…if you are bored of this world…we have others
1. Who We Are
The Datura Press is an independent literary imprint and creative studio dedicated to strange, beautiful, and genre-defiant storytelling. Based in Florence with collaborators across Europe and beyond, we work in the borderlands where fiction, audio, visual culture, and myth collide.
We publish experimental fiction, modern gothic storytelling, and literary worlds with depth, shadow, and spirit — books that refuse tidy labels and linger long after the final page. Our writers, editors, photographers, sound artists, and makers operate like a small collective: cross-disciplinary, fiercely imaginative, and committed to craftsmanship over speed.
Through our publishing line and our audio wing — The Datura Tapes, a sound archive and narrative laboratory — we explore transmedia storytelling at its most intimate and cinematic. Whether on the page or in the speakers, every Datura project is built to be immersive, atmospheric, and alive.
2. Why We Made This Imprint
Datura exists for stories that thrive outside the traditional lanes — too literary for genre shelves, too speculative for conventional literary fiction, too strange or sensual to play by the market’s rules. We believe in fiction that risks something. Fiction that haunts. Fiction that rewards close reading and invites readers into deeper worlds.
Commercial trends often overlook books that challenge form or inhabit the uncanny. We built an experimental literary imprint precisely for this work: to give it editorial devotion, world-class design, and the freedom to be mythic, unruly, and unforgettable.
The Datura Press is our answer to a simple belief: the literary underground deserves a home — and readers deserve stories that dare.
3. Our Titles
Our constellation of works spans gothic fantasy, occult investigation, and speculative noir — unified by strong voice, mythic resonance, and rich world-building.
Narcisa — A myth-soaked, modern-gothic fantasy set in 18th-century Bukovina. A teenage witch challenges empire, memory, and fate in a novel of rebellion, ritual, and identity.
Walker Awake — A noir alternate-history thriller unfolding in a broken 1950s America. A man with no past enters a town that refuses to let him go — a literary fever dream of power, faith, and control.
The Death at the Door — Book I of The Annotated Casebooks of Professor Manton Marble. An occult detective investigates a terror cell of vampires led by the ghost of his wife. Smart, strange, and richly cinematic.
Each title forms part of a growing network of dark fiction, mythic narratives, and cross-media storytelling. These aren’t just novels — they’re entry points into a larger world.
4. The Datura Tapes
Alongside our books, we run The Datura Tapes — an audio fiction studio and experimental sound archive where our stories take on new forms. Think ambient electronica, narrative fragments, character transmissions, and cinematic sound worlds.
The Datura Tapes expands our universe into transmedia storytelling, audio world-building, and sonic mythology, giving readers, listeners, and collaborators a different way into the work.
For agents and publishers, it represents a rich layer of adaptation potential — from screen to audio drama to hybrid literary-sound projects.
5. For Agents, Publishers, and Partners
We’re actively open to collaboration, representation, and international partnerships.
If you’re a literary agent, publisher, audio producer, or studio seeking bold voices with strong adaptation possibilities, we’d love to talk. Our titles blend:
Literary depth
Visual and cinematic world-building
Strong series potential
Cross-format storytelling (print + audio + visual)
Our work resonates with readers of modern gothic fiction, mythic narratives, experimental literature, and fans of authors like Angela Carter, Susanna Clarke, Jeff VanderMeer, Naomi Novik, and Kelly Link.
We welcome inquiries about foreign rights, film/TV development, audio adaptations, co-publishing, and creative collaborations.