Mission
At Snail Trail Press, we find that what we need is not to submit to an inevitable ecological doom but to reach for something more conscious and hopeful. In doing so, we realize that what sustains us, as artists, editors and people, are the small, subtle gestures that ripple out and transform our environments. We search for inspiration in the form of snails, fungus, slime, and more, in the hopes that we can learn from their persistence, resilience, and collaborations.
We acknowledge the challenge of writing responsibly within a difficult world. We are not looking for immediate answers, nor do we believe in regressive notions of returning to a “pristine” past. Instead, our hope is to uplift artists and our collective practices, to think about the kinds of trails we leave behind and those we work toward. What do our trails look like and what do we wish to do with them? How do we harm, reimagine, create, and survive within an already violent world?
Snail Trail turns a curious eye toward the catastrophic violences—whether small or enormous—that penetrate our daily lives and envisions alternate possibilities, to rethink our current ecology and live collectively, consciously, and caringly together, with all our sticky residue.
OUR NAME
Snail Trail is slime and grime. An invitation to look closer, to sit on the ground, and to move slowly when it’s necessary. To question the things that repulse us, that are vital to our living. A pathway to finding fellow snails—in poetry, in language, in being—together, toward radical reimaginings.