Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David A. Romero of El Martillo Press. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

David A. Romero of El Martillo Press, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

Right before starting El Martillo Press with my co-founder Matt Sedillo, I did some work typesetting, copy editing, and doing cover design for Edward Vidaurre of FlowerSong Press. This experience was foundational for me in getting El Martillo Press off the ground.

With FlowerSong, I had the honor of formatting three important books: AFRICANAMERICAN’T by Ayokunle Falomo, Libro centroamericano de los muertos / Central American Book of the Dead by Balam Rodrigo as translated by Dan Bellm, and Wildflowers for the Bullies by Michael Rothenberg (the great poet and activist’s final work). Each experience held its different challenges, from highly-stylized formatting, to breaking up poems in English and Spanish so pages could match each other side by side. These were challenges that stretched the limits of my abilities and pushed me towards learning new skills in order to execute each poet’s vision for their books.

Years ago, I formatted my own books: Diamond Bars: The Street Version and Fuzhou, published by Dimlights Publishing. I was self-taught, and often, instead of learning how to do certain things like making a table of contents or alternate between numbered and unnumbered pages in a manuscript properly, I would develop my own solutions. In later years I utilized my formatting skills for other projects for Dimlights Publishing, for Say WordLA, for the Los Angeles Public Library, and for various departments and organizations at colleges and universities. However, in all of that time I didn’t think about the possibility of publishing books for other authors on a consistent basis.

The experience of working on such special projects for FlowerSong Press and seeing the quality of the books I was producing instilled the confidence within me that I could play the vital role of editor-in-chief of a new press and help authors, some relatively early in their careers, along with world-renowned veterans, publish their books.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

El Martillo Press publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo Press proactively publishes writers looking to pound the pavement to promote their work and the work of their fellow pressmates. There is strength in El Martillo. Founded in Los Angeles in 2023 by Matt Sedillo and, myself, David A. Romero, and launched with a diverse group of celebrated and hardworking writers who embody our working-class intellectual spirit, El Martillo Press maintains an editorial board that makes its selections for publishing.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

That’s the tension – – a tension – – with us. Many of our authors with El Martillo are blue-collar authors; especially Ceasar K. Avelar (God of the Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems). That’s our identity: as a press for working writers. Our authors write at work, they write about work.

Paul S. Flores, Donato Martinez, and Flaminia Cruciani work in higher education, both full-time and part-time. Margaret Elysia Garcia teaches poetry through a nonprofit. Co-founder Matt Sedillo is both a touring poet and a regular instructor at prisons and juvenile detention centers.

For myself, I’ve sacrificed opportunities for more steady and comfortable employment in order to pursue opportunities as a poet. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had periods in which I was living as a working poet; a traveling artist; a working creative. But I’ve also had long gaps between tours and contracts. That has necessitated a lot of gig work and blue-collar work as well.

The frustrations that come from work, the blood, sweat, and tears, the stories from work, the friendships we form, they inspire our writing and provide our drive to better ourselves and our communities. Whenever I think of some of my co-workers at my last non-creative, “regular” jobs, workers who were former addicts, workers who were poor, workers who were undocumented, workers who were being cheated by their employers, it motivates me to work harder as an artist and a publisher. It motivates me to succeed so we can tell more and more of these stories.

I would love it if there were more grants, more libraries, more community centers, and many more bookstores to make this work easier. Bookstores are the lifeblood of writers. They are our distribution. They are how our work both grows, and remains, without us. They are absolutely vital. We need to fight against book deserts in some communities. We need to come together as a society and promote literacy alongside live performance. We need to ensure that no city is without a bookstore or library.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

We are a working-class, internationalist and Leftist press. As stated in our mission statement we publish authors who are intentionally political in their work, some who have a history in organizing various grassroots political groups.

We’re also driven by our Latinx identity. Matt Sedillo and I are both Chicano. Four out of our first five authors are Latinx. El Martillo means “the hammer” in Spanish. We were inspired by FlowerSong Press and their mission to publish voices from the borderlands. We saw the importance of growing a press across the country, and world, that highlighted Latinx authors; especially when many of the majors are ignoring our growing community.

We hope to publish authors of many different identities and perspectives, but we will always be known for publishing Latinx authors with a history of speaking to issues of racism, classism, colonialism, gentrification, police brutality, labor exploitation, war, and poverty.

I’d also like for our press to be seen as a beacon in the literary world for what is possible when writers and publishers do whatever they can for each other; team up like the Wu-Tang Clan, to help each other succeed; to be greater together.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elmartillopress.com
• Instagram: @elmartillopress
• Facebook: @elmartillopress
• Twitter: @elmartillopress
• Youtube: @elmartillopress

Image Credits
Images captured from video recorded by Scott Hernandez