Small Press Holiday Recommendations: Day 9

Today’s book picks come from two of the hardest-working people in Pittsburgh’s small press scene. Fiction author Sherrie Flick is the co-founder (with poet Nancy Krygowski) of an amazing reading series that has brought emerging writers to enchant Pittsburgh audiences once a month for the last ten years. The Gist Street Readings have no equal, and the audience that Sherrie and Nancy have cultivated is a big part of that. Held in an artist’s studio building, augmented with a delicious pot luck dinner, the readings regularly turn people away when they reach capacity: This means 85 people in the winter, and 120 people in the summer--audiences so hungry to listen to writers they often haven’t heard of that they arrive way-early (I always go an hour in advance) and clamor inside. Once a year, the Gist Street Readings* showcase one small press--hosting several readers instead of just two. As if this weren’t enough, Sherrie is also the author of award-winning micro-fiction and a beautiful novel, a teacher of writing, and a writer of articles and book reviews.

Poet Adam Atkinson is one of the driving forces behind Open Thread, a Pittsburgh small press outfit that publishes books, runs a chapbook contest, co-hosts a reading series, and in 2009 started an annual Small Press Festival in Pittsburgh. Adam is also co-founder of a brand new small press, Oh No Books. I’ve had the pleasure of reading with Adam, whose poems are whip-smart and funny.

For the first Small Press Festival in 2009, Adam and Sherrie joined forces and brought IsReads Issue Number 5 to Pittsburgh. IsReads is the outdoor journal founded by Baltimore’s Publishing Genius and co-edited by Nashville’s Keyhole Magazine. Adam and Sherrie took the matter to City Council in Pittsburgh and July 21, 2009 was declared “The Journal Outdoors Day” by the City of Pittsburgh.

IsReads Pittsburgh

*****

1. Big Bend: Stories, L.E. Leone (Sparkle Street Books, 2008)
2. How Some People Like Their Eggs, Sean Lovelace (Rosemetal Press, 2009)
3. Wouldn't You Like to Know: Very Short Stories, Pamela Painter (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010)

Recommended by
Sherrie Flick, author of Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel, University of Nebraska Press
www.sherrieflick.com

*****

1. With Deer, Aase Berg [translated by Johannes Goransson] (Black Ocean)
2. There is another poem in which the news is erased and rewritten, Zachary Harris (New Michigan Press)
3. Open Thread Tri-State Chapbooks, Matt Anserello, Noah Falck, and Colin C. Post (Encyclopedia Destructica and Open Thread)

Recommended by
Adam Atkinson, Literary Editor of Open Thread and Co-Editor of OH NO Books
www.openthread.org
www.ohnobooks.com

*****

*The Gist Street Readings are actually set to end at the close of 2010. Perhaps I will ask Sherrie and Nancy to do an interview. I would love to know what they learned about running such a great reading series for 10 years. When I was moving to Pittsburgh, a few poets told me, "Well, The Gist Street Readings are there, but there's nothing else." If this were ever true, this is no longer true, but good for Gist Street for starting to put Pittsburgh on the map of literary America. So, what can the small press do for your city?

Stay tuned for more small press picks.

Small Press Holiday Recommendations: Day 8

Today’s small press picks come from two awe-inspiring librarians. Jenna Freedman is the first small press librarian I ever met. She came to Pittsburgh in 2007 with the greatest public librarian (and small press advocate) you’ve never heard of, Sandy Berman, for a Progressive Library Skillshare, which I was lucky enough to attend during my first semester of library school. Jenna has built a zine collection at the library at Barnard College and gives enthusiastic and infectious talks about how to start a zine library. She’s also involved with Radical Reference, a group of progressive librarians who began in 2004 as information support for activists and journalists around the Republican Convention in Manhattan. Her recommendations today come in the form of three reviews she's written over the last year. Renée Alberts is a librarian at the main Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh where she runs the Sunday Poetry and Reading Series. As both a librarian and a poet, she kicks ass and doesn’t take names. I’ve had the good fortune to see her read at many Pittsburgh venues, and her performances continue to give me goosebumps. Renée was kind enough to add mini-reviews to her small press picks.

