TRYST: An Artful Story Collection and Its New Publisher Find a Home on Ethereum

Lasker and Caballero celebrate TRYST
Amelie Lasker (left) and Ana Mar\u00eda Caballero (right) celebrated the launch and sellout of the first edition of TRYST on Dec. 8, 2022, at Usagi NY.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., January 26, 2023 (Newswire.com) - "Amazing to see such an incredibly strong reception for [literature] within the web3 space." - Keith Grossman, President of TIME Magazine

Readers gathered at Usagi NY on Dec. 8 for the launch party to promote Ana María Caballero's new fiction collection TRYST. However, the book had already sold out that morning, within 48 hours of release. Keith Grossman, President of TIME Magazine, had just collected the book on the secondary market. The promotional event had become a celebration instead.

Poet and artist Ana María Caballero released a digital collection of short stories, each with a one-of-a-kind cover. With the Alexandria team, publishers of special collectible editions of books as NFTs, Caballero presented her book as a web3 native art piece. The book isn't token-gated, which means anyone can read it, regardless of whether they own the NFT. Buying a copy, then, means creating a relationship between the reader and the author.

"Web3 publishing is revolutionary," Caballero Tweeted the day the book was released for pre-sale. "Finished editing a collection of stories today. Minted them as a digital book via my own smart contract, where I own all royalties. Shared it with you all. Chose a price, chose not to token-gate. I repeat: as an emerging author I chose."

Ana María Caballero won the Steel Toe Books 2022 Book Award for poetry collection Mammal, which will be released this year. She is the recipient of the Beverly International Prize for Literature, Colombia's José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, and a Sevens Foundation Grant. Her pioneering work with poetry on the blockchain has been featured by outlets such as Right Click Save, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Elle UK. She co-founded theVERSEverse, a digital gallery for poetry. 

This groundbreaking release is the first fiction book from Alexandria, a new publisher creating limited edition digital books powered by web3, which received coverage this year from CoinDesk and Esquire. Alexandria is creating literary experiences for the digital age, focusing on the preservation and access of information and on putting IP and royalties in the hands of authors using emerging technologies. 

Alexandria's founders, Amelie Lasker (MPhil, Cambridge University) and Sonia Joseph (Ph.D. candidate, Mila), are writers themselves. They created Alexandria out of a desire to contribute to the innovation of books and the ways in which they will be made and read in the future.

Released on Jan. 26, the book's second edition makes more copies available for readers to collect, enjoy, and gift, while paying homage to the first edition in its art style. Collectors of the second edition will receive one of five original covers; the covers feature foliage inspired by a Brooklyn winter (with the earliest hints of spring) created by artist Alexandria Sofija and cover designer Julia Lasker.

TRYST explores the moments and the non-moments, the loves, the losses, and the in-between that make up the lives of the people of Brooklyn. A set of three lyrical and arresting short stories, TRYST offers a glimpse into the poetic and expansive inner lives of three women, each rooted in a different Brooklyn neighborhood.

"These three narratives are told by women looking for ways to be free and failing," Caballero remarks. "There's beauty in the endurance delivered by failure—a beauty I love to dial. I say: 'Hi, heartbreaking beauty, how are you today? Will you lift your foot from my throat, from my wrists, so that I might describe the shadow of your size?'"

To read the book, which is free for the public, and find updates about the second edition release, visit alexandrialabs.xyz.

Lasker and Caballero celebrate TRYST
Amelie Lasker (left) and Ana Mar\u00eda Caballero (right) celebrated the launch and sellout of the first edition of TRYST on Dec. 8, 2022, at Usagi NY.

The first edition of TRYST
One of 100 unique covers by Alexandria Sofija.