This post is a part of an ongoing series highlighting the people behind the tiny presses publishing in the speculative fiction space! Today’s post is featuring Ryszard Merey of tRaum Books.
Tell me a little bit about yourself:
Well, I’m just a little guy. I’m just a birthday boy. (Sorry, I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately.) I’m an author, artist and book-designer who got fed up with the runaround of traditional publishing, so I set out to create a press that pushes the boundary of what is considered ‘publishable.’ I try hard to curate a catalogue full of interesting, challenging, risky, but also fun queer books—whether they be fantasy, extreme or lighter horror, essay, or literary fiction. What else? I live in Germany, but I grew up in the US and Hungary — I’ve lived all over and done all kinds of work over the course of the years…
Do you have a mission statement for your press?
Not really, just that our niche is no niche and that we are trying to reimagine what ‘successful’ publishing can look like, by finding our own little enclaves of writers and readers.
Tell me about one of your favorite moments in your publishing adventures.
I love the serendipitous ways I meet with our future authors. We notoriously never have submissions open, because I don’t have time to find the good ones and I don’t have money to pay someone to look. So when someone knocks on our door, it’s the shy ones who are still self-assured, because they know they’re holding something good… I’ve also done a fair share of rehoming books that have gone out of print, but shouldn’t be. So far, this system has worked out really well.
What is one of the most challenging parts of running a small press?
You are responsible for everything that normally requires a team of people with different skill sets, and you must become at least mildly competent in many things you are personally not suited to. There are a myriad moving parts and steps along the way where things can go sideways and points where you have to rely on someone or something outside of your control. As a pathological control freak, it can get a little hellish.
What is one of your favorite things about running a small press?
Realizing that every day, I get to talk to authors and designers and artists who I admire!
I’ve loved books since I was a kid. I loved getting lost in them—being front row in fucked up situations and worlds and places I could never get to and being in the heads of people I’d never meet or be. Now, I’m making books like that, standing right at the source, and since I’m first a reader, next a writer and artist, and a ‘publisher’ far last, it’s amazing and humbling!
What’s your most recent/upcoming book that you are promoting right now?
Next up, we’ve got DEMON ENGINE, by Marten Norr — a nautical (so many sea puns!!) trans post-post-POST apocalyptic fantasy with body horror elements! I’ve known Marten for a few years now and he is a talented writer who weaves so many cool and complex elements into his stories, so when he floated the concept of DEMON to me, I knew I had to publish it! I really recommend this story to anyone who can appreciate a fast-read adventure that still skillfully balances a cast of complex, complicated characters; has something engaging to say about transness, neurodivergency and Having a Body, AND lands a really satisfying ending!
Tell me five books (that you didn’t publish!) that you are in love with right now:
I just finished A Rotten Girl by J. Ursula Topaz, and it was a riot, a ‘satirical’ (scare quotes because I found it very realistic and relatable) tale of a trans woman who impersonates a male writer to make her latest book more popular. I recommend this so hard to anyone who is in the indie queer publishing scene right now.
Rainbear!!!!!!!!! by Never Angeline North. Oh damn, this book is a trip and I can’t even REALLY say what it’s about, but there is something in it when you read it, that I think will make sense to every writer and artist. It’s playful and wise, mystical, and a true gem of creation. I loved it.
Finished The Door (Az Ajto), by Szabo Magda not too long ago. She’s a Hungarian writer who writes the most vivid and fkn depressing stuff EVER. If you like vividly despairing, you must check her out.
The novella is a format and length that I personally enjoy so much and Gyre, by Dale Stromberg, was a novella I read in the past half-year with such a tight, excellent story regarding the cyclical nature of abuse… but it also weaves in a lot of interesting bits regarding musical creativity.
Last, but very not least, Trans/Rad/Fem, by Talia Bhatt, is a collection of trans feminine essays that I think it should be required reading.
What about stories that aren’t books? Are there any movies, TV shows, video games you are enjoying?
I’m the person who watches series like, a decade after everyone else watches them, so I am now getting through the last season of Twin Peaks, and I just finished playing Lisa the Painful.
Do you have a favorite local bookstore?
I live in Munich and don’t speak German well enough to read it :/ so my favorite local bookstore is a second-hand bookshop called The Munich Readery. <3 Beautiful collection of books in English and a lovely American couple who run it.
Are you currently looking for submissions? (if so, do you have a submissions page you can point me to, and/or anything in particular you are looking for?)
We are neverrrr looking for submissions, sadly. (But they find us even when we’re not looking.)
If someone wants to check out if they don’t want to submit to us, they can do so here:
https://traumbooks.com/us-in-words/
Do you have any tips for submitters?
Write what’s in your heart and write what you are afraid to say.
Do you have any tips for anyone wanting to start up their own press?
I hope you have a lot of time and sanity to spare. I recommend going slowly, so that you don’t get overwhelmed, over-promise, and then have to ditch projects or writers you ran out of steam for. I have myself also had to back out of one or two projects in the past, but it has been of a low enough margin that I believe it’s still in an acceptable range.
Take pride in your projects and do your absolute best. For me, the biggest part of small press is the trust I’ve tried to build up with writers—and the trust I’ve built up with readers, to provide a book that’s carefully made. But my favorite saying is still, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. In tiny press, we’re all working with such limited time and resources and a great book that isn’t perfect is preferable to a book never made, is also something to keep in mind.
Unrelated to anything, but two local places that I think are a little piece of heaven on earth:
A picture of King Ludwig II’s (known as the mad king or the swan king) Neuschwanstein Castle.
A picture in Munich’s botanical gardens.
Thanks so much to Ryszard for his time speaking to us! Follow tRaum Books here:
BlueSky: @traumbooks.bsky.social
Facebook: @traumbooks
or Ryszard’s personal account:
Instagram: @visserkins
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