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Books :: A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize Winner

shame-shame-devin-beckerDevin Becker’s debut collection Shame | Shame investigates two types of shame: that which disgraces, and that which curbs and keeps. Set in the mundane everyday where lives maneuver around other lives, conversations are clumsy, and a co-worker is the only one without a party invite, these confessional narrative poems humorously dramatize the socially awkward moments of life.

Shame | Shame is the 2014 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize winner, selected by David St. John, who also provides a foreword for the collection, stating “We all want to know what happened to Huck after he decided to ‘light out for the Territory’—my own sense is that 150 years later, a little sadder and a whole lot wiser, he emerged as Devin Becker.”

Published by BOA Editions, Ltd., Shame | Shame will be released this April.

eBooks :: Dying Swans by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

jane-joritz-nakagawaThe new free ebook from Argotist Ebooks is Dying Swans by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. From the publisher: “Dying Swans is a literary monograph which compares Sylvia Plath via her poetry, letters and diary entries with the main character of the 2010 Hollywood film Black Swan. What results is an exploration of femininity, gender stereotypes and the female psyche as depicted in a variety of films, poems and commentary by female poets, and feminist scholarship, particularly from the 1950s to the present.” Full Argotist Ebooks catalog here.

Books :: Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize Winner

belle-mar-katie-bickhamThe poems in The Belle Mar by Katie Bickham are set on a Louisiana plantation from 1811 through 2005, and speak through the imagined voices of slaves, masters, mistresses, servants, and children. Focused on events that take place in a single room within the plantation home, Belle Mar, Bickham offers an unflinching portrayal of the atrocities that form an undeniable part of Lousiana’s history. The fully rounded characters she evokes allow readers to contemplate the social forces that shaped a slave-holding society and perpetuated injustices long after abolition.

Katie Bickham has also received the Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize from The Missouri Review. Her work can be found in Pleiades and Prairie Schooner. Winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize, chosen by Alicia Ostriker, The Belle Mar will be released by Pleiades Press on April 14, 2015.

Books :: Black River Chapbook Competition Winner

taxonomy-of-the-space-between-us-caleb-curtissBlack Lawrence Press runs their Black River Chapbook Competition biannually (submissions opening again this spring), seeking an unpublished poetry or short fiction chapbook. Winners receive publication, $500, and ten copies of their perfect-bound book.

Fall 2013’s winning title A Taxonomy of the Space Between Us by Caleb Curtiss was published this past February.

“A Taxonomy of the Space Between Us is an elegant chronicle of grief, of the sprawling bonds between brothers and sisters, of bodies in this world, of the power of language when so artfully arranged. Caleb Curtiss is a poet among poets and in this beautiful and assured collection, he makes himself heard and how.” —Roxane Gay, author of An Untamed State & Bad Feminist

Curtiss’s work can also be found in The Literary Review, New England Review, PANK, Hayden’s Ferry Review, DIAGRAM, Passages North, Spork, and TriQuarterly, and in New Poetry From The Midwest, published by New American Press.

Books :: New Measure Poetry Prize Winner

no-shape-bends-the-river-so-long-monica-berlin-beth-marzoniFree Verse Editions, the poetry series of Parlor Press, hosts The New Measure Poetry Prize each year, awarding a prize of $1,000 and publication to an author of an original, unpublished manuscript of poems. Chosen by Carolyn Forché as the 2013 winner, No Shape Bends the River So Long by Monica Berlin and Beth Marzoni was published this past December.

“[. . .] together they navigate with beauty and resonance the ‘hours of drought, of waiting, the new low- / watermarks of the lakes,’ the trees ‘that sound like rain & morning.’ This is ecopoetry, it is intimate conversation, it is meditation, the turning inward, the swinging back out from mind to world around the bend.” –Nancy Eimers

Check out Free Verse’s website to learn more about No Shape Bends the River So Long.

Books :: Delta Dogs

delta-dogsThis new book, Delta Dogs from University Press of Mississippi, celebrates the canines who roam this most storied corner of Mississippi. Some of Clay’s photographs feature lone dogs dwarfed by kudzu-choked trees and hidden among the brambles next to plowed fields. In others, dogs travel in amiable packs, trotting toward a shared but mysterious adventure. Her Delta dogs are by turns soulful, eager, wary, resigned, menacing, and contented.

Writers Brad Watson and Beth Ann Fennelly ponder Clay’s dogs and their connections to the Delta, speculating about their role in the drama of everyday life and about their relationships to the humans who share this landscape with them. In a photographer’s afterword, Clay writes about discovering the beauty of her native land from within. She finds that the ubiquitous presence of the Delta dog gives scale, life, and sometimes even whimsy and intent to her Mississippi landscape.

Delta Dogs
By Maude Schuyler Clay
Introduction by Brad Watson
Essay by Beth Ann Fennelly
96 pp. / 10.5 X 9 inches / 70 duotone photographs

[Text from the publisher’s website.]

February 2015 Book Reviews

February’s Book Reviews are now up! Check out what our reviewers have to say about tiles from Altaire Productions & Publications, University of Iowa Press, Burning Deck Press, Brooklyn Arts Press, Write Bloody Publishing, New Issues Press, Red Hen Press, and Pleiades Press. With only one fiction title covered this month, lovers of poetry have plenty to read about.

