness, Archaeology of Holes is a most perfect companion.”
— Danielle Pafunda, Author of Along the Road Everyone Must Travel, Winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize
“Audacious and masterful, every story collected in Stacy Hardy’s An Archaeology of Holes delivers a new and unexpected euphoria. Each story promises intellectual enticement and emotional entanglement, brutal and ugly and real: Stacy Hardy is prophetess and I will follow her anywhere.”
— Lily Hoang, Author of Changing, Winner of the PEN Open Book Award
“These wild, weird, amazing stories create life, create the best and most vibrant art, out of the many ways that death is absorbed into our worlds, our minds, our bodies. From bullet holes to black holes, from mouth holes to safe holes to buildings with holes in their centers, Stacy Hardy’s writing blasts its way from absence into vital and unforgettable presence. When the extreme violence of misogyny and racialized capitalism becomes a normal part of our life and landscape, it is art and great writing that helps us see both our damage and our potential escape routes. Archaeology of Holes is a collection that will stay with me for a very long time.”
— Daniel Borzutzky, Author of The Performance of Becoming Human, Winner of the National Book Award
STEPSISTER PRESS: “Invitation to Tea: A Tea Project Archive & Recipe Book” Edited by Aaron Hughes & Amber Ginsburg
Invitation To Tea: A Tea Project Archive & Recipe Book
Tea is something that we all share. —Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Guantánamo torture survivor
Invitation to Tea compiles 48 tea recipes, stories, and traditions, one for each of the countries that have had citizens extralegally held at the US military prison in Guantánamo. Highlighting the resistance of the people imprisoned there—780 since 2001—the recipes are paired with images of porcelain cast Styrofoam cups inscribed with flowers, inspired by stories of these men carving into Styrofoam cups as a form of expression, survival, and resistance. Again and again, these men made a mark, created beauty, and asserted their humanity, undermining the carceral logic of Guantánamo. The tea recipes in this book, which vary from sweet and milky to astringent and spicy, are a celebration of this resistance and traditions passed down from generation to generation—traditions of comfort, medicine, generosity, and solidarity.
CONTRIBUTORS:
Michael Rakowitz, Aliya Hana Hussain, Laura Pitter, and Erika Rappaport
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Redacted” (2023), Edited by Therese Quinn & Miguel Limon: “Redacted”
FWD: Museums Journal - Redacted
A notable absence, a muting, making invisible. Redaction extends beyond the simple black squares as incomplete redactions – stamps marked with ‘deleted’ covering the text– white squares, and handmade notations.
Each black square signifies absence. It serves as a reminder for enforced forgetfulness. Uncovering the secret behind the mask and discovering the text underneath seems like a daring task, but is the redacted information really gone?
What is visible in cultural spaces, and what is invisible? In attempts to appeal to the public, what is redacted?
FWD: MUSEUMS: “Redacted” (2023), Edited by Therese Quinn & Miguel Limon: “Redacted” (Alternate Rabia Tayyabi Cover)
FWD: Museums Journal - Redacted, Alternate Rabia Tayyabi Cover
A notable absence, a muting, making invisible. Redaction extends beyond the simple black squares as incomplete redactions – stamps marked with ‘deleted’ covering the text– white squares, and handmade notations.
Each black square signifies absence. It serves as a reminder for enforced forgetfulness. Uncovering the secret behind the mask and discovering the text underneath seems like a daring task, but is the redacted information really gone?
What is visible in cultural spaces, and what is invisible? In attempts to appeal to the public, what is redacted?
BRIDGE BOOKS: Mat Rappaport, Rachel J. Webster, & Josh Honn: “Treatments 2019 / 2023”
Mat Rappaport, Rachel J. Webster & Josh Honn, “Treatments 2019 / 2023
An anthology based on the Treatments 2019 / 2023 photographic series by Rappaport, made to accompany the 2022 exhibition at Material Gallery, and as a stand-alone anthology of artistic meditations on spousal loss and grief. The volume includes an essay by Michael Workman, with poetry collections “The Well: Grief Poems,” by Rachel J. Webster, and Josh Honn’s “We Fall: Migration.”
