Are you the next Lauren Groff? If so, Lazarus Media Publications wants to publish you.
Reg Van Hirtum, founder of Santa Barbara’s newest traditional publishing house, launched just under a year ago to “be around the arts,” he says.
Van Hirtum is looking for literary fiction and speculative fiction, ideally, promising to put his business acumen to help authors find homes in local bookstores. He hopes to combine his sales experience — Van Hirtum previously owned Luna Café in Summerland — with his passion for good prose and turn it into a successful venture.
“A smaller traditional press like Lazarus Media Publication can be a good choice for some authors whose projects are in that zone of being very publishable, but not able to catch the attention of a bigger traditional publisher,” says Grace Rachow, Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC) director.
Less than a year into things, Van Hirtum was invited to join the upcoming session “Publishing Options: A Deep Dive” at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference on June 25. He’ll be joined onstage by Patricia Marshall of Oregon’s Luminare Press, author and veteran SBWC presenter Rick Shaw, and Acorn Publishing co-founder Holly Kammier. The event, hosted by Yvette Keller, will give authors a chance to get familiar with Lazarus Media Publications.
“I want people to meet me [at the conference] and see me as an alternative to the big five publishers,” Van Hirtum says, “most especially as an alternative to self-publishing.”
The Santa Barbara native and former insurance broker always loved reading, even recalling an image of himself around the age of 2, holding up a book, “and it wasn’t even upside-down,” he laughs. The look in his eyes, he recalls, was sheer enthusiasm. That passion for reading and writing never wavered, despite being a Los Angeles–based college student in the ‘80s when screenplays were all the rage. Instead, he put both interests aside until retiring from the insurance industry a few years ago.
Less than a year in, Lazarus Media Publications has already begun working with local authors, including Shelly Lowenkopf, who published The Fiction Writer’s Handbook with Lazarus Media Publications, and Max Talley.
Talley’s newest crime novel, Santa Fe Psychosis, follows private investigator Jackson Bardo as he travels to New Mexico at the request of his ex-girlfriend, whose life is being threatened. “I’m excited that we now have Lazarus Media as an independent publisher in Santa Barbara, to join Gunpowder Press with their focus on poets, as well as Noleta Press, which publishes Santa Barbara Literary Journal,” says Talley, the author of two novels and three short story collections, including Destroy Me Gently, Please, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Writers are encouraged to visit the publishing guidelines online, and submit an author application directly at lazarusmedia.net/author-submission-guidelines. “Publishing Options: A Deep Dive” is scheduled for Thursday, June 25, at 9 a.m. Tickets can be found at sbwriters.com/register.
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