PATRICK ROTHFUSS PARTNERS WITH GRIM OAK PRESS TO LAUNCH UNDERTHING PRESS
First project will be Hugo Award-winning graphic novel Digger by Ursula Vernon
SEATTLE, WASH., December 13, 2021—Grim Oak Press, the small press that published the award-winning anthology Unfettered, is partnering with #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kingkiller Chronicle Patrick Rothfuss to create the new imprint, Underthing Press.
The first project Grim Oak Press and Underthing Press will produce is Digger: The Complete Collection by Ursula Vernon. The deal includes new softcover and hardcover editions of the Hugo Award-winning graphic novel as well as signed and limited copies. Rothfuss has written a new foreword for the book and will sign the limited and lettered editions along with Vernon.
“It all started when I gave away my copy of the Digger Omnibus to a friend, then discovered I couldn’t buy another one. It breaks my heart when I learn that a book I love has gone out of print. I’ve always daydreamed about starting my own imprint, and I couldn’t think of a better place to start than by making a brilliant, Hugo Award-winning comic available to the public again.
“We’re in talks with several folks to bring their books back into print, or in other cases, to make a beautiful specialty edition of a book I particularly love. And I’ll have my own projects too, of course. I’m finally ready to publish a project I’ve been working on for years with friend and Illustrator Nate Taylor. It’s an illustrated version of The Boy that Loved the Moon.”
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Rothfuss and Grim Oak Press have a relationship that goes back years. Diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and lacking health insurance due to a pre-existing condition, Grim Oak Press owner Shawn Speakman received donated short stories from SF&F writers that would ultimately be sold as the anthology Unfettered. Rothfuss supported Speakman by contributing his first-ever short story set in his world: “How Old Holly Came To Be.”
“Pat came to my aid when I had need,” said Speakman. “It is fun that he and I will be working together again in a very different but exciting way. This is just the beginning.”
The crowdfunding campaign for Digger: The Complete Collection will launch May 10, 2022.
Shawn Speakman is a writer, award-winning editor, and the long-time webmaster for New York Times best-selling fantasy authors Terry Brooks and Naomi Novik. He was a manager at one of the largest Barnes & Noble Booksellers, but now he owns The Signed Page and Grim Oak Press. The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Grey, his new SF&F novel, was reviewed by Robin Hobb as “a story that unreels like a SF TV series you would binge in one night.” Shawn lives in Washington State where he dotes on his wife and two young sons. He can be found at shawnspeakman.com and on Twitter at @shawnspeakman.
Patrick Rothfuss is the bestselling author of The Kingkiller Chronicle. His first novel, The Name of the Wind, won the Quill Award and was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Its sequel, The Wise Man's Fear, debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller chart and won the David Gemmell Legend Award. His novels have appeared on TIME’s list of The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books list and Locus' Best 21st Century
Fantasy Novels list. Pat lives in Wisconsin, where he builds box forts with his children and runs Worldbuilders, a charity that has raised more than $15,000,000 for organizations like Heifer International and Mercy Corps. He can be found at patrickrothfuss.com, on Twitter at @patrickrothfuss, and streaming on twitch.tv/patrickrothfuss.
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For more information about Grim Oak Press, Underthing Press, or Digger: The Complete Collection, please contact Shawn Speakman at shawn@grimoakpress.com