The Underpass: markets, performances, reading and travel
What we've been up to whilst we were away, what's coming up in the near future
The Underpass is our monthly round-up, detailing what’s been happening at EXIT Press, what we’re working on, and introducing you to new artists you might not know.
Happy New Year!
We’ve been quiet for the last few weeks as we all took some time out over the festive season, but we’re keen to share a few things we’ve done while we were away, as well as giving you a taste of what to expect from EXIT Press in the next few months.
What we’ve been up to
market @ the lubber fiend
On Saturday 10th December, we had a stall at The Lubber Fiend’s market and met some fab people, spending the afternoon selling zines, drinking beer and chatting Twin Peaks to the owner.
The Lubber Fiend is a DIY music and events space in Newcastle upon Tyne opened in May 2022. They are one of the city’s newest independent small-mid sized venues, they’re a DIY music space, a bar, a radio studio and a workshop. They can be a cinema, a place to host markets, record/art fairs, talks and other performances. If you have an idea get in touch with them. they’re currently raising funds for repairs and improvements, so please check out their page here.
performance @ out of your head (christian)
On 22nd December, I got up on stage to read at Out of Your Head!’s December spoken word / poetry night on ‘past, present, and future’. OOYH is a spoken word event in Newcastle for those of us who think too much and share too little, hosted at the quaint and cosy Cumberland Arms.
kraków, coworking, cohabitation (eve)
December was a month of new things for me. I went to Krakow for the first time, with my partner, and visited the university, watched an orchestra and a pianist in a church, tried to eat at a restaurant that my Dad frequented in the 80s. They took one look at our scruffy post-3am flight selves with all of our bags and told us they were fully booked. Never mind. I tried caviar and lobster at Christmas after years of thinking they looked gross. Spoiler alert: they really weren’t. I turned 26. Not so enthused about that one.
January saw this trend of novelty continuing: I’ve been travelling into London more for work, in a swanky coworking space which calls itself “London’s first environmentally-friendly members’ club.” I started a street dance class by Covent Garden. (What the fuck? I did ballet for 14 years. I’m really bad at street dance.) I also moved in with my boyfriend, in Rochester, and transformed from a guest who spends most of their life in between houses, to a rent-paying, rota-making, grocery-ordering other half.
Rochester is beautiful - probably the best part of Medway, I hope Kieran and Christian don’t mind me saying. I’ve been enjoying finding new places to shop and walk and get lost, a yoga studio to join when my dance classes finish, a new corner shop I didn’t know existed. Oh, the joys of finding a new place and making it your home.
And, of course, I’ve been writing. For work, for fun, out of necessity. Good stuff, bad stuff. Some stuff I look forward to sharing with you soon. Stay safe out there, folks. Happy January.
reading is hard but worthwhile (kieran)
Look, I know it sounds stupid considering we’re a publisher, but it’s really hard to find the time to read, let alone read regularly. I’ve been trying to change that recently.This past month, I’ve read Assembly by Natasha Brown, Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt, and Boy Parts by Eliza Clark. It’s hard to pin down, but somehow these three books all share a similar vibe, exploring contemporary life from the perspective of narrators who are (I guess?) all millenials. All three books are pretty different, but to me they all feel as if they’re exploring what it means live your formative years through relentless, accelerated capitalism, heightened fascism, deepening racism and xenophobia, and renewed forms of misogyny and transphobia. They’re all deeply of our present moment, I think, in a way that most things I’ve read haven’t been, unless they’re gesturing wildly towards the existence of social media or the fact Brexit or the pandemic happened.
The best part of this, despite reading books published by other indie presses (Tell Me I’m Worthless is published by Cipher Press, Boy Parts is published by Influx Press) is that the use of thriller/horror conventions in those books has really kickstarted my own writing again. I’ve never been that much of a prose person, but I’ve started writing something that feels like it’s coming together a lot more any other prose I’ve written before. A self-indulgent excerpt for you:
Most of the time it’s bid-up.tv or price-drop.tv, but sometimes mum puts QVC on and you enjoy its flashiness, its inaccessibility, a little more. They really put the effort in to talk you through the product in depth, to show you around, rather than keep the price going up or down. Mum never buys anything from them anyway. QVC or the other ones. So you don’t really know why she watches them, all day, but it’s either that or Jeremy Kyle and Loose Women and even at thirteen, you know they are fanning the flames of a fire steadily burning the edges of the country.
Also I went to Paris and saw some art. I had to say this so that I could use the picture.
What’s in the pipeline
On Saturday 28th January, we’ll be back at The Lubber Fiend’s market in Newcastle throughout the afternoon to sling zines and make friends.
We have a steady stream of art to be delivered to your inbox twice weekly. Many thanks to all those who submitted - we’ve sent acceptance emails out for the next month or so of content, with more to come. If you haven’t heard anything yet, thanks for being patient and we hope to get to you soon. We are still (and always) open for submissions. See below for details:
We’re currently collaborating with a a small number of authors and artists on new physical work. All of these are in early stages, but expect to hear more from behind the scenes of the writing and production process of these soon.
Keep an eye out for next month’s edition of The Underpass for more news about LOST FUTURES.
Sale continues!
We’ve been doing this for two years now, and only our first issue has sold out. We’d really like to stop hoarding our stock, so we cordially invite you to the buy all our shit so we can get our shelves back sale!
We’re extending our sale, so that you can get everything we’ve ever made* for £15. Or, if you’ve recently found us through thresholds, you can get all of the back issues* for £10.
For £15, you’re going to get LOST FUTURES volumes 2,3, and 4, and We can collect the keys by Clive Judd and Patrick Wray. That’s 224 pages of art and writing from almost 75 different artists and authors. 6p a page or 20p an artist, take your pick.
This is the most we’ve ever discounted our stock, and we don’t anticipate doing it again any time soon, so help a small press out and buy all our shit. Or buy the full works* for a friend who would love our flavour of weird.