Book publisher opens

18thWall seeks to promote artistic style in literary industry

Filling the void that has been growing over the last few years, 18thWall Publications started with the dream of putting the art back into the publishing industry.

James Bojaciuk, an English major at Liberty University, along with his friend Ben Kasson, started 18thWall this past March.

write — The 18thWall Publications seeks to put the art back into the publishing industry.  Photo provided

Write — The 18thWall Publications seeks to put the art back into the publishing industry. Photo provided

Bojaciuk said he started this venture because books have become “an industry, not an art.” And Bojaciuk and Kasson believe it should not be that way.

According to Bojaciuk, starting a publishing company was not an easy task, but it will soon pay off with the release of their first book projected to hit shelves around Christmas.

“Lying in a Wounded Wood,” according to Kasson, brings together all the best modern fairy tales. The collection will include a reinvention of Snow White and a twist on dragons that Bojaciuk says “does not release you, dear reader, until you believe in dragons.”

Nikki Petit, an author signed by 18thWall Publications, will be making her debut with a story that, according to Bojaciuk, “will introduce us to a folk hero.”

“It’s just such a coincidence, and I didn’t expect it,” Petit said about being published. “It’s exciting. He came up to me and said, ‘You write well. Write us a story.’”

The second collection, entitled “Those Who Live Long Forgotten,” includes stories which strip something from the past — be that something mythic or fictive — and adapts it to the present. One of the stories will include a tale about Sherlock Holmes, and another reapplies the vampire myth to a post-“Twilight” world.

Bojaciuk also said they have a number of novels in the works, but titles and details are not yet available.

“Two novels involve the legacy of Sherlock Holmes,” Bojaciuk said. “In one instance, a case long unsolved, in another, the diseased remnants of the Moriarty family, and a third takes a stark look at English folklore and what an old woman’s myths might do to the world.”

According to Bojaciuk, his writing style is to “beat your nightmares into submission and catalog them for the public.”

He shared that he has been published in Thought Catalog, Tales of the Undead: Suffer Eternal (both volumes two and three), Another 100 Horrors, LAMP, Cease, Cows, Wold Newton Beyond, The Television Crossover Universe, and Sundry Publications. Formerly, he was fiction editor at Cease, Cows.

Kasson, a former poetry editor for Cease, Cows, once found himself the winner of a writing contest conducted by Horror Tree.

18th Wall Publications encourage writers to send in their creations, saying that submitters have a great chance of being published. And even if they get rejected, there is an upside: They never send form rejections.

“Send in-depth analysis of the submitter’s story — we get into the nit, into the grit, into all the dirt and mud and help to the best of our ability,” Bojaciuk said. “We give them the editing they need to become a great writer.”

LaRue Photography provides their cover art and, according to Bojaciuk, their work is vital. “We’re blessed to have the team we do.”

For more information about 18thWall, including future publications and how to get involved, visit their website at 18thwall.com or facebook.com/18thwall.

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