25 Books That Inspired the World

cheAs part of World Literature Today magazine’s November 2014 cover feature focusing on central European literature since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the editors invited 25 writers to nominate one book that most influenced their own writing or ways of seeing the world. Nominations were open to any book-length work—written in any language and published since November 1989—as long as it could be read in English. The longlist was then published on WLT’s blog, and readers were invited to vote for their three favorites. The top ten results, along with the nominating statements for the three winning titles, can be found in the most recent issue and on their website.

Books :: Killing Trayvons

KillingTrayvonsPublished by CounterPunch, Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence tracks the case and explores why Trayvon’s name and George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict symbolized all the grieving, the injustice, the profiling and free passes based on white privilege and police power: the long list of Trayvons known and unknown. With contributions from Robin D.G. Kelley, Rita Dove, Cornel West and Amy Goodman, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Alexander Cockburn, Etan Thomas, Tara Skurtu, bell hooks and Quassan Castro, June Jordan, Jesse Jackson, Tim Wise, Patricia Williams, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Vijay Prashad, Jesmyn Ward, Jordan Flaherty and more, Killing Trayvons is an essential addition to the literature on race, violence and resistance. [Description from the publisher.]

CounterPunch Magazine is a political newsletter of independent investigative journalism, published 10 times per year in print and digital. The CounterPunch website offers content free of charge. This, along with many other alternative magazines on a variety of topics, can be found on the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines.

August Book Reviews on NewPages

In case you missed it last week, August’s book reviews are now up for perusing.

Nonfiction books received a lot of love this month:

“Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur is a curious history. On one hand, it tells the story of the ‘coolie’ indenturment in the British Empire (with a great introductory note about the use of the word ‘coolie’). On the other hand, it’s a story of family legacy. Coolie Woman grounds itself in the legitimacy of archival sources, interviews, and photos—its footnotes and documentation are extensive.”

In The Kama Sutra Diaries:Intimate Journeys through Modern India, “[Sally] Howard undertakes the journey through modern India to reexamine society’s tacit condoning of sexual assaults, verbal abuses, and casual groping, sometimes referred to as ‘eve-teasing,’ a uniquely Indian term that connotes anything ranging from whistles from roadside Romeos to flashing.”

“Robert Root begins Happenstance by explaining his plan for the memoir: ‘to write about one hundred days of my childhood in the next one hundred days of my age, to capture one hundred recollections of the past over one hundred days of the future.’”

In Phoning Home by Jacob M. Appel, “The essays span the writer’s professional and personal lives, each adding depth and perception to the other. Essays on Appel’s Jewish heritage and family are at once poignant, witty and insightful.”

If nonfiction isn’t your favorite, there are several other reviews to enjoy: American Innovations, fiction by Rivka Galchen; Short, an international anthology featuring short stories and other short prose forms edited by Alan Ziegler; How a Mirage Works, poetry by Beverly Burch; Medea, fiction by Richard Matturo; and Someone Else’s Wedding Vows, poetry by Bianca Stone.

WriteGirl :: A Model of Mentoring & Resources

Located in Los Angeles, WriteGirl is a one-on-one mentoring and monthly creative writing workshop model for girls 13-18 years old. Started in 2001, WriteGirl has grown to become a recognized, and highly awarded, mentoring model for its efforts to promote creativity, critical thinking, and leadership skills to empower teen girls.

 
WriteGirl serves over 300 at-risk teen girls in Los Angeles County. The Core Mentoring Program pairs at-risk teen girls from more than 60 schools with professional women writers for one-on-one mentoring, workshops, internships and college admission and scholarship guidance. In 2001, WriteGirl launched a 24-week creative writing program for incarcerated teens, and in 2012 successfully guided a 12-week series of workshops in Peru under the name Escriba Chica.
 
WriteGirl has published a dozen anthologies of writing from young girls and women of the WriteGirl project, as well as Pens On Fire: Creative Writing Guide for Teachers & Youth Leaders. Their most recent collection, You Are Here: The WriteGirl Journey also includes a section on writing experiments to inspire writing and editing.
 
You Are Here is a gorgeously printed publication with over 100 contributors and additional information about WriteGirl and their activities. What I enjoyed most about it was the addition of a single comment from some of the authors to say a bit about their works. Some explain the activity, such as this from Anneliese Gelberg (age 16) to explain her prose poem “Dreaming”: “At a WriteGirl Workshop, the activity was to write about a favorite place. I thought of my bedroom – bu more importantly, I thought of that place we all go when we’re waking up or falling asleep.” And this one, from Kathryn Cross (age 14) to comment on her prose piece “Joy”: “I wrote this piece after not making the volleyball team.”
 
For anyone who is interested in working with teens and writing, especially at-risk youth, WriteGirl provides a excellent model to follow and publications to inspire and guide.

Sinister Wisdom :: “Living as a Lesbian” by Cheryl Clarke

Sinister Wisdom‘s issue 91 features the work of one author, Cheryl Clarke. In an introduction, Nancy K. Bereanowrites, “It is absolutely clear to me that Cheryl Clarke was then, and remains now, a singular, powerful voice articulating the truths of fierce, independent women of color: lesbians who often live lives made triply invisible by their sexuality, their race, and their working-class realities. And she writes with the kind of precision and attention to linguistic detail that might have impressed those Republican ladies if they had had the emotional and political wherewithal to take on her work.”

