Bored Wolves

Every Bored Wolves book as of this moment in June. Full list of poets, artists, and poet-artists at boredwolves.com/booklist. / #artistbook #zine #poetrybook #chapbook #comix #printedmatter #bookcover #coverdesign #independentpublishing #indiepublishing #boredwolves

Bored Wolves table w/ @joannaboredwolf this weekend at Under the Leaf Art Book Fair in Helsinki. The fair is co-organized by the dream duo of @the.temporary.bookshelf (Hikari Nishida) & @fetiche.editions (Sara Blosseville) and taking place at one of our Helsinki harbors, @kohtataidehalli Saturday+Sunday 12–6. Helsinki has become a hub for us in the magical way that independent publishing can weave a surprisingly dense web in places one previously had limited connection to: @asanumamisa (“Hem”) @hkorpak (“Hands & Feet of Friends & Family”) @oscarchanyiklong (“Melted Stars”; “My Body Is Populated By Organs,” 2024) @minjee.grasshopper (artist’s book for 2024) & graphic designer @oottttoohheennrriikk are all based in, or have been based in, Helsinki. Our books can be found at Kohta as well as @hippolytegallery @amosrexshop and @nidekauppa beginning next week. Such great gossamer. #undertheleaf #artbookfair #bookfair #zinefest #artistbook #zine #poetry #book #printedmatter #bookcover #coverdesign #kohtakunsthalle #helsinki #independentpublishing #indiepublishing #boredwolves

Hello! We generally prefer to remain in the background behind the books and our collaborators—the brilliant poets, artists, and graphic designers from eighteen different countries we’ve been blessed to work with—but just a brief introduction as we have many new readers who have learned about the press the best way: by happening upon our titles in indie bookstores. Originally based on a mountaintop and now settled in Kraków, Bored Wolves is run by the two of us, Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti and Stefan Lorenzutti, in our spare hours, which tend to be witching ones. Technically speaking the press has zero full-time employees, but we seek to offset this with our book-shaping and publishing experience (thirty years combined extending back to Warsaw and Brooklyn days), the recruitment of Swiss-army-knife teams for each project, and the focused insanity in our eyeballs. Once upon a time Bored Wolves was a book every few years; now it’s ten to twenty publications a year. Still, the goal is to work on each book *as if* it’s the only one we’re putting out in a given year. At the same time, we’re deeply curious about the ways the works in our catalogue—which is to say the printed concerns and experiences of our authors—end up dialoguing across genres, mediums, and time zones. And this is why we’re never bored, though once I was. That was a long time ago now, but the “Bored” stays in the press name as a reminder never to take for granted the community-based obliteration of inertia by bookish collaboration and sharing via shelves. #publishing #independentpublishing #indiepublishing #boredwolves

Fresh artist’s book: “Soft Spot” by @mkacperak Michalina Kacperak, a Bored Wolves and @jednostkagallery JEDNOSTKA co-edition, boxed and bilingual. A hybrid photobook with embedded nutshell zines, “Soft Spot” is photographs, project sketches, and text by Michalina Kacperak, twined with pencil and marker drawings, mini zines, and a tale by Zosia Kacperak. Through family portraits, fantastical scenography taken seriously as play, marginalia, and sheaves of drawings, “Soft Spot” chronicles the efforts of the Polish artist’s younger sister, Zosia, to weave a bedroom cocoon for herself within a family apartment in which the poison of paternal alcoholism “leaks into more than one liver.” Zosia, insulating her habitat with stuffed animals, turns her bedroom walls into cave paintings of cartoon characters while seeking an escape from the labyrinth through storytelling. Michalina, in the role of artist-as-big-sister and de facto guardian in a context of parental codependency, collaborates with her whole, recovering family to assemble photographic sets—Seussian safe-rooms cushioned by polychromatic putty and ponies, in which rocks are allies, molecules glitter, and doodling is fundamental. Each copy of “Spot Spot” is tucked into a cardboard box with embossed title. The boxes are a tribute to the shoeboxes and biscuit tins chock-full of talismans that a child keeps under their bed. Those sacrosanct archives of childhood. × “Soft Spot” is by Michalina Kacperak with Zosia Kacperak / a Bored Wolves and JEDNOSTKA Gallery co-edition / first edition of 1,000 copies / developed from exhibition form by Michalina Kacperak and @sagatowska Katarzyna Sagatowska / designed by @kajagliwa Kaja Gliwa / root design @tapir_book_design Ania Nałęcka-Milach / printed offset in Kraków on Magno Volume, Lux Cream, and Curious Metallics Rose Gold at Drukarnia Know-How / box by Opakowania Wykwintne. × “Soft Spot” was co-financed by the @kultura_gov_pl Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, the @mickiewicz_institute Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and the @polish_culture Polish Cultural Institute in London.

