Fresh Water Press Celebrates Two Years in Business 🎉
From the desk of Peggy Turnbull, co-owner and senior editor
On an unseasonably warm day early in 2024, Tara Huck called me with an invitation to join her and Tracey Koach as co-owners and co-founders of the Fresh Water Press. I didn’t know either of them well, but that call was all it took for me to sign on. I’ve been fascinated by small presses since I read The Diary of Anais Nin in college and learned the role of independent publishers in the history of North American literature. I loved the small press books I found at the H.C. White Library’s Poetry Collection at UW-Madison and admired their quirky publisher names and artsy logos. When I held one of those slim volumes in my hands, they felt charged with respect for literature and authors, and I felt that I was breathing rarefied air. In other words, I fell in love with a certain type of book: that from a small press.
That first year the three of us met weekly for intense discussions about our new company. We were committed to publishing local authors and/or manuscripts on topics relating to the northwest Lake Michigan shoreline and its environs. We discovered that the three of us had complementary skills and experiences, and we dove right into the administrative work required to set up a new company.
In December 2024 we opened submissions to anyone willing to fill out our form and send us a sample of their manuscript. Our hunch was right: writers are all around. We scrupulously read everything submitted, discussed each, and together decided which three manuscripts we wanted to publish. We selected three impressive titles: Emilie Lindemann’s transcendent book of poetry, Ghost(ed) Woman & the Electric Purple Pants; Raquel Durden’s Dial Down: Holistic Strategies to Move from Chaos to Calm, a guide to personal well-being helpful to all but intended for combat veterans and first responders; and Lisa Lehmann’s RADIO STARR, a career novel about a female radio DJ in the 1980s.
In 2025 our workload expanded so much that we hired the talented Sophia Dramm to assist, first with marketing, and quickly thereafter adding editing, proofreading, social media, and the newsletter to her responsibilities. We were fortunate to get help with our summer 2025 submissions from Maryssa Paulson, whose knowledge of literature and the book business helped tremendously as we read and responded to the cache of manuscripts received, a sum 450% greater than what arrived in our earlier reading period.
Now that it is 2026, we are working to make Fresh Water Press successful, sustainable and self-supporting. We have scheduled books for publication later in the year and in 2027 (watch the newsletter for more about our forthcoming books!). We are streamlining our workflows, improving our technical infrastructure, and strengthening ties with local organizations such as The Nook, Woodland Dunes Nature Center, LaDeDa Bookstore, Lakefly Writers Conference, and other places. As you might have guessed, burnout among the three of us is a real possibility as we consider new services and software and confront the near-constant pace of change in publishing and its administrative, financial, and regulatory systems.
Fresh Water Press began as a dream and became a passion. When I look at our books, I feel proud of their authors and how each title represents Manitowoc County and the Lakeshore through a literary lens. We are wholeheartedly, abundantly grateful to all our supporters. If you bought a book or attended one of our events, thank you. To those who bravely submitted their work, we are glad that you did and we want to encourage you to keep writing. To all who cheered us on, silently or in person, we hope your interest in us will continue. To those who haven’t found us yet, now is your chance. Please join us in wishing a happy second birthday to Fresh Water Press! 🎉
Fresh Water Press Began with a Local Anthology
When Bev Denor, the well-known proprietor of LaDeDa Books in Manitowoc, mentioned she had an unpublished manuscript stored in her basement, we were interested, especially after reading the anthology of stories she and her theater friends had written. Opening Nights was exactly what we wanted: locally set, written by regional authors, varied in topic and tone, and very well written.
Trying to impress my new business partners, I volunteered to use my new @freshwaterpressllc.com email to make initial contact with the authors. Only Bev and one other replied. I slunk into the next meeting, sure that my message had been so inept that its recipients had deleted it in disgust. Bev then stepped in. Somehow our new web service had sent my messages straight into internet limbo.
After that snafu, the authors signed contracts with us, and we published our first book. We celebrated with a glittering gathering of what one attendee called “the Manitowoc/Two Rivers literati” at the Stage Door Pub. What a heart-warming debut.
The following year, we tripled production with the three books: Ghost(ed) Woman & the Electric Purple Pants by Emilie Lindemann, Dial Down by Raquel Durden, and RADIO STARR by Lisa Lehmann. Each release was celebrated with a launch party because the press is committed to cultivating a literary scene on the Lakeshore.
In addition to celebrating our authors, we provide opportunities for writers of all levels to experience community and grow in their writing practice. To that end we co-hosted Open Mic events at The Nook in the spring and co-hosted Write-ins with Woodland Dunes during the summer and the fall.
When Fresh Water Press opened for submissions in June 2025, the editorial team was overwhelmed with local talent and carefully selected five manuscripts to publish in 2026 and 2027. Bicentennial Eve: A Wisconsin Novella by Julie A. Jacob will be released in May, The House on Hemlock Hill by Brittni Nelson will be released in July, and a memoir by Tina and Jason Prigge will be released in 2027. Stay subscribed to the Fresh Water Press newsletter for announcements on our other two titles.
We span multiple genres creating a diverse offering of local talent, and we are just getting started! We will again open to submissions in Summer 2026.