*****

1. Golden State: a 24 Hour Zine, A.J. Michel
Reviewed by Jenna: http://jenna.openflows.com/reviews/michel/goldenstate

2. The Wandora Unit, Jessy Randall (Ghost Road Press, 2009)
Reviewed by Jenna: http://jenna.openflows.com/reviews/randall/wandoraunit

3. The Real Cost of Prisons comix, Lois Ahrens (PM Press, 2008)
Reviewed by Jenna: http://jenna.openflows.com/reviews/ahrens/realcostofprisonscomix

Recommended by
Jenna Freedman, radical zine librarian
http://jenna.openflows.com/

*****

1. Inferno: A Poet's Novel, Eileen Myles (OR Books, 2010)
Myles' wickedly honest delivery of her misadvenures as a young queer poet in New York will resonate with any writer who has ever weathered the awkward process of establishing her voice in a community. Her honesty reveals the pangs and thrills of self discovery in resonating passages that are by turns hilarious, inspiring and poignant.


2. Barefoot and Listening, Margaret Bashaar (Tilt Press, 2009)
Bashaar crafts a world of feminine strength and ethereal musing. Her poems are an alchemical blend of the mythological with the natural and ordinary worlds that lends your vision a deeper hue when you look away from the page.


2. afterpastures, Claire Hero (Caketrain, 2008)
Hero's vocabulary evokes a strange, feral narrator welling with desire. Brief lines crackle with surprising choices. Her language enchants you even as her imagery prowls towards the eerie imagery of gristle and cracking bones. The poems approach the dark mystery of fairy tales as they might sound from a character long isolated in a forest, dreaming of the person they so intimately address.

Recommended by
Renée Alberts, author of the poetry book No Water (Speed and Briscoe Press, 2009) and editor of the anthology Natural Language: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Sunday Poetry and Reading Series Anthology (Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 2010). Renée listens to rivers and shortwave and transcribes her discoveries at www.animalprayer.com.

*****

I'll be blogging more small press picks now through the end of the year. Email me at eyescorpion@gmail.com if you are involved with the small press and wish to contribute.

Small Press Holiday Recommendations: Day 7

Today’s small press recommendations come from Baltimore. I met Charm City author Jen Michalski when she came to Pittsburgh in August 2008 to read at The New Yinzer Presents series. Jen’s an impressive fiction writer, a small press mover and shaker, and a total mensch. Soon after I met her I read her stunning story collection, Close Encounters, and not long after that, she and Michael Kimball asked me to read at the 510 Reading Series they host in Baltimore.

If you haven't checked into the Baltimore literary scene yet, you should. They've got Atomic Books; The Book Thing; Eight Stone Press and Smile, Hon', You're in Baltimore; Publishing Genius; Pat King and Last Rites Baltimore; Narrow House Press; and the wonderful, aforementioned, fiction-only 510 Readings. I can't say enough about the 510: The neighborhood is charming, the venue, Minas Gallery, is both hip and heartwarming, the hosts are gracious, and the literary audience is all a writer could ask for. And afterwards, they wine and dine you at the nearby, cavernous neighborhood pub called Frazier's.

It was at Frazier's that night that I almost met Adam Robinson. He was there, and I was there, and we exchanged words and probably a handshake and apparently a pamphlet. But to be honest, my entire family had come to see me read after none of them had ever come to see me read, and I was totally sober but deeply out of it that night. I wish I had met Adam Robinson, because everytime I read one of his poems, I think it blows away most of the poems I've read before. I think Adam Robinson might be hilarious.

