Brick Cave Media

The Story of Brick Cave Media begins all the way back in 1994. Brick Cave founder Bob Nelson was the co-founder in that year of two projects that would invariably lead to the creation of Brick Cave Media.

Pre-Brick Cave History

In 1994, Bob co-founded the Essenzalsam Poetry Slam, a weekly poetry event in Mesa Arizona. Lasting 13 years and hundreds of shows, it would introduce Bob to a number of performance poets who would later become staples of the Brick Cave Media stable of writers, including Sharon Skinner, Bill Campana, Patrick Hare and others.

Also in 1994, Bob would co-found a reinvented Anthology magazine with future Brick Cave author J.A. Giunta. Joe, who had been running a variation of the publication as a Zine since 1991, would partner with Bob to create a new full size magazine format that would be published for the next ten years, finally shuttering in 2004.

In 1997, Bob would found Inkwell Press as the publishing organization for Anthology.

In 1999, Bob along with other future Brick Cave artists, would join NetRadioLive, a new Internet Radio station founded by Jordan Dorf. They would produce several radio shows, including The Spokenworld Show. The shows would last until near the end of 2001.

In 2002, Bob Nelson and Sharon Skinner would shutter Inkwell Press and create a new 501(c)3 https://anthology.org to facilitate growing spoken word and publishing endeavors. Also in 2002, Bob would open The Anthology Cafe, a literary themed Coffee Shop in Mesa, Arizona to act as a centrally themed venue for the Non Profit. Anthology, Inc. would cease publication of Anthology magazine in 2004, and Bob would close the Anthology Cafe in 2005. Anthology, Inc. still exists as a non profit, producing the Mesa Book festival, Cirque du Livre Writers Conference and Roadside Book Festival.

Founding Brick Cave

In 2006, Bob recognized the last of industry support for spoken word artists, and having developed an extensive network of artist contact, began to plan an organization to promote the artists and the art of spoken word.

Starting As A Recording Company

With a large body of recordings dating back to 1997, Bob secured permission to begin work on a new project, a Spoken Word Album from poet Bill Campana, comprising recordings dating as far bask as 1999 through 2005. The project would become The Hit List, and would be released a s a 3 Compact Disc set in June 2006. Soon after the release of The Hit List, Bob founded Brick Cave Media as the organizational name for the effort. Between 2006-2009, Brick Cave Media continued to release new album titles from Bob himself, Sharon Skinner, The Klute and Russ Kazmierczak Jr.

An Introduction to Film

In 2008, Bob began work on a side project in film. Long a fan of Kaiju and other giant monster movies, Bob envisioned a short film as an homage to the genre. in talking with other about the project, the scope and subject of the film morphed. Bob wrote the draft for the feature length film Sacrifice, and partnering with Kent Markwart, Brent Heffron and Mike Robinson to produce the film. The micro-budget film was released in 2010, released on Amazon soon after and followed by additional productions.

The The Dragons Logo

2008 saw the creation of the Brick Cave Media "Three Dragon" Logo, using the dragon designed by Artist Mike Robinson as the antagonist of the film Sacrifice. The three dragons representing the organization's work in Audio, Film and Print.

Move Into Publishing

After a period working on separate projects, In 2009 author J.A. Giunta approached Bob about publishing a series of novellas he had written for a commercial project that had failed. Brick Cave Published 5 stories from the Knights of Virtue on the Kindle Platform shortly thereafter. Following the successful launch of those titles, Bob and Joe collaborated on updating and releasing The Stories of Haven, originally published in Anthology magazine.

In 2012, Brick Cave branched out into publishing paperback editions of new releases, including publishing Sharon Skinner's widely well received The Healer's Legacy.

That business would continue to grow, with the additions of more authors and published works. In 2019, Brick Cave had 75 titles available across physical, digital and audio publishing channels. most importantly, ready to face the next decade leveraging the 25+ years of experience across multiple media to grow Brick Cave Media to a new level.