Co-published by A Midsummer Night’s Press and Sinister Wisdom, the Sapphic Classics Series publishes reprint editions of iconic works of lesbian poetry. The third Sapphic Classics will be issued in early 2015.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: December 5, 2013

This week’s selections include poetry, Mexican fiction, and the memoir of a lost Holocaust childhood.

Out of Their Minds, fiction by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, Cinco Puntos Press

“Hey, what’s up, come a little closer, I have something to tell you,” God said to Cornelio. The deal was simple: God would be the silent partner in the norteño band that Cornelio had started with his best friend Ramon. Cornelio would sing and play the bajo sexto, Ramon the accordion, and God would write the songs. Cornelio agreed; he would sell his soul to God.

Success and disaster followed. The band went from playing bars in Tijuana to playing the biggest stadiums in Mexico. Women started fan clubs and motorcycle gangs dedicated to their heroes, Ramon and Cornelio. It seemed to Cornelio and Ramon that they had everything, but fame was a cruel mistress.

“Of course, what good is a novel about music without music?” Cinco Puntos notes. They have created a Spotify playlist of music from the novel; the playlist can be accessed at the book’s page on the Cinco Puntos site. Turn up the volume while you read.

Looking for Strangers: The True Story of My Hidden Wartime Childhood, nonfiction by Dori Katz, University of Chicago Press

Dori Katz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who thought that her lost memories of her childhood years in Belgium were irrecoverable. But after a chance viewing of a documentary about hidden children in German-occupied Belgium, she realized that she might, in fact, be able to unearth those years. Looking for Strangers is the deeply honest record of her attempt to do so, a detective story that unfolds through one of the most horrifying periods in history in an attempt to understand one’s place within it. A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. In it, the past becomes alive, immediate, and of the most urgent importance.

Obedience, poetry by Chris Vitiello, Ahsahta Press

Obedience features dual-sided printing: begin with either cover (pictured above) and flip the book over and continue reading after you finish one side…or at any point, actually, as Ahsahta notes that the book can be read “forwards, backwards, and laterally.” From its dedication (“for the word ‘THIS’”) to its cascading sentences that demand “Explain yourself to this dot • ” or observe “The first word was a command,” Chris Vitiello’s unique book creates a reading experience of poetry that borders on the compulsive. “The title of this book should be the entirety of the text of this book over again,” the author suggests before urging the reader: “Go on.”

(And for those who are curious after seeing the book’s covers–the ISBN and bar code are on the spine.)

There are no poem titles or page numbers; this can be found about seven pages in, starting with the pink cover:

A tree performs a function: to itself grow
Tear out this page and cut a paper snowflake from it
Don’t read the rest of this book; cut the remaining pages into snowflakes
A photograph of a tree is
That someone created the concept of closure is disappointing

[flip the book over and read the following next to that passage]

That someone created the concept of closure is embarrassing
This line says that it is a photograph of a tree
Mulch this page and germinate a tree with it
Don’t read the rest of this book; mulch the remaining pages
The living really only replicate themselves

Check out more great reads in our latest batch of book reviews, posted last Monday.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: November 21, 2013

After a brief hiatus, we’re back with more interesting book covers:

Bite Down Little Whisper, poetry by Don Domanski, Brick Books

 

 From “Ars Magica”:

Quietude is called returning to life Lao Tze says
even on a Tuesday afternoon in Nova Scotia
even with the hood ornaments of chocolate irises
gleaming outward from their arterial darkness
with the unborn standing high up in the trees
                                  like cemetery angels
one finger pointing to heaven    the other to earth

Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea, poetry by Renee Ashley, Subito Press

 
 

from the book’s title poem:

But you too know this: the wanting to be what you cannot—except by extension—and the bearing of those secrets so immeasurable not even an ocean can conceal them And in the ocean’s failure the mountain shows its hard side its watershed steep with its varied waves of not-sea its gravities and declivities its runnels its hummings and echoes vaulting against the inner ear a passel of unruly birds against a pearled tympan . . .

The Everyday Parade/Alone With Turntable, Old Records, poetry chapbook by Justin Hamm, Crisis Chronicles Press

After reading Justin Hamm’s The Everyday Parade, flip the chapbook over and take in its B side, Alone With Turntable, Old Records. (The image above shows the front and back covers.)

From “The Everyday Parade”:

She helps him swap out
the fuel pump
for one from the junkyard
delivered by goateed uncle
on motorbike,
and all afternoon they sit uptown,
a pair of grease-covered gearheads
in the white sunshine,
watching the long slow procession
of the Everyday Parade.

 
 

We’ll be back with more book covers after Thanksgiving…happy holidays!

Six Word War

Created by Shaun Wheelwright and Mike Nemeth, both US Army veterans, Six Word War is real stories from Iraq and Afghanistan in just six words. In partnership with Six-Word Memoirs and SMITH Magazine, this project is the first ‘crowdsourced’ war memoir that will “tell a story different than any other ever told about war. For the first time in history, one book will contain the collective experience of our military at war in their own words.” A book of the six-word stories is available now for preorder; all November pre-sales will be autographed first editions of Six Word War.

