Sykes, Michael

Biographical Information

Michael Sykes awoke one morning in June 1975 with the idea to begin publishing an occasional gathering of material and to call it Floating Island. He had given the idea some consideration before, over the years 1969-1974, while he owned and operated a bookstore in Point Reyes Station, CA. The main inspiration for the name Floating Island comes from the geological fact that the ground on which Sykes stood, the Point Reyes Peninsula, is "floating to the northwest at the dizzying rate of 2-4 inches per year, being an upthrust eastern portion of the Pacific Plate which grinds horizontally against the American Plate along the San Andreas fault."

The original concept was a quarterly magazine containing fiction, poetry, photography and graphics, with a regional focus, but after the first issue in 1976, it gradually became an occasional periodical. The succeeding issues appeared in 1977, 1980, and 1989. Meanwhile, Sykes published approximately fifty titles under the imprint Floating Island Publications, and helped other presses with typesetting and design under the name Archetype West. In 1995 he moved further inland, to Cedarville, CA, where he continues to operate as of this writing (2009).