STEPSISTER PRESS: “Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm” by Dick Farkas with drawings by M.A. Papanek-Miller and designed by Jessica Larva
Dick Farkas, M.A. Papanek-Miller & Jessica Larva, “Making Way: Sailing Into the Revolutionary Storm”
Making Way: Sailing Into The Revolutionary Storm is an adventure story that takes place on the waterways of colonial America, on a schooner (sailing ship) named Commerce. The story embraces a group of unlikely teenagers who find each other, an experienced sailor and a dog who collectively embark on a life changing journey during the political upheaval that surrounded the start of a new country.
Imprints & Affiliates
Fwd: Museums Journal strives to create a space for challenging, critiquing, and fostering new futures for cultural production within and outside of museums.
Fwd: Museums Journal is produced and edited by students at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Its home is UIC's Museum and Exhibition Studies Program and it is published by Chicago-based StepSister Press.
Click the title for the Fwd: Museum Journal’s external homepage and the logo for StepSister Press.
Hurm Editions seeks to fill a void in the current international publishing landscape. In a culture increasingly sanitized by the infringements on art of corporate norms as community standards, that helps fosters a culture of mass shootings by refusing to depict the aftermaths of our national obsession with gun violence, and that claims to celebrate sexual identity while outlawing any depictions whatsoever of sex or eroticism, Hurm Editions seeks to support work that challenges convention, pushes boundaries, and that revels in the grotesque, incoherent, offensive and obscene.
StepSister Press, an independent publishing company founded by Annie Heckman in 2007 to promote conversation on emerging art, literature, educational, and critical theory projects, became an imprint of Bridge Books in 2022. The press has coordinated projects and collaborations with artists and writers around the world, including the annual Fwd: Museums series, in partnership with the Museum and Exhibition Studies (MUSE) Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
Featured Backlist Titles
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Excavating History
Rebecca Keller started Excavating History with site-specific interventions in an anatomy theatre in Estonia in 2006. Her method has since become a course, a collective, and a series of exhibitions in historic sites in the United States and Europe. This book documents and expands on her pedagogical approaches, including numerous works from her student collaborators, and a section with advice for educators and potential excavators who want to pursue projects of their own.
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Fwd: Museums, Home (2020)
How do museums respond to the urgency of the moment?
In what ways can they be transformed to foster justice work? Fwd: Museums Journal, an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed publication, shares critical analysis, interventions, and dialogs focused on museums and other sites of cultural work. Our contributors reexamine, critique and challenge museums as socially responsive spaces.
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Perfect Worlds: Artistic Forms & Social Imaginaries, Vol. 1
Perfect Worlds: Artistic Forms & Social Imaginaries is a philosophical study of equality as binding principle by art-makers across disciplines, and how they view their work situated across unrestricted spectrums of social and ideological value. As source material for the tropes and themes of Workman’s interactionist and instructional choreographic work, they are intended as a recovery of under-represented discourses, scholarly research volumes, and critic’s “selected works.” It also aspires to trace the contours of what more life-like art may be present — or imagined — in today’s shifting social imaginaries.
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Fwd: Museums, Inaugurations (2016)
Museums, like all other social institutions, reflect the tensions and contradictions of their times. The Museum and Exhibition Studies (MUSE) Graduate Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago proposes that these museum problems are deeply seeded in the field and its professions. It’s likely that their remedies will require some equally deep — radical — change and reimagining. Responding to the urgencies of the moment and recognizing the need to transform museums and our cultural work within their spaces, MUSE offers this new journal. Fwd: Museums signals a desire to lift up and forward ideas that might push our collective thinking. This volume explores the theme of inaugurations, or firsts and beginnings, with over 20 contributions from scholars and creative practitioners.
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Sunshine Rose: What My Mother Taught Me about Aging, Alzheimer’s, and the End of Life
Camille Grafer describes the journey she and her mother took after Mama Rose was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Recalling the life of her mother — a widow raising her only child in Chicago in the 1950s — Camille tells the story of her own transitions as a caregiver. Her loving tribute is filled with strategies for how to face this illness with generosity and humor.
