The Geeky Press
The Geeky Press was as much a philosophy as it was an entity.
I launched this little group on April 3, 2014 in hopes of building a vibrant writing community in greater downtown Indianapolis. What I didn’t have was much of a plan to make that happen. I launched the website, planned a reading series called The Downtown Writers Jam, and hoped that people would come.
And show up they did. In 2017, we had more than 325 people sign up for our Indianapolis Meetup list, we had 65 people participate in at least one of our daily or weekend writing retreats, we had more than 150 people submit work for our anthology books and our literary magazine, a (semi-regular) podcast with more than 2,000 listens, and we’d set up a monthly artist networking happy hour with the Arts Council of Indianapolis.
We grew so fast that The Geeky Press added four amazing partners:
- Amber Peckham, who is the wittiest writer of the bunch, corrals people our reading series and curates the fiction sections of our books;
- Nicole Mathew, who has turned our weekly #WritersHack events into a welcoming writing community, curates the poetry section of our books;
- Elise Lockwood, who helped recruit writers to the podcast, ran the Scripted reading series, and curates the play- and script-writing sections of our books; and
- Jessica Dyer, who runs Vouched Books Indy, and curates the poetry sections of our books with Nicole.
While The Geeky Press was generally run by the five of us, we encouraged participants to create their own writing spaces to bring our literary community together.
But life, the universe, and everything happened and we decided to shut down operations in November 2018. By that time, we had more than 800 people on our newsletter and Meetup lists. We’d hosted two weekend writing retreats, ten reading events, scores of daily writing events, a handful of day-long retreat, produced thirty-one podcast episodes, and we published four anthology books.
While we’re sad to leave The Geeky Press behind, I know all of us were happy to have been a part of something very special.
One last note: The collaboration has ended, but The Geeky Press will live on as I continue to self-publish my work and to host The Downtown Writers Jam Podcast from my new home in Pittsburgh!
Literary Magazines
Books + Anthologies
Student Books
- Bunker Hill Extreme (2009)
- If I Leave Here Tomorrow: The Invictus Writers, Vol. 1
- Gently Used (The Breakfast Club): The Invictus Writers, Vol. 2
- Damaged Goods: The Invictus Writers, Vol. 3
Literary Readings
The Downtown Writers Jam
- A Modest Proposal—About the Downtown Writers Jam
- Audience Expectations & Responsibilities at The Jam
- A Short Story about an Insignificant Moment in which Everything Changed in my Life
- The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 1: A Recap (July, 2014)
- The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 2: A Recap (Nov, 2014)
- The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 3 (Jam & Juice): A Recap (March, 2015)
- The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 4: Storytellers (July, 2015)
Disgust with Civilization
- Disgust with Civilization, Vol. 1 (March 2016)
The Geeky Press/Youshare Project Reading Series
Book Release Parties
- Bad Jobs & Bullshit launch party (September 2016)
The Fan Fiction Reading Series
- “The City on the Edge of Yesterday’s Enterprise,” Vol. 1 (October 2016)
Scripted
Scripted: Between the Page and the Stage
Press + Media
Articles
- New Literary Magazine Examines Hoosier Life (May 2017): Released on May 19, the first installment of this bi-annual publication will feature essays, creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry and playwriting from 19 different authors that are either from or connected to Indiana. Curated by Brad King and his partners at The Geeky Press, Hoosier Lit will aim to build upon the Indianapolis writing collective’s mission of making, promoting, and supporting the creation and distribution of great words.
- The Indy writers’ podcast that goes beyond writing (Oct 2016): Downtown Writers Jam podcast is more like a therapy session than a writing tutorial
- Bad Jobs and Bullshit: An Indy writer’s collective publishes a book about terrible jobs (September 2016): Nuvo writers about The Geeky Press’ first anthology publication.
- “Every Story Needs a Darth Vader” (November 2014): Theresa Beckhusen interviewed Brad in lead up to Indy WordLab in December.
- Sticky Writing (November 2014): A preview in Blue Sky Window of The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 2 in all its crunchy goodness.
- Curbside Collaborates with The Downtown Writers Jam (November 2014): A lovely write-up about Jam, Vol. 2 with our friends from Chicago.
- Out of print writing (May 2014): Rowena Wiseman interviewed Brad about So Far Appalachia, and the idea of professionalized amateurism as a writer.
Television & Radio
- WFYI’s The Art of the Matter (May 2017): The Art of the Matter hosted Brad King for an 8-minute discussion about The Geeky Press, HoosierLit, and all of the work we do with local writers.
- WFYI Online (November 2014): Andrew Neylon produced a 2 1/2-feature story on The Downtown Writers Jam, Vol. 2.