For Kids
Greg Bem is a local poet, artist, and librarian. After years of supporting small press activities around the world and leading small publishing projects, Bem founded Carbonation Press in 2023. Carbonation Press supports writers and artists in the publication of their unique and oddly-sized works, with a move toward longer works with additional literary components like interviews, prefaces, and other dialogic elements. Carbonation aims to publish the work of writers spanning different genres and forms, in ways that encourage publisher-author collaboration and supports smaller literary communities. Each publication has limited runs, which can be distributed online to various retailers around the globe.
Carbonation’s first two years have seen the press become more viable, visible, and successful. As of September 2025, Carbonation had completed 16 individual author releases and one multi-author anthology, with another Spokane-based student anthology nearing publication at the end of 2025. Small but prolific, Carbonation has five additional author releases coming to the public in 2025 with three more to be published shortly thereafter. A third anthology is also in the works.
SAGA will be supporting an expansion and formalization of the press’s presence and identity—moving Carbonation Press from a very small, “DIY” initiative to something larger, without sacrificing the press’s commitment to publisher-author collaborations.