The Ethical Press
The Ethical Press is a writer-led, transnational literary project founded by Lizabel MĆ³nica to build less extractive pathways for writers and artists to publish, circulate, and sustain their work.
It grows out of a simple conviction: creative labor should not have to pass through exploitative systems in order to exist with dignity.
Part press, part learning platform, part evolving literary infrastructure, The Ethical Press brings together direct-to-reader publishing, editorial guidance, workshops, and cultural programming designed to increase creator autonomy, ownership, and long-term sustainability. Cuba is central to its vision, but the project is transnational by design shaped by movement across languages, borders, and uneven cultural economies.
The Ethical Press is especially invested in writers and artists who often find themselves under-supported by dominant institutions and markets: bilingual, diasporic, Caribbean, Latinx, queer, formally experimental, and otherwise difficult to flatten into tidy categories.
Ā The Ethical Press grows directly out of Lizabel MĆ³nicaā€™s long practice as a writer, editor, teacher, and cultural worker working across academic, independent, and fugitive cultural spaces, from Revista Desliz and alternative Cuban networks to scholarship on literature and digital media.
TEP is an intervention in literary infrastructure: one that asks what becomes possible when writers retain more ownership, more relation to readers, and more control over the conditions of their work.
Hereā€™s how it works.
The Ethical PressĀ unfolds across three core pathways:
Publish differently.
Direct-to-reader editions and independent releases that reduce reliance on extractive intermediaries.
Learn differently.
Editorial support, manuscript strategy, and workshops that offer usable tools rather than vague encouragement.
Sustain differently.
An evolving structure of community, resources, and recurring programming designed to support long-term creative practice.
