Reading Around the Margins

To celebrate the release of Naomi's Marginalia: an autobiography, we have a bit of a role reversal in this episode. Michael Wheaton, publisher of Autofocus Books, joins us today and takes over the host chair as he chats with Naomi about Marginalia, the kind of book it turned out to be, “project” books, the idea of a book as container, and how the process of creating it altered her practice of marginalia today. This is a delightful, insightful episode on the unexpected paths a book takes to find its final form...

Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books. He is the author of the essay Home Movies (BUNNY, 2024). His writing has appeared previously in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, and other online journals.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

What is Reading Around the Margins?

In each episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi Washer talks with writers, readers, translators, publishers, and booksellers about how they interact with their books as objects; how their own marginalia consciously or unconsciously informs the books they come to write; and how the experience of reading brings a book into existence.