To those of you who stumbled upon this site in good faith—agents, editors, librarians, the occasional suspicious MFA student—and have since realized that Campo de’ Fiori Publishing is, shall we say, more theatrical flourish than legal entity: I’m sorry.

 

Truly. I never meant to mislead you. I didn’t set out to fabricate an entire literary institution, complete with a history, a staff, a submission policy, and a temperamental espresso machine. I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to impersonate the editorial board of a tiny Roman press whose logo is a flower on fire. It… just happened. Slowly, at first. A fake author bio here (and real ones), a made-up quote there. And then suddenly I had a staff of imaginary interns, a backlog of nonexistent titles, and a mailing list of real people who wanted to believe.

 

And here’s the part where I tell you why I did it.

 

I invented this publisher because the real world of publishing—the capital-W World itself—is kind of broken. Because books that are brilliant and weird and unruly don’t get the shelf space they deserve. Because real editors are overworked, underpaid, and too often forced to turn away beauty because it isn’t “marketable.” Because somewhere between the algorithms and the mergers, we stopped taking risks. We started asking if the reader would like something before we asked if it was worth reading.

 

I created this press because I wanted a place where free thought could breathe. Where a novel could be sharp and stupid and holy and angry all at once. Where the bios were weird, the interns smoked clove cigarettes, and the founder had a dog named Italo and opinions about semicolons. I created this fantasy because I wanted to believe—just for a moment—that there was a small press tucked away behind a flower stall in Rome, whispering “yes” to the books no one else would touch.

 

I know now that pretending has consequences. That some of you trusted this name, this site, this voice. And to you: I offer not just an apology, but an invitation. Don’t let the lie stop you from doing what the lie tried to make real.

 

Start your own fake press. Start a real one. Publish something too beautiful to survive on a spreadsheet. Print a manifesto on the back of a wine label. Email your friends under the name of a press that doesn’t exist yet. The truth is, everything starts with fiction.

 

And maybe—just maybe—one day Campo de’ Fiori won’t be so fake anymore. I mean, there are some real books here. You can buy them.

 

Until then, I’ll keep making things up. Because the world is too fucked up to wait for permission.

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Additionally, if you have a book you'd like to see published on this website, please let us know.

 

With all the regret, none of the shame,

—The Imaginary Editor-in-Chief

Campo de’ Fiori Publishing

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