Last semester Safa received a small grant through CRE2 to start a small press in collaboration with Eli Ball, a local bookmaker in St. Louis. After months of editing and book design, their first publication is now available for pre-order. They will publish internationally acclaimed poet and translator Ariel Francisco's new chapbook My Sleep Paralysis Demon Kisses Me Goodnight on 15 August 2025.
Ariel Francisco Henriquez Cos is the author of All the Places We Love Have Been Left in Ruins (Burrow Press, 2024), Under Capitalism If Your Head Aches They Just Yank Off Your Head (Flowersong Press, 2022), A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020), and All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017) which was named one of the 8 Best Latino Books of 2017 by Rigoberto Gonzalez. He is also the translator of Haitian-Dominican poet Jacques Viau Renaud’s Poet of One Island (Get Fresh Books, 2024), Guatemalan poet Hael’s Lopez’s Routines/Goodbyes (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022), and Colombian poet Carolina Sanchez’s Viaje/Voyage (Editorial Ultramarina, 2020). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he was raised in Miami and completed his MFA in Poetry at Florida International University and an MFA in Literary Translation at Queens College CUNY. He was named one of the Five Florida Writers to Watch in 2019 by The Miami New Times and one of the 6 Guatemalan Authors You Should Know in 2021 by the Latino Book Review. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Yorker Podcast, Poetry Magazine, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Rumpus, The New York City Ballet, Performance Today, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Louisiana State University.
Those interested can view information about the book and order a copy on the press website, linked here.
