At a bizarrely controverisal party/fundraiser in Seattle last weekend, editor and co-founder of Clear Cut Press, Matthew Stadler, announced that he was turning over the reigns to his business partner Rich Jensen and leaving the small publishing company.

Clear Cut began publishing beauifully printed, pocket-sized paperbacks featuring the work of noted authors and artists such as Charles D’Ambrosio, Matthew Briggs, and Robert Adams in 2003. While you could pick up Clear Cut books at stores around the country, it operated on a subscription basis—for $65, you’d receive the next six books they published. The quality of their publications and inventive distrobution model earned Clear Cut a lot of attention (within the world of those who pay attention to micropublishers), and North Portlander Stadler was the public face of the company.

So when Stadler announced that he was leaving the organization, more than a few people were surprised. I emailed Matthew to get the full scoop.

“As for me and Clear Cut Press, I am now a subscriber and knocking on the door to be published by them,” says Stadler. “I left as editor because I was given $50,000 for my fiction writing, and I took that seriously, as a kind of commission. I am moving to Mexico in August and will do nothing but write, play in a mariachi band, and continue my workshop, www.usingglobalmedia.com (which I’ll be giving in Berlin in May, Mexico City next Fall, and then in Guanajuato, where my family and I will be living for at least a year).”

Read more of what Stadler has to say about his departure after the jump.

More from Matthew:

"The timing was right for Clear Cut too. Rich shored up the business side by entering into a partnership with Steve Connell (of Verse Chorus Press, and earlier the founder of Puncture) who now runs our warehouse distribution and accounts from Portland. With that in place, Rich was able to turn his attention to readying the next series for publication. I worked on the whole series that's about to come out.

"The list all set about a year ago, so my work — cultivating new books with writers I admire — was done. I'm subscribing because I know the books, and they're awesome. This series will be the sophomore equivalent of "More Specials," the greatest second album of all time. Bruce Benderson's gothic travel memoir, Pacific Agony, commissioned by Clear Cut and being published simultaneously in French, by Rivage (Bruce is the only foreigner ever to win the coveted Prix de Fleur); newcomer Danielle Dutton's groundbreaking S P R A W L, a prose poem that jams Lisa Robertson's intelligence and music into a Jane Austen-ish scrutiny of the manner of being in those new landscapes we continue to call "suburbs;" Emily White's chilling first novel, The Third River. If you haven't heard of her wait until this summer. She's got an amazing non-fiction book coming out from Simon Schuster, You'll Make Money In Your Sleep. As with series one, this is a mix of well-known and unknown, all of them superb writers working in many different genres and styles."

Stadler then goes on to note that he and Stephanie Snyder of Reed College's Cooley Gallery recently received a $15,000 grant from the Allen Foundation to work on an ambitious project called Suddenly which combines art exhibitions with a "huge" publication project.

Best of luck to Stadler and to Clear Cut—we can't wait to see what happens next from both camps.

CODA—In digging for a usable photo of Stalder, I found this interesting profile of him from the Village Voice back in 1999.