The Obscura agency
Boutique Publisher
SERVICES
At The Obscura Agency, we bring ambitious literary and artistic visions to life.
Founded by award-winning publisher and multidisciplinary artist Ashley Obscura, the agency operates at the intersection of publishing, design, and cultural production. From books and digital or sonic editions to archives, campaigns, and live events, we create frameworks where projects can take form and thrive.
With over a decade of experience—shaping 50+ publications, producing 70+ events, and stewarding countless hybrid works—I guide each project with care while drawing on a curated network of collaborators. Together, we build bespoke systems and strategies that not only bring projects into being but also position them to resonate, circulate, and endure.
The Obscura Agency is both a studio and a partner: offering publishing services, creative management, and cultural advocacy. Whether you’re envisioning a chapbook, an artist’s book, an heirloom archive, or a large-scale release, we provide the expertise and infrastructure to carry your work into the world on your own terms.
PUBLICATIONS (PHYSICAL + DIGITAL)
Editorial development, design, and production with distribution across print and digital formats
WRITING + EDITING
Copywriting, positioning language, essays, profiles, interviews, and commissioned creative texts
VISIBILITY + LAUNCH
Launch strategies that sustain projects across national and international audiences
DIGITAL PRESENCE
Websites, social media, newsletters, podcasts, and interactive/sonic media
CONSULTATION + MENTORSHIP
One-on-one consultations, mentorship for writers, publishers, and grant/positioning support
CULTURAL EVENTS + LAUNCHES
Curated readings, launches, lectures, and facilitated discussions
PLATFORM DESIGN
Positioning, circulation pathways, and multi-modal systems for hybrid projects
STRATEGY + RESEARCH
Insight and frameworks for visionary projects.
Concept development, cultural research, audience mapping, and long-term planning
Founded in 2014, Metatron Press has published 50+ titles and hosted 70+ events, establishing itself as one of Canada’s most recognized independent literary houses.
Our authors have gone on to win major prizes, be translated internationally, and gain recognition in outlets such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, CBC Arts, and The Globe & Mail.
Metatron is a press, a platform, and a community: bold aesthetics, rigorous curation, and commitment to emergent voices.
A digital publishing laboratory for experimental texts, themed issues, and hybrid works. GLYPHORIA explores new models of distribution, circulation, and accessibility.
A space for experimental, hybrid texts — e-chapbooks, long poems, translations, and anti-genres that push literature beyond print and into immersive digital form.
An online literary portal amplifying emergent voices and cross-genre poetics. A site of discovery, dialogue, and experimentation.
An audio platform for contemporary literature, dialogue, and ideas. Each episode amplifies voices shaping the literary present.
Curated readings, launches, performances, and gatherings that foster connection between writers, audiences, and the art of listening.
SELECT BOOKS + AUTHORS
Metatron cultivates books that are formally adventurous and emotionally precise. Our authors blur poetry and prose, stitch fragments into momentum, and open poetic conceptual portals that carry readers from private pain to collective joy. We center queer, disabled, and racialized perspectives, pairing innovation with intimacy.
Trynne Delaney
Novella
“An incredibly assured and mesmerizing debut.”
— Xtra Magazine
“Invites readers into presence with multiple realities and poetic conceptual portals.”
— Plenitude Magazine
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
Poetry + Letters Collection
“A radically honest examination of the queer, disabled, and racialized body.”
— The Malahat Review
“The narrating voice is sharp, reflective… drawing connections between moments and systems.”
— Quill & Quire
Ivanna Baranova
Poetry Collection
“Blurs the boundaries between love, ecology, and the digital.”
— Montreal Review of Books
“At times esoteric and at others immersive… a compelling, meditative thread.”
— rob mclennan
Frankie Barnet
Short Story Collection
“The millennial experience distilled into literary form.”
— The Winnipeg Review
“Totally captivating and enchanting… completely Barnet’s.”
— Rookie Mag
Lee Suski
Novella
“A fervidly psychedelic odyssey of queer eros told in approachable fragments.”
— Drawn & Quarterly
“A descriptive that shimmers, sparkles across what might otherwise seem ordinary.”
— rob mclennan
SELECT CREATIVE PROJECTS
Beyond publishing, The Obscura Agency creates interdisciplinary works where literature merges with technology, performance, and play.
Multi-award-winning VR dreamscape (National Film Board of Canada).
“A wild romp through colourful VR worlds.”
— The Georgia Straight
Surreal narrative game commissioned by Manchester International Festival.
“A magic-realist game odyssey through a surreal and absurd digital landscape.”
— MIF / Factory International
A meditative underwater game (Apocablyss).
“Meet alien-looking fish who fear a human invasion.”
— Victoria & Albert Museum
AMBIENT TECHNOLOGY (SEXO POR ÚLTIMA VEZ)
Poetry collection exploring connection in the post-digital age.
“Plays the scales of love and loss in the key of now.”
— Montreal Review of Books
An experimental newsletter reimagining distribution in the algorithmic age.
ASHLEY OBSCURA
The Obscura Agency, Founder
Ashley Obscura is a Canadian-Mexican poet, award-winning publisher, and platform designer.
She creates frameworks where literature, art, and technology converge, working across print, performance, digital media, and sound. Founder of Metatron Press and The Obscura Agency, her practice spans books, games, VR, events, and poetic systems that invite presence, resonance, and connection.
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