Espresso & Cigarette is a tiny independent publishing house that loves making short story anthologies.

It all started with a simple wish: to have a place to publish our own writing without having to send manuscripts to publishers and wait around, hoping someone would say yes. We wanted to make books, and we had enough money to give it a go. So why not do it ourselves?

And that’s how Espresso & Cigarette began.

Once we got started, we discovered that reading other people’s work, choosing stories we loved, and watching manuscripts slowly turn into actual books was even more fun than we’d imagined. We also realised that there were so many stories out there still waiting for a chance to be published. So we started accepting submissions from other writers, too. One thing led to another, and here we are today.

We have a particular soft spot for short stories. We love the different ways people think and tell stories, and all the places a single story can take us. Each of our anthologies begins with a theme we’d like to invite writers to explore. From there, the book gradually takes shape through stories by different writers, each bringing their own perspective and way of telling a story.

We don’t mind whether a writer is well-known, has published several books, or has just finished their very first short story. What matters to us is the writing itself and the story the writer wants to tell.

Alongside Thai writing, we’ve also begun working with literature from other countries. There are still so many stories out there that we’d love to read, and we’d love to share them with others, too.

Espresso & Cigarette has no plans to become a big publishing house. We’d rather have the time to give each book the attention it deserves, discover new manuscripts, meet writers with stories to tell, and make books we’d want to pick up and read ourselves.

That should keep us happily busy for quite a while.