Poetry Anthology Helps Victims of Boston Marathon Bombings

As Thanksgiving and the season of gratitude approaches, consider purchasing a book that makes a difference with each sale. Like One: Poems for Boston, edited by Deborah Finkelstein, is a recent anthology that brings together pieces from a wide range of poets, from former Jersey City Poet Laureate Aaron Middlepoet Jackson to former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky to Dickinson and Whitman. All proceeds from the book go to The One Fund, created last summer to assist victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and their families.

For a complete list of poets included and their bios, visit the poets page on the website. Like One can be purchased via the website or on Amazon.

New Book Reviews Posted

New book reviews are up! Check out the latest batch on our book review page. Books covered this month include:

The Forage House, poetry by Tess Taylor, Red Hen Press
War Reporter, poetry by Dan O’Brien, Hanging Loose Press
Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine, anthology compiled and edited by Travis Kurowski, Atticus Books
New Stories from the Midwest 2012, anthology edited by Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham,

Swoop, poetry by Hailey Leithauser, Graywolf Press
The Consummation of Dirk, fiction by James Callahan, Starcherone Books
The Year of What Now, poetry by Brian Russell, Graywolf Press
Scent of Darkness, fiction by Margot Berwin, Pantheon
 
Find some great new books to read this month, and look for more book reviews on Dec. 1.

June 2013 Book Reviews

In case you missed them, check out our June issue of book reviews on NewPages. Eleven new books are covered, from poetry and fiction to nonfiction and a poetry/prose cross-genre title. Specific titles include:

Virtual Author Event: Shirley Reva Vernick & J.L. Powers

Monday May 13 at 6:00 pm EDT, Cinco Puntos Press presents two virtual discussions via Shindig: Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism with Shirley Reva Vernick and That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War with J.L. Powers.

Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism by Shirley Reva Vernick

Johnny’s summer plans fly out the window when he learns he has to help out with his autistic older cousin, Remember. His premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to cringeworthy fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy’s romance and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.

Come join us for Cinco Puntos’ debut Author Talk series with award-winning author Shirley Reva Vernick, who will talk about her second novel for young people where laughter and serious issues mix in a lightly humorous novel.

That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War by J.L. Powers

In this 2013 Notable Book for a Global Society, seventeen writers from around the world contribute essays about coming of age during a time of war: fighting, dying, surviving. Powers will talk about war, violence, and childhood, and what these writers taught her about exile and belonging after their worlds were destroyed.

Concrete Highway Deal

Blue Cubicle Press announced the release of their new issue of Workers Write! Tales from the Concrete Highway, stories and poems from the driver’s point of view.

Unfortunately, the editors note that a number of copies they received from the printer have a “small but annoying mark on two of the pages. Nothing major, doesn’t take away from the readability of the page, just kind of looks like a skid mark, which, I guess, is wholly appropriate for this issue.”

Replacements have been ordered, and “clean” copies can be purchased for $10 (also available in PDF and Kindle versions). But, for $4.50, the cost of postage and envelope, readers can order a “slightly marked” copy.

Blue Cubicle Press is collecting stories and poems for their tenth issue of Workers Write! More Tales from the Cubicle.

New Publisher on the (Lit) Block: Dinah Press

Dinah Press recently announced its publishing debut. Based in Los Angeles, Dinah is an editorial collective with a core group of permanent editors. Authors published by the press are invited to serve as guest editors for the year following their publication.

The goal of the new press is to highlight work from underserved groups. According to their FAQ page, they will publish “fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by women of color, trans people, people with disabilities, members of colonized peoples, and other talented writers whose work has been deemed ‘unmarketable’ by mainstream publishers.”

Dinah also stresses the communal nature of writing and publishing. “In building solidarity with individuals across communities and letting writers control the production of their work, we strive to break down the idea that writing is a solitary, isolated, and privileged act, or that publishing is necessarily hierarchical. Writing—especially when one’s voice is not valued in mainstream society—is a necessity, not a luxury.”

In the coming months, Dinah Press will begin to accept submissions, and then they will read them year-round. In the meantime, they have announced their first two titles: nomad of salt and hard water, poetry from Cynthia Dewi Oka, and Other Life Forms, a novel by Julia Glassman.

Welcome, Dinah Press!

AWP Announces Finalists for 2013 Small Press Publisher Award

AWP has announced the finalists for this year’s annual Small Press Publisher Award. AWP confers the award annually to honor small presses and their contributions to literary culture; in even years the award is given to a literary journal, and in odd years to a publisher. Each award includes a $2,000 honorarium and an exhibit booth at the AWP annual conference. The winning press will be announced at the Opening Night Awards Celebration at this year’s AWP Conference in Boston on Wed., March 6. Tickets to the invitation-only ceremony will be sent to invitees in mid-January.

This year’s finalists are:

Bellevue Literary Press, a project of the NYU School of Medicine and the first and only nonprofit press dedicated to literary fiction and nonfiction at the intersection of the arts and sciences. Bellevue’s award-winning titles include Paul Harding’s Tinkers, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and Michelle Latiolais’s Widow: Stories, a best book of the year from Library Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Coffee House Press, a Minneapolis-based press founded in 1984 by Allan Kornblum. Coffee House has published hundreds of titles in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including the recent titles Kind One by Laird Hunt, The Iovis Trilogy by Anne Waldman, Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, and Netsuke by Rikki Ducournet.

