Catherine Treu Ehmann always imagined she’d be a writer. As a child, she spent most of her free time with her nose in a book and by nine she’d won her first national poetry contest.
But as she got older, she realized there were more versions of herself she wanted to meet.
“I just wasn’t ready to sit down and commit myself to that,” the 51-year-old said.
Following high school, she briefly attended the University of Washington-Madison before leaving to pursue professional dancing. Later, she transitioned into a successful career as a hairstylist.
By the time the pandemic hit, forcing her salon to close, she had two professional careers and two children.
But her love of writing never left her.
Ehmann, who is now an alum of San Diego City College, is scheduled to be one of the authors published in “Sunshine/Noir III,” the third part of a collection of anthologies published by San Diego City Works Press, a non-profit publishing house based at the college.
The publishing organization, which is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, was born out of City College’s City Works Journal and was the brainchild of English, humanities and labor studies professor Jim Miller.
Though it originated from a City College class, the publishing nonprofit does not receive any funding from the school. Instead, it relies exclusively on donations and book sales revenue to sustain itself and fund the next literary work.
“Nobody makes any money,” Miller said. “All the money that we make goes back into the account and back into the production of other books.”
The publication aims to center students and writers that align with the press’ mission.
“The whole history of the press that’s been the model is to have a couple (of) big events and give free books for students, and then people can use them in classes in the years to follow,” Miller said. “It’s linked to serving students.”
Some books published by City Works Press. To see more click here.
Kelly Mayhew, who is the current managing editor of SDCWP and a professor in the English department at City College, said the press was modeled after City Lights by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
“It’s formed on this kind of collective model that is pushing back against the monetization and corporatization of literary works in art that have become so driven by the marketplace,” Mayhew said.
She and Miller, the husband-and-wife duo behind the almost twenty-year-old publishing press, are both published authors who have worked with corporate publishers in the past. Mayhew said the experience can be jarring for a writer’s creative process.
Part of their intention with SDCWP was to provide writers with a publishing experience that challenges the corporate norm.
“We wanted to design an experience for our writers that centers them and not their work as a product, but them as a human producing art,” Mayhew said.
Mayhew and Miller are members of the San Diego Writers Collective, a coalition of City College faculty, writers and arts advocates whose members include the founding team behind SDCWP.
Most members play an integral role in the production of every book. They contribute their efforts without expectation of payment, doing everything from reading the manuscript to copyediting to designing the cover.
One featured writer was Jimmy Santiago Baca, a prolific Chicano writer whose experiences inspired the popular film, “Blood In, Blood Out.”
“Somebody like Jimmy Santiago Baca, he could publish a book anywhere,” Miller said. “So why did he pick this tiny little press out of City College? Because he came right here and loved what we do and said, ‘Let me give you a book.’”
According to Miller, sales from his book of poetry, “Rita and Julia,” allowed the non-profit to accumulate thousands of dollars that went back into the publishing house for projects to come.
Mayhew said projects cost $5,000 to $6,000 on average, with runs of roughly 500 copies.
SDCWP got started with the publication of “Sunshine Noir: Writing From San Diego and Tijuana” in 2005. With the approach of their 20th anniversary, the collective is getting ready to release “Sunshine/Noir III: Writing From San Diego and Tijuana” next spring.
“The theme of it is … the wonder and the grit of our city,” Mayhew said.
Added Miller: “And largely the kind of San Diego that doesn’t fit the tourist image necessarily.”
Ehmann’s story, featured in the anthology, is a speculative fiction about the housing crisis and the role of a church. It features three points of view: a raven, an unhoused man and a mother.
“This is a publication that I feel proud to be included in,” Ehmann said, “especially because it has to do with the City of San Diego, and it has a little bit of a darker theme overall. … I am more educated about things that happen in San Diego because of some of the classes I’ve taken with Jim Miller.”
