I knew very early that I was going to be a writer. I was committed to it by sophomore year of high school. I never let go of that dream, and now you’re on my website! Let me tell you how I got here. 

After high school, I went to college and jumped into writing. I majored in English and Religious Studies, worked at the university’s newspaper, and was a writing tutor in the learning center. I deeply admired my professors and decided I wanted to be a professor. After college, I went to grad school and earned my master’s in English. The plan was to pursue a PhD at the same time I developed my craft, but the closer I got to the end of my master’s program, the more I desired to just be a writer. I was in school from 2006-2013, which were intense and fertile years for emerging media and literary approaches, and the allure of the academic profession faded. I never entered a doctoral program.

Once I was out of school, I wanted back in and regretted my decision. I still wanted to be a writer, but I no longer wanted to teach. I was no longer tethered to a job that I perceived as a stabilizing force while I became a writer, but I wasn't tethered to anything else either. Overnight, I was out of the ivory tower, where I had spent seven very beautiful, fun, and rewarding years. I lost the people whose lives I thought I wanted to emulate. I lost the environment where I felt most comfortable, confident, and curious. I lost my way. I fell into a depression, fell into a bottle, and alcohol took over my life. I walked in darkness for five years. 

In 2018, still clinging onto my dream of being a writer, after several attempts, I quit drinking. I clung to my writing dream harder than when I was a teenager, harder than when I was a student, and harder than when I was a drunk. It became my everything. It became action. I self-published my first two books in 2022, then my third in 2023. I sold them on the beach, in some stores, and one of them made it into the Michigan library system. However, it bothered me that the books were not linked to a publisher’s imprint, so I formed my own, VM Publications. Under my imprint, I published my short poetry collection, Water, in August 2024. In November 2024, I released my first book as a publisher, Letters Unsent: A Memoir in Poetry by Robin G. Savage. 

When I formed VM Publications, I was trying to gain more legitimacy in the eyes of bookstores and libraries. I didn’t know that my own imprint would empower me to publish other people’s work, but it did. I don’t want to be a boss in a building with a high volume of new releases. I don’t want a team of people acquiring and editing under me. That sounds like a nightmare, not my dream. But when I have an idea that I can’t do alone, or when I cross paths with someone who mutually wants to collaborate, I have this imprint. I am building a catalog of thoughtful pieces of art and information. I am developing and cultivating an environment of creative letters for myself and others. I can’t imagine doing anything else. There is nothing else for me to do.

Vincent Moyet