Red Hen Press, founded in Los Angeles in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark Cull. The press houses the imprints Arktio Books and Boreal Books; issues several literary awards each year, including the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award and the Letras Latinas Poetry Prize; and sponsors an outreach program, Writing in the Schools. Red Hen’s authors include John Barr, Douglas Kearny, Eva Saulitis, and Los Angeles Poet Laureate Eloise Klein Healy.

Sarabande Books, based in Louisville and founded in 1994 by poets Sarah Gorham and Jefferey Skinner. Sarabande’s numerous award-winning writers include Lydia Davis, author of The Cows, Elena Passarello, author of Let Me Clear My Throat, Cleopatra Mathis, author of Book of Dog, and Ryan Van Meter, author of If You Knew Then What I Know Now.

“We are excited to present this new award, as the best small press literary publishers often go under-recognized in the publishing world,” said Christian Teresi, AWP’s conference director. “We look forward to acknowledging the outstanding work of independent magazines and presses at our conference for many years to come.”

Congratulations to all the deserving nominees!

Press 53 Publishes 100th Title

Press 53 has just published In a World of Small Truths, the debut short story collection from Ray Morrison. This is the 100th book published by Press 53, which celebrated its seventh anniversary in October.

Morrison’s book focuses on the Southern city in a state of flux, jumping from backwoods thieves and farmers to professionals and students. Stories from the collection have appeared in Fiction Southeast, Ecotone, Aethlon, Carve Magazine, and Night Train. Morrison won first prize in the short story category of the 2011 Press 53 Open Awards and has twice received honorable mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.

Congratulations to both Press 53 and Ray Morrison.

The Gift that Gives to All

If you are reading the NewPages blog, chances are you already consider a book to be one of the best gifts out there (to give or receive). But why not consider another literary gift? A donation in someone’s name to an independent publisher gives on multiple levels:

  • You are supporting not just the publisher, but authors (and by extension, readers) as well.
  • In some cases, publishers offer books at a certain donation level, so you’ll still have something for your recipient to unwrap. (And if not, buy one of their books!)
  • Many independent presses, especially non-profit ones, are heavily involved in the improvement of their communities and dedicate funds to literacy and other programs, both local and worldwide. Your donation can have a far-reaching impact.

Unsure how to choose a publisher to support? Just pick a tactic. Go with the well-known: both Coffee House Press and Graywolf Press are non-profits; Graywolf notes on its site that a $25 donation can provide one of their titles to a high school student, and through 1/15/13, Coffee House is donating 10% of its sales to the worldwide literacy program Room to Read. Or go with a cause near to your recipient’s heart: Kore Press, for example, publishes women’s poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, including that of writers underrepresented in the cultural mainstream. They also seek to mentor and support women ages 14-20 with their Grrls Literary Activism Program. Find a press that supports GLBT literature…environmental activism…translations of obscure French poetry; whatever your recipient’s interest, there’s likely a small press that caters to it.

Countless publishers would appreciate your financial support, and any reader would enjoy having that support given in her/his name. And perhaps best of all, you don’t have to go anywhere near a mall.

If you know of other presses like those mentioned, please add a comment about who they are and what they do to this blog post. (Comments are moderated to avoid spam, so give us time to post them.)

Andrei Codrescu on Reddit AMA Thursday, Dec. 5

Andrei Codrescu, author of the just-published Bibliodeath (Antibookclub), will be participating in a Reddit AMA session on Thursday, Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. Central time/11 a.m. Eastern.

To join in the discussion or ask a question, follow this link Thursday at the specified time: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

Bibliodeath is a book-length essay that addresses the end of the book in its print form. Codrescu mingles his thoughts about the migration of books to new formats with a memoir of his own writing history. Footnotes, pages long at times, serve as a parallel commentary to the book. Instead of falling into one camp or the other, Codrescu uses the concept of archives, both literal and metaphorical, to meditate on the transformation of the written word.

Codrescu is a poet, novelist, and contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered. He is the author of numerous books and was a distinguished professor at Lousiana State University before retiring to the woods a few years ago. A new collection of his poetry, So Recently Rent a World: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2012, is forthcoming next week from Coffee House Press. More information about the author and his wors can be found at his website.

Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) series lets readers submit questions to the participant, who will respond to them in real time. Questions can be on any topic. Participants have ranged from a driveway sealcoater, a toll booth worker, and a professional circus acrobat to Eric Idle, Larry King, and Barack Obama.

2012 Outdoor Book Awards Announced

Thinking about holiday shopping for the nature lover in your life? This year’s Outdoor Book Awards have been announced, and with the variety of categories in the awards, there’s something for everyone.

