The Latin word, Inspiritus, means “breathe” and contains the word for “spirit”: together, to breathe in and be filled with the spirit, which is what it means to be alive. It is also the root for the word inspiration and in the creative sense, to be filled with the Muses, to be filled with the gods or God. The logo represents a breath of air, a gust of wind, the winds of change, and a spirit, a force, that carves its way forward.
In the word is also our philosophy of community, “In Spirit, Us.”
Inspiritus Press is a small publisher hoping to revitalize independent, ambitious and cutting-edge literature by connecting it to a broader public across disciplines and social spheres, both within the city of Toronto where we are currently territorialized, and in a global context deterritorialized by the world wide web. We aim to create spaces for work that doesn’t fit in current literary scenes or paradigms, but aims towards the highest aspirations of literature as an ongoing tradition spanning history. We want to give writing with the integrity and individuality of outsider art access to the audiences, dialogues and communities that strengthen, ground and engage literary writing. We seek work that, as our name suggests, we will be inspired by, and that will inspire in readers contemplation or passion, fresh ways of seeing and a drive to make the world more beautiful. Work that connects the seemingly unconnected as invisibly yet inexorably as winds or radio waves. Work that can inhabit the empty space of an alienated world as translucently as air while radically transforming it. Work that is filled with life-giving energy, elusive freedom, and unfamiliar, mysterious dimensions.
“Salvation can only come from the breath, that is to say from a higher influence, anterior to us.”
-Henri Bosco