*****

1. Rattlesnakes and the Moon, Darlin' Neal (Press 53, 2010)
2. Further Adventures in the Restless Universe, Dawn Raffel (Dzanc Books, 2010)
3. Stories II, Scott McClanahan (Six Gallery Press, 2010)

Recommended by
Jen Michalski, author of May-September (novella; from the Press 53 2010 Open Anthology Awards, Press 53 2010), Close Encounters (So New Media, 2007), and TK (Dzanc 2013), and editor of City Sages: Baltimore (CityLit Press, 2010)

http://jenmichalski.com/

*****

1. Black Life, Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)
2. When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother, Melissa Broder (Ampersand Books)
3. How They Were Found, Matt Bell (Keyhole Books)

Recommended by
Adam Robinson, author of Adam Robison and Other Poems (Narrow House)
http://www.adamrobisonisabookofpoems.com/

*****

Please stay tuned for more book recommendations for your holiday gift lists. And for God's sake, support your local indie bookstore.

Small Press Holiday Recommendations: Day 6

Today's book recommendations start with Kevin Sampsell, a powerhouse of the small press. When I first "met" Kevin ten years ago (I think I wrote him a letter), it was because I was trying to get my first novel placed on consignment at Powell's Books, where Kevin earns his living. It was much later that I started recognizing Kevin's name as a byline on edgy, sexy fiction; as the publisher of the innovative Future Tense Books; and as editor of eye-catching anthologies like The Insomniac Reader: Stories of the Night, and Portland Noir from Akashic's noir series. (Savannah Schroll Guz and I recently asked Kevin to read in Pittsburgh, but alas, we didn't have any airplane money to back up our invitation.) I had the pleasure of meeting the charming Kari Larsen (another writer/bookseller) when she was at the recent Small Press Festival Expo in Pittsburgh. She was tabling with Pennsylvania's Seven Kitchens Press, where she's the production designer of gorgeous chapbooks of poetry and short prose. Robert Rosen wrote a small press book I loved, Nowhere Man (originally published on Soft Skull), about John Lennon. The back story of the book, which is part of the book, fascinated me: Robert was commissioned to transcribe Lennon's late diaries. But after feverish months of doing so, he was told to go on vacation, only to return to the diaries and their transcriptions having been stolen from his ransacked apartment. That part of the story is shrouded in mystery, but the rest of the book is the equally compelling tale of John Lennon's last years--paraphrased from Robert's memory of his intense months spent with Lennon's diaries. I recently "met" Robert Rosen online, after I wrote about reading Nowhere Man behind the register when I was a bookseller.

*****

1. Ghost Machine, Ben Mirov (Caketrain Press)
2. Blink and the World Goes Blind, Filbert Conroy (On Lives Press)
3. We Were Eternal and Gigantic, Evelyn Hampton (Magic Helicopter)

Recommended by
Kevin Sampsell, publisher of Future Tense Books
www.kevinsampsell.com

*****

1. O Fallen Angel, Kate Zambreno (Chiasmus Press)
2. The Mothering Coven, Joanna Ruocco (Ellipses Press)
3. Cure All, Kim Parko (Caketrain Press)

Recommended by
Kari Larsen, Production Designer at Seven Kitchens Press
http://coldrubies.diaryland.com/

*****

It's All Good: A John Sinclair Reader, John Sinclair (Headpress)
I met John Sinclair when I was in London last year, and saw him perform with his blues band. He gave me a copy of "It's All Good," a collection of his prose, poetry, and interviews going back to his days in Detroit as manager of MC5. The title of the book refers to the quality of marijuana available in Amsterdam, where he now lives. My favorite poem is called "ain't nobody's bizness." It begins: “we have a right to our bad habits/& if we want to blow our minds/or fuck up our lives, shoot dope/or smoke cocaine,... “ Well worth checking out this anthology of a 60s legend who's the subject of a song by John Lennon.

Recommended by
Robert Rosen, author of Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (Soft Skull Press)
http://www.robertrosennyc.com/

*****

Stay tuned for more small press recommendations, from now until Xmas.