Two books are winners in the Outdoor Literature category. Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail by Suzanne Roberts (University of Nebraska Publishing) details the author’s 1993 trip through the Sierra Mountains of California with two other women. Fresh out of college, Roberts and her friend Erika decide to hike the 211-mile trail. Roberts reluctantly agrees to allow Dionne, a 98-pound bulimic who has never trail-hiked, to accompany them. The book unfolds with a chapter for each day of their trip (Roberts kept a journal during the hike), and the reader is propelled through the narrative by suspense: Will Dionne make it? Will the author’s knees hold out? The heart of Almost Somewhere is the relationship between the three women—described as “a bulimic, a bully, and a neurotic”—and how they each find their strength and sense of self on the trail.
The other winner of the Outdoor Literature category is a more dramatic survival story. The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier, by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan (Ballantine Books), details Davidson’s harrowing experience after a climb up Mt. Rainier. During his hike down, he falls into a crevasse, but is stopped when his pack somehow wedges between two narrow walls. First a load of snow and then his hiking partner, gravely injured, fall on top of him. The Ledge recounts Davidson’s harrowing efforts to save his partner’s life, while balanced on his pack, and then his attempt to hike 80 feet to the top of the crevasse and hike out to safety.
On the extreme opposite end of nature’s grandeur, David George Haskell’s The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature (Viking) narrows its focus to a smaller spot: one square meter of a forest in Tennessee. Winner of the Natural History Literature category, The Forest Unseen tracks this “forest mandala,” as Haskell calls it, through a full year of seasons and changes. The patch itself is shown in a video on Viking’s site at the link above, and audio clips and photos can be found at Haskell’s site, theforestunseen.com.
Fans of photography or ocean life should check out Design and Artistic Merit award winner Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest by photographer David Hall (University of Washington Press). His images document the ecosystem of the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska. Sarika Cullis-Suzuki’s introduction to the book details the conservation issues related to the area.
For a full list of the award winners and honorable mentions, detailed by category (including awards for Nature and the Environment, Children’s, and more), visit the Outdoor Book Award website at http://www.noba-web.org/books12.htm.

A Very Different Book

Is it a book? Is it a painting? It’s Very Different Animals by Frank Sherlock, an accordion-fold book set in fonts VTKS Animal 2 and Big Caslon and mounted in Blick Studio mini canvasses. Each canvas features original artwork by Philadelphia artist Nicole Donnelly. It is printed in an edition of 100 on reclaimed 120 gsm Arches cotton wove watercolor paper. It is officially available on Fact-Simile‘s website at a discounted pre-sale price.

Election Day Eve Books of Interest

If the current election cycle has not completely dampened your enthusiasm for politics and activism, you may be interested in a handful of political titles recently received here at NewPages. If it has, then wait for 2013 to clear your political palate, then start fresh with one of these interesting reads:

Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, published in September 2012 by Seven Stories Press, is an unabashedly liberal book from journalist Greg Palast. Palast is known for his investigative reporting of the controversial 2000 election—specifically, voter fraud in the state of Florida, and how Katherine Harris removed more than 50,000 names from the voter rolls as felons. This makes it all the more amusing that among the blurbs on the back of the book, including those from Noam Chomsky and Al Sharpton, Harris is listed as well: “Twisted and maniacal” is her “recommendation.” Palast is actually offering free downloads (donation optional) of his book through Election Day at this page on his website. Read it for the history of Palast’s reporting over the years, fueled by unapologetic outrage.

A handy resource for writers, bloggers, and those who want to sound impressive at dinner parties, What Liberals Believe (Skyhorse Publishing, September 2012, edited by Dr. William Martin) is a veritable Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations of liberal quotes. Originally published in 2008, this updated second edition has information on the 2012 election and a section called “The Best of the Obama Years and More.” The book is organized by broad categories, each containing specific topics (for example, “The Struggle for Equality” encompasses “Civil Rights,” “Diversity,” “Gays and Lesbians,” and “Intolerance,” among others). Quotes run the gamut throughout time, from Aesop and Buddha to Jon Stewart and Barack Obama.

What You Should Know About Politics…But Don’t, by Jessamyn Conrad, is also out in a second edition from Skyhorse Publishing (May 2012). Conrad’s non-partisan guide to political issues is divided into 13 chapters, each devoted to a broad topic—civil liberties, the environment, education, etc. This edition has been most heavily updated, since its original publication in 2008, in its chapters on the economy and foreign policy. Conrad’s goal is to present each issue framed by its arguments on both sides. Each chapter begins with a bulleted list of background facts, and key terms are highlighted in bold throughout.

Lastly, for those interested less in political issues and more in the theory behind change, Skyhorse has also published The American Spring: What we talk about when we talk about revolution (July 2012). Journalist Amelia Stein interviewed 26 artists, professors, filmmakers, activists, writers, and more. Her questions are designed not only to illuminate the interviewee’s background (“Describe…your first political experience”) but also to provoke additional discussion (“How much of knowledge is experiential?”). The resulting topics of conversation vary, from the importance of Emma Goldman to the Occupy Wall Street movement to nonviolent protest.

Get out and vote tomorrow, and then keep reading!

Celebrating Silent Spring at 50

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, is considered by many to be an essential book that helped to spark the modern environmental movement. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring‘s publication, and programs celebrating this anniversary have been happening in the U.S. and around the world.

The Borderbend Arts Collective is working with other partnering organizations to present “Celebrating Silent Spring at 50.” This program includes creative responses to Silent Spring and celebrations of Rachel Carson’s life and legacy – with events, artistic contributions (writings, music, visual art, multidisciplinary works), and more. One of this program’s goals is for people and organizations from each of the U.S.’s 50 states to contribute to “Celebrating Silent Spring at 50,” and the organization welcomes contributions from around the world.

[Text from the Silent Spring at 50 website.]

New & Noteworthy Books

NewPages New & Noteworthy Books is a regularly updated page where we list books received for listing and review consideration. If you want to browse a variety of independent, university and small press titles as well as literary imprints, then bookmark this page and make it a regular visit to keep up with what’s new and noteworthy. Good reading starts here!