Fresh artist’s book coming this month: @katybentall Katy Bentall’s “For the Love of Seasticks” (Bored Wolves 58), ink-dipped stick drawings with poetry—of processual wandering and curiosity’s cartography—from the author of “Greenwriting” (BW16). In “For the Love of Seasticks,” Katy Bentall steps out of her cottage to meander the East Anglian fishing hamlet of Felixstowe Ferry and its environs on the Deben Estuary. Her field equipment: a pot of ink and a flotsam stick for drawing, the latter selected from the artist’s collection. Maybe on this day she’s chosen her favorite. Pursuing the logic of whims, she might weave between the Ferry’s not-one-but-two cafes, the fishmonger’s shed, and plenty of signage bearing weighty pronouncements; or into the boatyard, past the harbor master’s hut, riversea in sight; or along the coastal trail to the shingle beach, where sea cabbages congregate. Wherever she goes, Katy rapidly sketches, her stick a recording device twirled into action by the artist, herself twirled into action by the ink-dipped stick, the two snagging as much as possible of the all-consuming end of the salty eroding world. × “For the Love of Seasticks” is Katy Bentall drawings and poems. Edition of 500, edited by @niedzielart Marysia Niedziela and @stefan6bpencil Stefan Lorenzutti, designed by @pilarrojo.es Pilar Rojo, artwork prepared for offset by @lastriko Damian Nowak, out this month of May. #DebenEstuary #DebenEstuarywildlife #FelixstoweFerry

Two Bored Wolves books have been nominated for the Most Beautiful Polish Books 2025 awards @themostbeautifulpolishbooks of the Polish Association of Book Publishers: “The Edge of the Vessel at the Height of My Mouth” by @alicja_bielawska Alicja Bielawska (above right), nominated in the artbook category, designed by @pilarrojo.es Pilar Rojo with @stefan6bpencil Stefan Lorenzutti, printed on @munkenpaper Munken Print Cream and Pure Rough; and “Sleigh Ride” by @joeafletcher Joe Fletcher with artwork by @mikolaj__moskal Mikołaj Moskal, nominated in the literature category, designed by @lastriko Damian Nowak, printed on @munkenpaper Munken Print Cream and Pure Rough. Production-wise, both books were coordinated by BWolves co-publisher Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti, and brought into paper-cut existence at Drukarnia Know-How here in Kraków. #themostbeautifulpolishbooks #najpiekniejszepolskieksiazki #bookdesign #independentpublishing #boredwolves

Campsite of Bored Wolves books in Warsaw @ujazdowski.ksiegarnia bookshop—an eclectically curated smorgasbord of indie printed matter—within @u_jazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (CSW). Clockwise from tablecloth cover in the center: [ ] @anna_orlowska “Warm Mother Cold Mother” (📷 above by Anna O) [ ] spine of Alex @rossiter85 “Notes from a Polish Allotment” [ ] #IngoGiezendanner “Kitchen” [ ] @pawel_olszczynski “Braid vs Chain” [ ] @antonina.gugala “Running to the Sun” [ ] Helen @hkorpak “Hands & Feet of Friends & Family” [ ] @katybentall “Greenwriting” [ ] @alicja_bielawska “The Edge of the Vessel at the Height of My Mouth” Graphic designers: @kajagliwa / @pilarrojo.es & @stefan6bpencil / #IngoGiezendanner / @lastriko / @nicole.salnikov / @oottttoohheennrriikk / @pilarrojo.es ×2 w/ @stefan6bpencil And eagerly anticipating our return to @u_jazdowski for the spring edition of Nobody Reads This art book fair, organized by CSW’s @arletta.wojtala & co., which will run from May 22–24 (applications close Monday).

Time to quest! Indie artbook fairs beckon for Bored Wolves this spring: Los Angeles, Madrid, Florence, Warsaw, Helsinki, Bergen, Malmö, Jersey City, and Cape Town. Details to come about the when and the where through Stories. In the meantime, the airing of satchel, duffel, totes, and tablecloth. Memories of fairs past, when magic magicked; curiosity about fairs to come, mutual discoveries on the horizon. The miraculous satisfaction of selling poetry to buy food and drink in a distant city. The zine and the zephyr.