Guest Review: Caleb J. Ross reviewed by Kristin Fouquet

Caleb J. Ross. Charactered Pieces. Outsider Writers Press, 2009. Fiction. 63 pages. ISBN: 978-1-59948-228-6

This collection of stories is one of the best I’ve read in a long time. The short form has always been my preference. I admire when a writer can take us immediately in and then release us in short duration. When it works, it is exhilarating. Caleb J. Ross delivers this.

The stories in Charactered Pieces are dark, sometimes disturbing, and anxious. I found a theme of parental angst stream through many of them. It was enjoyable to spend some time in the mind of Ross, but in the end, it was more personal. I believe a story is successful when you discover something about yourself after reading it. I highly recommend this collection.

Kristin Fouquet, author of Twenty Stories (Rank Stranger Press, 2009)

Kristin's website is Le Salon

Guest Review: Juliet Cook reviewed by Margaret Bashaar

Juliet Cook, Soft Foam. Columbus, OH: Blood Pudding Press, 2010. Poetry. 16 poems. No ISBN.

Before you read this review, I need you to go purchase this chapbook. Immediately. I'll wait. Okay. I am going to go ahead and assume you did as you were instructed, and now I'll tell you why. From the very first poem, "Semi-Extraneous Consort," I knew I was going to adore this chapbook. I think, sometimes, that Juliet (or at least the persona Juliet writes in) and I have some of the same neurosis. I feel like she gets me and all the fucked up little things that go through my head. Much of this chapbook is a meditation on life and death - particularly that of the speaker's husband's previous wife, who, it is revealed in the chapbook, has died. I, too, am my husband's second wife, and while his previous wife is not dead (and is a lovely person - I don't wish such things upon her in the least), when we first got together it felt different from him just having ex girlfriends. I feel like Juliet has an acute understanding of this and paints this relationship that her speaker has with her husband's dead first wife in such a painfully beautiful way that I couldn't put the chapbook down. I had some serious "goddamn! I want to write like this!" moments while reading Soft Foam. All the poems were, as I've now come to expect from Juliet, a treat to read aloud as well. Add in some creepy/lovely sea creatures, and you have my favorite chapbook I've read so far this year, hands down.

Review by Margaret Bashaar, co-host of The TypewriterGirls, editor of the anthology Make It So, and most recently the author of Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press, 2009)
http://www.tiltpress.com/index_files/Page1032.htm

Small Press Holiday Recommendations: Day 3

Today’s recommender is author David Hoenigman. I had the pleasure of reading with Dave when he came to visit his folks in Cleveland (on a visit from Japan, his current home) in 2007. Dave’s novel was due to come out on Six Gallery Press at the time, and he graciously offered to set up a Six Gallery Press reading at Mac’s Backs in Cleveland Heights. He invited about seven of us from Pittsburgh, and we caravanned West in a few cars for a very cool reading. It was my first road trip since I'd moved to Pittsburgh, and it didn't disappoint: Cleveland Heights has an awesome vibe, Mac’s Backs is one of the great indie bookstores of America, and the audience was alive and attentive. Dave’s excerpt from Burn Your Belongings was one of the most memorable performances of the night: a super-charged reading of his dense, electric prose. His novel has since been reprinted on Jaded Ibis Press.

Six Gallery Press Reading, Mac's Backs, Cleveland, May 2007

David sent his small press recommendations in the form of three online book reviews he published in 2010.

1. Lost Poet: Four Plays by Jesse Glass, Jesse Glass (BlazeVOX Books)
--Review in Word Riot, September 15, 2010


2. Protest!, Steve Finbow, Melissa Mann, Joseph Ridgwell (Beat the Dust Press)
--Review in Word Riot, February 15, 2010


3. Theoretical Animals, Gary J. Shipley (BlazeVOX Books)
--Review in 3:AM Magazine, February 11, 2010


Recommended by
David Hoenigman, author of Burn Your Belongings (Jaded Ibis Press)
http://jadedibisproductions.com/BURN_YOUR_BELONGINGS.html

*****

Stay tuned for more small press recommendation lists, plus some guest reviews.