Books :: Tiny Homes

Ever since I read a news article about a woman who lived in a 200-square-foot home, I have been fascinated – and not doubt romanticizing – the idea of living (not just ‘vacationing’) in such a small space. What a great way to ‘de-clutter’ and ‘live simply’ as growing movements suggest we are better off doing so that others may ‘simply live.’ (The woman in the news article had a helpful rule we could all live better by: She only allowed herself a certain number of objects in her home. If she brought something new in, something old had to go.)

At NewPages, we get a lot of incoming, and one book I was thrilled to see was Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter, Scaling Back in the 21st Century by Lloyd Kahn, published by Shelter Publications.

This book features 150 builders who have created tiny homes (under 500 sq. ft.) on land, on wheels, on the road, on water, even in the trees. There are also studios, saunas, garden sheds, and greenhouses.

Most amazing, in the 224 pages are included 1,300 full-color photos, showing a rich variety of small homemade shelters, and there are stories (and thoughts and inspirations) of the owner-builders who are on the forefront of this new trend in downsizing and self-sufficiency.

This particular book does not include any intricate building plans – these are included in other publications put out by Shelter. Rather, the intent of this book is to showcase, inspire, and motivate people to consider this alternative way of taking up less space on the planet.

There’s a two-minute book trailer on the publisher’s website featuring Lloyd Kahn discussing the book, the concept of tiny shelters, and numerous images from the book as well. Certainly well worth a look.

Books :: Children’s Picturebooks

In Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling, Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles introduce readers to the world of children’s picturebooks, providing a solid background to the industry while exploring the key concepts and practices that have gone into the creation of successful picturebooks.

In seven chapters, this book covers the key stages of conceiving a narrative, creating a visual language and developing storyboards and design of a picturebook. The book includes interviews with leading children’s picturebook illustrators, as well as case studies of their work. The picturebooks and artists featured hail from Australia, Belgium, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, the UK and the USA. The authors close the book by considering e-publication and the future of children’s picturebooks.

Published by Laurence King Publishing, this gorgeous paperback is 192 pages and packed with 300 full-color illustrations throughout. Readers who remembers their own childhood picturebook favorites will not be able to put this book down. See the book website for a full table of contents and ordering information.

Books :: Shelter Puppies

I can honestly say, I hope eBooks will never replace the coffee table book. While I know digital picture quality can surpass print quality when it comes to art and images, it’s the cover of a book like this one that will get readers and “non-readers” alike to pick it up and thumb through its pages.

In his newest book, professional pet photographer Michael Kloth helps readers focus on the plight of the “pound puppies,” but without once showing the dark, heart wrenching images we think of when imagining life in “the shelter.” Instead of wire cages and cement floors as scenery, Kloth expertly poses the pups on clean backdrops with plenty of warm, bright light, letting viewers – and prospective owners – see the canine kids at their best. Little puppy personalities fill the pages of this book, and while they are the photographic subject, the real message of this effort is shared in Kloth’s introduction.

While Kloth recognizes there are “valid reasons to buy a puppy from a breeder,” he shares the message of animal advocates in promoting the adoption of shelter and foster animals. He cites research on the number of purebred dogs brought to shelter each year and that, though families may be eager when first purchasing designer-breeds, that excitement may wane when the resulting dogs turn out not to be such a good match.

Kloth volunteers his time each month to visit shelters in his area and photograph pets ready for adoption. The photos are used to help would-be owners find their next family member. Kloth offers helpful advice to shelters and volunteer photographers about ways to present these animals to give them the best chance at adoption. Photographing through wire cages, Kloth tells readers, is a no-no, along with images of the animal backed into the corner of a cage or in any way looking scared. While these may raise the sympathy meter, they don’t tend to help bring out the true, positive characters of the pet.

Kloth’s book features 65 puppies in full color on the main pages with a “follow-up” section in the back about what happened to each of the pups shortly after – most were successfully adopted with only a couple stories of return and retry. Also included are several later follow-up stories of the dogs now in adulthood and the lives they have changed. This is a truly heartwarming and highly educational addition to Kloth’s series on shelter pet books, which I hope he will continue.

I was initially interested in this book because it was promoted as one that donated a portion of the proceeds to the ASPCA. But, when I got the book, I was a bit let down to see that only twenty-five cents per book is donated. While this doesn’t seem like a lot, I relinquished that any amount is a good amount. Further, when reading about how much time, equipment, and resources Kloth devotes to his volunteer work photographing these animals, I understood that a great deal more of whatever he might earn from this book has already been donated through his kindness, and no doubt will continue.

In addition to his work with local shelters, Kloth is also a member of the new non-profit organization called HeARTs Speak. HeARTs Speak was founded with the expectation that visual artists can make a very real difference in helping adoptable animals find homes.

As with all my recommended books, this one makes a great personal or gift purchase, but would also be a good library donation to share with your community, or even purchasing a copy for your local shelter (who might benefit from the photography tips).

Black Lawrence Book Sale

Get three Black Lawrence Press story & poetry titles at reduced pricing, or all three with shipping included for $25 – September only:

Pictures of Houses with Water Damage
Stories by Michael Hemmingson

From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet
Stories by Patrick Michael Finn

The Giving of Pears
Poems by Abayomi Animashaun

Pongo Book & Writing Resources for Troubled Teens

The Pongo Publishing Teen Writing Project is a volunteer, nonprofit effort with Seattle teens who are in jail, on the streets, or in other ways leading difficult lives. The Pongo website features many resources for teachers and counselors working with teen writers.

