From the Editor

Dear A Thin Slice of Anxiety Readers,

How could someone possibly entrust something as vital as literature to an international corporation? Is this not obviously insane? Fucked up?

The answer of course is: We can’t and one hundred percent! 

A more vital question however is: What can I do about it? (What do I want to see come into the world? And how can I help bring it into the world, even if it’s just a little bit?)

Answer: Books. Good ones. I want to help give birth to the type of literature that exists at the edges of modern contemporary life. (Great books written in trembling feverish states).

And in service of this foolhardy and ridiculous endeavor, I’ve decided to start the publishing imprint: Anxiety Press.

Perhaps my mission could best be summarized as producing “important content from terrible people, born of terrible situations.” That terrible situation, of course, is life, and I’m looking for the bits of novelty, emotion, and humor lurking underneath its intrinsic ugliness. (In short: I’ll be dredging through life’s fertilized lagoon for a few fresh bodies, the less completely decomposed, the better).

I’m a fatalist by design, but I’m far from hopeless. (Otherwise I wouldn’t make any effort to read at all). I like to be entertained, tend to thrive on absurdity, meaninglessness, and despair, while still somehow managing to maintain my belief in the power of art. 

I want to publish books that change people. How they think, feel, and live. How they view the world, how they view themselves. Books that confront them. Books that scare them. Books they either will love or hate. Books that force them to take a position, that inspires them to either burn or ban them, or perhaps even love them and defend them. Books that divide. Books that make the world irrevocably different than it was before they were written. Books that make history because they changed the world. (I have a firm belief that there is no excuse for a book to be mediocre. And I take it personally whenever they are). 

So stick around. The next couple of months should be pretty goddamn interesting to say the least.

Best regards,

Cody Sexton

Managing Editor/Founder/Creator