About
“All publishers are a race inhuman, set apart, flourishing in wickedness, but probably doomed to eternal fires.”
— Angela Thirkell, High Rising (1933).
From Beyond Press is a new independent publishing imprint founded by Michael W. Phillips Jr. It specializes in horror, science fiction, contemporary fantasy, poetry, and reprints of forgotten works.
Editor/Publisher
Michael W. Phillips Jr. (he/him) is a writer, editor, filmmaker, film curator, bookseller, and publisher based on the south side of Chicago. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Grievous Angel and Disturbed Digest and is forthcoming from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. and he is the co-author of the nonfiction book Gold: Nature and Culture (with Rebecca Zorach, Reaktion Books, 2016). He has been an editor and proofreader for more than twenty years, and he is an active member of the Horror Writers Association. He also worked in Chicago’s film exhibition industry for almost two decades. He creates found-footage music videos for Chicago-based bands, and his short documentaries about Chicago artists and musicians have screened around North America and Europe.
So-called AI Policy
From Beyond Press is entirely opposed to so-called artificial intelligence or large language models. We will not use it in any form for any part of our publishing process, including promotion. Humans read the slush pile, humans edit and proofread, humans create the cover art, humans create the promotional materials. You put your human heart into your work, and you deserve the same level of respect.
We will not publish any work that was created using AI (although tools like spelling and grammar checks are acceptable). We will strive to avoid publishing anything by authors who have admitted to using AI in any part of their writing process. (We have a list. Other publishers have lists. We talk to each other.) If an author is revealed to have used AI in the creation of something we published, we will immediately remove it from circulation, whatever the cost.
Giving Back
A portion of sales from Maud Lavin’s novel Mermaids and Lazy Activists: A Lake Michigan Tale will be donated to the nonprofit FLOW: For Love of Water.
10% of net sales of Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories will be donated to Brave Space Alliance.
10% of net sales of Jennifer Lee Rossman’s Allosaurus in Wonderland will be donated to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
Land Acknowledgement
From Beyond Press is located on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. The region has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. Today, one of the largest urban American Indian communities in the United States resides in Chicago. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways.
We realize that words without action are meaningless. Our small action is to host websites for Native American writers. If you’re interested in taking part in this program, please email the address at the bottom of this page.
