Jim Camp

the synaesthesia press
publisher : printer : bookseller

Post Office Box 1527 : HIGLEY, AZ : 85236-1527

I’m Jim Camp. I own and operate the synaesthesia press.

I’m a letterpress printer; I print and publish work by authors I find interesting; I make pictures with a variety of cameras; I make collages and artists’ books; and, finally, I’m a bookseller!

I co-founded the synaesthesia press with a writer named Steve Fisher in 1991. Steve wrote terrific short fiction and poems. Steve actually named the press. We were on the phone at 3am or so (Steve’s normal hours to call his friends). Steve suggested we should start a small publication house. “Let’s call it the synaesthesia press. We can publish some of my stuff.” I immediately agreed. After we hung up, I ran to the dictionary to look up “synaesthesia“.

First and foremost, the synaesthesia press is a very small, very independent publishing house specializing in broadsides and chapbooks printed in a limited edition. Authors & Artists I’ve had the pleasure to work with to date include Tosh Berman, Tim O’Brien,  a. di michele, Alan Catlin, Anselm Hollo, Barry Gifford, Charles Bukowski, Charles Plymell, Chris Offutt, Denis Johnson, Erroll Miller, Fritz Scholder, Harold Norse, Jack Micheline, Joe Maynard, Johnny Brewton, Steve Fisher, Neeli Cherkovski, Roxie Powell, and Tsaurah Litzky, among others.

As a bookseller, I specialize in good used books and especially those generally of a subversive nature. In other words, anything by or about Beatniks, Outlaws, Perverts, Weirdos, and Outsiders; I love good literary fiction (especially the forgotten titles by forgotten authors) and almost anything by or about Bukowski;  I love amateur snapshots and photographic prints; I love little mags, ‘zines, photobooks and art books and Artists’ Books; any smut or sleaze or erotica or cheesecake published before, say, 1970.

All proceeds from my book sales help fund the publications.

As a photographer, I challenge myself to make interesting pictures.

I understand everyone has their preferred platforms: here’s the synaesthesia press eBay seller’s page;  here’s synaesthesia’s Biblio; and, finally, this is its Etsy.

You can stalk me on Twitter or Instagram or Bluesky. The press has a Facebook page, too.

If you’re looking to get your work published, send a query letter with SASE to my post office box. I will reply — if you follow those simple rules.

The videos below were made by Eric Minh Swenson — the first one in 2017 after my show “Sexual Fictions” at These Days. The second after a visit to my Los Angeles studio in 2020.