Flood Editions

Flood Editions was founded by Michael O'Leary and Devin Johnston in 2001 and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2003. Based in Chicago, it is an independent press with the goal "to become one of the premier American publishers of new writing." The Flood Editions Records contain drafts, manuscripts, proofs, designs, cover art, artwork, reviews, announcements, correspondence, and photographs.

Flood Editions was founded in 2001 by Devin Johnston and Michael O'Leary, who met while working on the Chicago Review. Based in Chicago, it is an independent press with the goal "to become one of the premier American publishers of new writing." In 2003, Flood Editions was incorporated as a nonprofit organization.

From the beginning, Johnston and O'Leary had the goal of creating artistic and quality books at affordable prices. The editors value the book not just as words on pages, but also as an artifact. Many of the books were designed by Jeff Clark, of Quemadura.

Though there is a special emphasis on new works and reprints of American and Midwest poets and writers, they also publish authors from Britain and Australia. The editors work to broaden the audience to those less or not at all acquainted with contemporary poetry in addition to those already interested in contemporary poetry.

As of 2007, Flood Editions published twenty-six books, many to critical acclaim. The published works have been reviewed or mentioned in numerous publications, including American Book Review, The Bloomsbury Review, Boston Review, Chicago Tribune, New York Times Book Review, Publisher's Weekly, Rain Taxi, Talisman, and Verse. The 2007 publications Sleeping and Walking by Michael O'Brien and Ballad of Jamie Allan by Tom Pickard were finalists for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.

As a nonprofit organization, Flood Editions raises outside funding to publish their books. They have received funding from various people and organizations, and have received grants from institutions including the Greenwall Fund of the Academy of American Poets (for Surfaces), Australia Council for the Arts (for The Goldfinches of Baghdad), and the Illinois Council for the Arts.

Devin Johnston received a B.A. (1992) in Latin and English from Oberlin College and an M.A. (1994) and Ph.D. (1999) in English from the University of Chicago, where he wrote a dissertation on the appeal of occult to twentieth-century American poets. He was poetry editor of the Chicago Review for five years, where he coordinated special features on Ronald Johnson, Nathaniel Mackey, Robert Duncan, and Peter Dale Scott. He was an assistant editor to The Honest Ulsterman and wrote book reviews for Oberon Waugh's Literary Review. He has published three books: Telepathy (2001), Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (2002), and Aversions (2004), as well as numerous essays, chapbooks, and reviews. His poetry has been published in Poetry, Colorado Review, New American Writing, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Fence, Xantippe, Zoland Poetry, and other journals and anthologies. Johnston is a professor of English at Saint Louis University.

Michael O'Leary received a B.A. (1993) in Greek and Latin from Kenyon College, which later awarded him membership to Phi Beta Kappa, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering (2004) and Ph.D. in Materials Engineering (2008) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1993 he moved to Chicago, where he worked for Morningstar, a financial publishing company. He later became the Associate for External Relations in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. With Jay Sullivan, and later joined by Peter O'Leary and Joel Felix, he co-founded LVNG, a free poetry, fiction, and art magazine focusing on Midwest authors and artists. He also served as an editor for Chicago Review and Kenyon Review. O'Leary works as an engineer in Chicago.