The Pongo Teen Writing Project is releasing their latest book of teen poetry from King County juvenile detention. This perfect binding, full-color cover book is entitled There Had to Have Been Someone. This and several other Pongo books are available for purchase on their web site, each with a sample poem that can be read online.

Pongo’s Writing Activities now includes an ‘easier to use’ interface for teens to write poetry online. There are 46 fill-in-the-blank writing activities on themes such as “Addicted,” “Girl with the Scars,” “Lessons of Courage and Fear,” and “Ten Reasons to Love Me.” The Home page has a video, set in juvenile detention, that explains Pongo’s mission and their authors’ poetry.

Wave Books Subscription = Free Festival Pass

In addition to receiving all the books published by Wave Books in 2011, this year’s subscription ($75) comes with complimentary passes to the Wave Books Poetry Festival: Three Days of Poetry in Translation ($25 value), coming up November 4-6 in Seattle. Even if you can’t attend the festival (donate your passes?) subscribers will receive all materials included in festival participant packets, including limited edition pamphlets and a handmade book.

For a full list of the books included, visit Wave Books website.

Anobium Books Education Discount

Anobium Books is a Chicago-based, independent publisher founded in 2011 by Benjamin van Loon and “Mary J. Levine.” Anobium Books’ Education Discount Program will run indefinitely while supplies last, and offer free shipping and a 20% discount to Chicago Metropolitan Area students, faculty and staff. Beginning on July 31st, Anobium: Volume 1, which features new writing from Jonathan Greenause, Rich Ives, Joe Meno and others will be the first title available in the program.

What I’m Reading :: 77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected

77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected by author and agent Mike Nappa (Nappaland Literary Agency) takes a hardcore look at editorial, marketing, and sales perspectives on why a book is rejected. His tone is quick-witted and conversational, and he is in no way here to hold your hand and make you feel better about your rejections. He is in-your-face (“Your Writing is Crap”), realistic (“Your Book Costs Too Much to Make”), and the helpful voice of a friend you need (“You Aren’t Able to Significantly Differentiate Your Book from the Competition”).

Nappa follows up each of the 77 Reasons Why with “What you can do about it,” offering two or three tips for each reason. He notes early on that you may not like what he has to say, but he is being as honest as he can. The book begins, “I make it my goal to reject every book proposal you send me in sixty seconds or less.” This may sound arrogant, but keep reading: “The sad part about this goal of mine is that it’s remarkably easy to accomplish. Too easy, in fact.” Nappa himself has had numerous books published, but also received thousands of rejections, so he isn’t taking any kind of industry-moral high road here. He really is talking to readers like the friend they need to guide them through this seemingly mysterious process. This book, he says, is about “learning why we fail – and then turning that knowledge into success the next time around.” Or at least making that rejection less of a bitter pill to swallow.

Given the 77 reasons in here, only a few could be taken as personal – the rest, he points out, are purely business (which might explain why so many find it “mysterious”). Nappa offers a detailed explanation of what happens once an acquisitions editor takes a book on to pitch to the publisher. It’s not pretty, and it explains why some books never make it past that stage. “Remember,” Napa writes, “publishing is an industry – a business that has at its core the innate desire for survival. And, as for any business, survival means profit. A publishing house that doesn’t actively pursue profitability – no matter how noble or sublime its content goals – simply won’t be publishing books for very long.”

Nappa addresses reasons for rejection from three main perspectives: editorial, marketing, and sales. Some of the examples he provides from his years of experience are shockingly funny (as in, someone really did that?). But what may seem like the “right” approach from the writer trying to pitch a book is exactly what knocks that book out within those first sixty seconds of consideration. Nappa warns his readers, “I will always be honest with you in this book. Sometimes that may make you angry with me. I apologize in advance…but please don’t take it personally. I’m just trying to help you by sharing from my twenty-plus years of experience in publishing.”

Nappa welcomes readers to disagree with his advice if they have had different experiences, which is a good reminder that no one “advice” book of this kind is in any way absolute in being right or naming what is wrong. There are as many experiences with publishing as there are writers trying to get published and agents accepting or rejecting those attempts.

While it seems like this book focuses on the goal of writers who want to run with the big dogs in publishing, that might just be because of Nappa’s work experience in the more cut-throat levels of the industry. Many of his best stories (both of failures and successes) come from working with bigger publishing houses. Still, Nappa offers solid advice for ALL writers to consider, whether pitching to an agent or directly to a small, indie publisher, like those listed on NewPages.

I am personally not a writer trying to get published, but found Nappa’s book extremely insightful (in addition to entertaining), just reading about his work as an agent and acquisitions editor, and working in the industry with other major decision-makers. It’s not a book that needs to be read cover to cover; with each reason and advice on what to do about it taking only a few pages each, it’s easy to pick out specific issues of interest.

77 Reasons is available online from Sourcebooks, where you can also see the full table of contents and read an excerpt from the book.

The Good Books

Issue #14 of PEN America features The Good Books, in which over fifty writers — including Yiyun Li, Anne Fadiman, Karen Russell, Gary Shteyngart, David Shields, and many more — choose the works in translation they’d bring to a great global book swap. Several contributions are available for reading online.