Eight interconnected Bored Wolves books, the catalytic flow linked here by string: × the nucleus is @tamarapekala Sevinç Çalhanoğlu’s “A Promenade at Home” (BW7), translated from the Turkish by @aycaykarsu + @cansbittabi with cover painting by @urununal Ürün Ünal and design by @lastriko Damian Nowak × Sevinç’s “Promenade” was preceded by her zine “My Life in Curves Recently” (BW5), also with @lastriko graphic design × Sevinç, the third bored wolf, then introduced me to her fellow Istanbul poet @efemurad Efe Murad, author of “The Pleasures of Empty Lots: Scenes of Istanbul 2015–2016” (BW8), with cover artwork by @canaytekins Can Aytekin and design by @pilarrojo.es Pilar Rojo × Sevinç and Efe both introduced me to their fellow Istanbul poet @selcanpeksan Selcan Peksan, author of “Slippage” (BW28), translated from the Turkish by Anna Wood, with artwork by @majadanekova Maja Daneková, again with @lastriko design × Efe then introduced me to poet @joannaburdzel Joanna Burdzel, whose collection “Exorcisms: The Songs of Echo” (BW56) is freshly published, with cover artwork by @marta.niedbal_qosma Marta Niedbał and design by Sevinç × along the way, Sevinç introduced me to artist Seçil Koman, author of “The Endless Loop in My Mind” (BW21), translated from the Turkish by Anna Wood, edited and designed by Sevinç × I also met Turkish poet e. irem az through, shockingly, Sevinç, with Irem’s “The Blond Daisy” (BW54) coming out last year, with cover art by Seçil and design by Sevinç × and then, looping back, it was through Sevinç and Selcan that I befriended Istanbul poet-artist @anitasezgener Anita Sezgener, co-author, with her daughter Alina Asan, of “She Threw the Rope & Pulled the Lake” (BW9), designed by @lastriko ~ Anita’s partner, Uygar Asan, is also the publisher of Nod, from whose chapbooks by Sevinç and Selcan we translated and expanded “A Promenade at Home” and “Slippage” (Nod has also published Irem) × lastly, for the moment, the snippet of string heading north from “Promenade” leads to a pair of forthcoming 2026 BWolves books: @wmcisnowhere Wah-Ming Chang and Shih-Ming Chang’s “Hand, Held,” and @merydon Mariadonata Villa’s “Fireflies,” both designed by Sevinç

All kinds of appreciation to @__turnusy Turnusy here in Kraków for consistently and carefully stocking Bored Wolves books & zines, FACE OUT, these past three years since we shifted back from the mountain. I was weird and random when I originally dropped in off the street with a bundle of BW books asking if there might be some space for them even if, at the time, Turnusy didn’t stock books (now they have an excellent curated section with @wydawnictwokarakter et al.), being primarily dedicated to design objects with a focus on ceramics and textile. I love having BWolves publications in design shops that don’t generally carry books because I’m interested in what happens when somebody enters a shop not thinking “book” but then sees, picks up, feels, smells, and!—opens a book. And, after a Georgia O’Keeffe monograph and exhibition catalogue, both from the 1980s, my most cherished objects are ceramic mugs, Noguchi lamps, tea towels that are too nice to use so I hang them on the wall, etc. Ascending happiness, therefore, when I visit Turnusy’s ulica Smoleńsk + Krakowska shops (above) and “I spy” our books among many of my favorite Kraków designers like @pat_guzik and between categories of trustworthy nouns like thermos and fanny pack.

Bored Wolves from log cabin to palace last autumn. @conrad.festival Conrad Festival let me into @palacpotockichkrakow to deliver a storytelling-lecture, “Bored Wolves as Melting Pot Publisher in a City of Mixed-up Literature” (abstract below), a weave of bookish vignettes about being a Kraków-based poet-publisher both local—pounding the cobblestones with bookshop restock boxes—and far-flung international at once. I traced the evolution of Bored Wolves from Brooklyn > Kraków > Beskid Wyspowy > back to Kraków with pivots to and through Warsaw, Istanbul, Zurich, and elsewhere. Began the evening with six-page, VII-part outline and top-to-bottom correlating stack of Bored Wolves books meticulously arranged before me. A page in I realized my outline was for a three-hour lecture. Pivoted as I went, setting in motion a mighty wind felt by sheaf and tapestry alike. Last slide: Barbara Balmas, head of @kbf.krakow literature division. Grateful to Basia for her belief in Bored Wolves as a nexus press. [ ] “Bored Wolves as Melting Pot Publisher in a City of Mixed-up Literature” Poet-publisher Stefan Lorenzutti delves into his experience of publishing English-language literature in Poland under the imprint of Bored Wolves. Established upon a Beskid mountaintop in the spirit of highland resourcefulness, Bored Wolves is now firmly embedded in Kraków, at the crossroads of intersecting cultures and languages, in a city ingrained with poetic history, and in a country of estimable traditions in printing and bookmaking. Kraków becomes the generative base from which Bored Wolves books spread across the world, onto the shelves of bookshops in thirty countries from Mexico to Turkey to Japan, and in the suitcases of Lorenzutti and his co-publisher, Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti, who travel the world to book fairs to present Bored Wolves editions, never forgetting to tell the tale of the city in which the books take shape.

Fresh cover sheet, next Bored Wolves book: @xasiaxo Joanna Burdzel’s poetry collection “Exorcisms: The Songs of Echo” (BW56), with @marta.niedbal_qosma Marta Niedbał textile “Tender Demonesses” (“Czułe demonice”) tapestried across covers from flap to flap and graphic design by @tamarapekala Sevinç Çalhanoğlu. Joanna Burdzel’s poetry collection “Exorcisms: The Songs of Echo” is a cycle of emancipatory spells of self-discovery in which the poet, alternating between English and Polish, weaves an escape from patriarchal traps. Burdzel, a scholar on the historical persecution of “witches” in Eastern Europe, attains a mythical state of release through sonic emergence.