Curbside Splendor has a lot to celebrate this month. As of June, the Chicago small press – which publishes books, several journals, and an e-zine -- is being distributed by Consortium Sales & Distribution. In spring 2014, Curbside is launching a new book imprint, Dark House Press, which will release neo-noir and speculative fiction, both in short story and novel formats. Dark House editors want, they write, “an elevated perspective, a literary voice” and will avoid “the expected, the formulaic, the same old stories, and voices.”

Richard Thomas is editor-in-chief of the new imprint and also edited one of its two spring 2014 debut releases, The New Black, an anthology of noir fiction. Dark House will also release the first volume in a speculative fiction/science fiction trilogy titled Joshua City by Okla Elliott and Raul Coement.

Curbside Splendor was founded in 2010 by its publisher, Victor David Giron, to publish literary fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art “based in contemporary urban settings.”

The six Curbside Splendor books currently in print were released under three imprints: its flagship imprint, Curbside Splendor; Concepción Books (“elegant or romantic” bilingual poetry or prose); and Artifice (“work that is aware of its own creativity”). The company will release nine frontlist titles this fall and three in the winter under its three current imprints. All Curbside Splendor books are released simultaneously in print and in digital formats.