For a long time, Exploding Galaxies had been a someday dream. A faraway idea with a time-traveling purpose. Then we got started, and with enough researching, risking, winging, and head scratching, the necessary work of this publishing house is now well in motion.
So for those of you who have bought copies of our first book, or supported us in any way and many ways, you helped bring us to life.
Our elevator pitch is that Exploding Galaxies publishes out-of-print Philippine novels and short stories that we feel deserve to return to active circulation.
But the tricky thing about republishing these books is that they do the difficult work of replacing older editions that didn’t have the opportunity to stay. Their publishers closed after some time, like Gloria Rodriguez’s Giraffe Books that published authors like Linda Ty Casper or NVM Gonzalez. Or publishers moved away from fiction and focused on other genres, but they still have copies of these novels in their decades-old prices stuck in the backroom. Or authors have gone, and even their families can’t be reached. Or these books were published in the US and don’t make it to our bookstore shelves. In any case, twenty, forty, fifty years is a long time for a title to keep going, and too long a time for a title to be absent.
Books like Nolledo’s But for the Lovers don’t deserve mythical status only because they are unavailable. They should be mythical because the many people who’ve read their book almost can’t believe what they’ve read. New and old readers of Philippine literature should not be without these books or at least the opportunity to discover them.
The only way we can really sustain Exploding Galaxies is for these books to continue finding their readers. In spite of circumstances that allow me the ability to keep the lights on, if there are no readers, these books will recede into storage and disappear again. On the other hand, publishing each book is a possibility realized, and the success of one book in turn makes it possible for another, and another.
Our mission, thankfully, is shared by more than just our small team - you and everyone picking up a copy keep us going. We remain encouraged by our authors, their writing, and their families, by the support of our fellow publishers, institutions, bookstores, academics, by the help of everyone else including those I cannot easily categorize, and - to our never-ending surprise and gratitude - by readers.
So while our elevator pitch is short, the way is long. Really long. It’s much easier to get the press going than it is to keep it going. There are still so many readers we still need to reach, places we are not yet available, conversations our books are not yet in, years we still need to keep stocking, and possibilities we still need to see through. As we search for readers, we hope readers also keep finding us, Nolledo and our future books.
We hope you continue to recommend But for the Lovers and the promise of our future titles to friends and family, to consider buying these as presents, to have conversations about the book, to share your thoughts on But for the Lovers on Goodreads and social media channels, to share the book with your students, co-workers, and to just enjoy reading the book when you have time for yourself.
Thank you again for all of your support, and happy holidays!
Mara
PS
I can’t wait for you to enjoy our second book, Linda Ty-Casper’s The Three-Cornered Sun! Coming first quarter of 2024!