Contact us: steve@icecubepress.com |

About Ice Cube Press

steve-mugshotCheck it out: A short bit on our 30 years in business in Publishers Weekly

We’ve been blessed to still be doing this since 1991. Thanks to Writer’s Chroncile, AWP; Publishers Weekly, The Gazette, Shelf Awareness, and so many others who paid a tribute in some way to us.

The primary and driving force behind the Ice Cube Press and the Tall Corn Books imprint is Steve Semken. Steve has been inspired to work with words, to write, and to promote and learn about the world in which we live in for over twenty-five years now. The inspiration began while walking and living along the Kaw River in North Lawrence, Kansas.

Since 1990 Steve has authored six books, edited three others, been included in four anthologies, and was picked as the the Writer in Residence at the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. He has served on the faculty at the Midwest Writing Center’s David Collins Writing Conference in the Quad Cities. For over ten years he sponsored and organized the annual Harvest Lecture/Voices From The Prairie–first with Lutheran Campus Ministry, then the Standing By Words Center, and finally with Humanities Iowa.

His debut novel Pick Up Stick City: Restoration Fiction was published by Rivers Bend Press in Minnesota and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. A second book, The Great Blues, was awarded with the Kansas Book Award. Soul External: Rediscovering the Great Blues was published in 2014. In addition to his full time work as a publisher he is working on a longer work of writing dealing with the supernatural of local places in what will be entitled, The Wild Testament, which will include a place-based bestiary. Ice Cube Press is spotlighted in Poets and Writers magazine’s Small Press Points

Want to learn more? As an author, salesman, publisher, and motivated entrepreneur Steve Semken is a publisher that authors and bookstores trust. He can speak on all aspects regarding writing to any size group on issues involving writing, publishing, promotions, business operations, and books. If you would like to improve the writing in your company (for instance: are your company newsletters and brochures losing their zap?) or need advice on getting your journal started he is able to come and speak. To have Steve speak to your writers group, book club, or business email: steve at icecubepress dot com with your request. Rates are negotiable.

Contact: steve@icecubepress.com

Partners and Reviews

No one is able to do well in this world without the help of others. Over the years I’ve come to depend upon and appreciate a vast number of groups. This list is always growing and I’m sorry if anyone is left off.

The Ice Cube Press has worked with and been recognized by Humanities Iowa, the Iowa Arts Council, Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IA DNR), Radish magazine, The Iowa Source, Iowan magazine, Lawrence Kansas Art Commission, Kansas Book Award, The Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star, St. Louis Dispatch, Library Journal, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Publishers Weekly, Bloomsbury Review, Foreword Reviews, Small Press Review, Orion Magazine, Independent Publishers, Midwest Independent Booksellers Association, New York Journal of Books, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Review of Books, Chicago Tribune & Printers’ Row, KRUU radio, Iowa Public Radio, Radio Iowa, Booklist, San Francisco Review of Books, Indiegogo, North American Review, Iowa City Book Festival, UNESCO City of Literature, and many others far too numerous to list.

We appreciate all of you.