Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 9.2

Poet Kris Collins reads at Awesome Books, Pittsburgh.

September 2011.

More small press recommendations today come from Kris Collins, one of Pittsburgh's small press movers and shakers. I think of Kris as "the bard of Pittsburgh" because I love the tavern's-eye view of the city found in his poems about his artist and writer friends gathered around beer, hope, smoke, frustration, and transition. Not only does he write richly moody scenes evoking the ghosts of Pittsburgh's past peeking through as the former "Steel City" aggressively remakes it present, but he chronicles the last few decades of the city's bohemians as well as anyone I've heard or read. His most serious competition may be the authors he's started publishing on his small press of limited edition poetry books: Low Ghost Press features two of Pittsburgh's most keen-eyed poets, John Grochalski (now a 'Burgh ex-pat living in New York) and Bob Pajich. Kris doesn't care about competition. He'll even read poems by other people at his own readings.

Kris manages one of my favorite bookstores in town, Caliban Books, and runs Desolation Row Records out of that store. He has been an active member of The New Yinzer litmag for several years and co-hosted their reading series with writer Savannah Schroll Guz for its first few seasons.

*****

1. Past All Traps, Don Wentworth (Six Gallery Press)

2. Spared, Angele Ellis (Main Street Rag)

3. Six Stories, David Lewis (The National Folk Art Foundation)

Kris Collins
Editor of Low Ghost Press
http://lowghostpress.blogspot.com/

Recommended reading: John Grochalski on Low Ghost Press.

Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 9.1

Today's small press recommendations come from J.C. Hallman, author of fiction and non-fiction. He came to Pittsburgh in September to read his riveting prose piece, "Spate and Spite," as the runner-up winner of a contest to write about The Night. His story looked back on his time as a casino employee in Atlantic City, while he recalled a run of suicides in that gambling town. The writing was excellent. It was not like what I think of as memoir; it was more like he used his casino-worker (former) self as a character in a meditative novel, a dark lens through which to attempt to comprehend who jumps from hotel roofs in Atlantic City and why. Or who works too long in a windowless casino and why. The piece also employed journalism, weaving seamlessly in and out of stories about the deceased and stories of the casino.

The event was hosted by Creative Nonfiction, the first literary journal to devote itself exclusively to this genre, almost 20 years ago. Founded by Lee Gutkind (who also started the first MFA program for Creative Nonfiction), CNF is a great resource for writers and readers of this evolving genre, and the most well-known journal based in Pittsburgh. At the reading (which was also a release party for issue #42), the editors announced a worldwide circulation of 6,000.

*****

1. To Assume a Pleasing Shape, Joseph Salvatore (BOA Editions)
2. Married But Looking, Daniel Libman (Livingston Press)

Recommended by J.C. Hallman
Author of The Hospital for Bad Poets (Milkweed Editions) and In Utopia (St. Martin's Press)
http://www.JCHallman.com/
http://WilliamAndHenryJames.blogspot.com

Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 8.2

More small press recommendations today come from Steve Himmer. Steve's own allegorical novel about the limits of solitude in a networked world, The Bee-Loud Glade (Atticus Books) has landed on numerous Best of 2011 lists: Namely on Jen Michalski's list earlier on this blog, as well as lists by Mel Bosworth, Sal Pane, Books on the Night Stand, NPR's On Point, Three Guys One Book, Book Page, and on the longlist for 3 AM Novel of the Year. See more here: http://www.stevehimmer.com/beeloud

Steve, who is based outside of Boston, came to Pittsburgh this year to read at The New Yinzer Presents series, along with a formidable small press lineup: Noah Gershman (Snail Press), Derek Pollard (BlazeVOX), and Traci O Connor (Tarpaulin Sky Press).

*****

1. TomorrowLand, Grant Bailie (Red Giant Books)
2. Tongue Party, Sara Rose Etter (Caketrain Press)
3. How The Days of Love & Diphtheria, Robert Kloss (Mud Luscious Press)

Recommended by Steve Himmer
Author of The Bee-Loud Glade and editor of Necessary Fiction
http://www.stevehimmer.com
http://www.necessaryfiction.com

Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 8.1

Tour poster for Anders Nilsen and his graphic novel Big Questions (Drawn & Quarterly).

In July, Chicago-based cartoonist and illustrator Anders Nilsen embarked on a lengthy book tour, hitting four countries in three months. His 600-page magnum opus, Big Questions, is the culmination of ten years of his drawings, and much-anticipated by the fans of this celebrated artist. In September he stopped in Pittsburgh (with Marc Bell) for a standing-room-only event at Copacetic Comics and (its downstairs neighbor) Lili Coffee Shop. Copacetic is one of Pittsburgh's great bookstores for a number of reasons, not least because owner Bill Boichel is a tireless champion of indie comics.

Today. Anders makes his 2011 small press recommendations, based on three months of browsing many of the world's best comic bookstores.

*****

1. Viande de Chevet, Various artists; Stephane Blanquet, Editor (UDA Press)
2. Going Back, Cathy G. Johnson (Self-published)
3. Quodlibet, Katja Spitzer (Nobrow)

Recommended by Anders Nilsen
Author of Big Questions (Drawn & Quarterly, 2011)
http://www.andersbrekhusnilsen.com/
http://themonologuist.blogspot.com/

Marc Bell, Bill Boichel, and Anders Nilsen outside of Lili Coffee Shop and Copacetic Comics. September 13, 2011. Photo by Larry Rippel.

Browsing at Copacetic Comics, Pittsburgh.

Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 7.2

Thirteen Designer Vaginas: Poems by Juliet Cook on

Hyacinth Girl Press.

Juliet Cook is relentless, and readers like me are thankful for it. This Columbus, Ohio-based poet keeps finding new ways to write about the body, the feminine, and the macabre, as she explores and fine-tunes her unique voice. She's also the master of the chapbook, as the editor of Blood Pudding Press, where she's been known to publish both herself and others. The latest chapbook of her own poems is Thirteen Designer Vaginas, which appeared this year on a new Pittsburgh chapbook press, Hyacinth Girl Press. Pittsburgh poet Margaret Bashaar (co-founder of The TypewriterGirls Poetry Cabaret) is the editor of this new undertaking. Margaret has also started a new Pittsburgh reading series. Titled the 2 by 4 Reading Series, these literary evenings are designed to promote and present collaborative writings: four reading sets by two writers each. The first 2 x 4 Reading happened in October 2011 and included Juliet Cook teamed up with Margaret herself.

*****

1. many lost cause creatures could form a very sad list, Krystal Languell (Dusie Kollektiv 5)

2. the last will be stone, too (excerpts), Deborah Poe (Dusie Kollektiv 5)

3. BARCELONA POEMS, Mark Lamoureux (Dusie Kollektiv 5)

Recommended by Juliet Cook
Author of POST–STROKE (Dusie Kollektiv 5) & Thirteen Designer Vaginas (Hyacinth Girl Press) and more at http://julietcook.weebly.com/

Best of the Small Press 2011: Day 7.1

Writer Josh Barkan in front of the Edgar Thompson Works, U.S. Steel,

Braddock, Pennsylvania. This mill has been in operation since 1872.

Writer Sherrie Flick is best known in Pittsburgh as a master of flash fiction, the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (Bison Books, 2009), and the co-director of the beloved Gist Street Reading Series. Though the curtain went down on Gist Street last year (after a triumphant decade), Sherrie has followed that act by co-founding a writer's residency in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a borough just 10 minutes drive from Pittsburgh city limits. Braddock is one of the hardest-hit steel towns of the rust belt, having lost over 90% of its population. Ironically, it is also home of one of the last two working steel mills in Allegheny County. But in recent years, the town has been getting the most attention for its young mayor, who is trying to revive the place by luring artists to fill empty houses and by offering free and cheap industrial spaces to arts organizations.

Today's small press recommendations come from Josh Barkan, the first writer-in-residence hosted by INTO THE FURNACE, Sherrie's new venture. Author of the satirical novel, Blind Speed (Northwestern University Press, 2008), Josh is also a world traveler who calls both New York City and Mexico City home. I haven't yet seen him read, but I did get to meet him briefly when he was marching with a mutual friend in the Occupy Pittsburgh demonstration on October 15.

*****

1. Trophy: A Novel, Michael Griffith (Northwestern University Press)
2. God Bless America: Stories, Steve Almond (Lookout Books)
3. The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, Deborah Baker (Graywolf Press)

Recommended by Josh Barkan

Author of Blind Speed: A Novel and Before Hiroshima: The Confession of Murayama Kazuo and Other Stories, current writer-in-residence of Into the Furnace in Braddock, PA.
http://www.joshbarkan.com

*****

The name of the writers residency, INTO THE FURNACE, is a reference to a 1941 novel set in Braddock called Out of This Furnace. The novel was written by Thomas Bell. For more info on the residency, see: http://intothefurnace.wordpress.com/

View of the steel mill from the front porch of the residency, Braddock, Pennsylvania. Photo by Josh Barkan.

Remembering a Great Storyteller

Richard Leck (February 17, 1933 – December 19, 2008)

Today we remember Richard Leck, who died peacefully on this date three years ago. Richard was a poet and a storyteller, an Army veteran from between wars, a Hudson County native (where he lived for over four decades), a resident of the East Village, and a veteran of the Greenwich Village café scene of the 1960s.

I met Richard when I was working at St Mark’s Bookshop and we quickly became friends due to his being such an entertaining customer. For the last two years of his life, we were collaborating on his memoirs (JUMPED, FELL, OR WAS PUSHED, still in progress), which he described as “comedy sociology.” Our writing project was a happy accident for each of us. Richard was waiting for someone to listen to all his stories and I was waiting for someone to tell me what had gone down in Jersey City (the city of my grandfather’s childhood) in the early part of the 20th Century. Whenever Richard talked, I took notes, and soon we decided to stop calling it “having coffee” and start calling it “writing a book.” I am hugely grateful for all that Richard and his stories taught me: How to listen, how to appreciate what you have, how to stay young and grow old gracefully, how to survive the rough patches with humor, how to figure out what's important and ignore the rest, how to forgive your own past, and especially how to tell stories. I learned more from absorbing his storytelling rhythm for two years that I ever would in any MFA writing program. Hell, maybe Richard Leck WAS my MFA program.

Richard was a very funny man. His literary memorial service had us all laughing like the best Irish wakes always do. Some small press superstars joined Words Like Kudzu Press to read from Richard’s stories and poems for the memorial, held at the Bowery Poetry Club in May 2009. Participants included Margarita Shalina (small press buyer at St Mark’s Bookshop and translator of Chekov’s The Duel, Melville House Press); writer Brian Cogan (Encyclopedia of Punk); novelist Arthur Nersesian (Akashic Books); poet Bob Holman (founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, poetry activist); poet Jackie Sheeler (Earthquake Came to Harlem, NYQ Books); poet Steve Dalachinsky (The Final Nite & Other Poems, Ugly Duckling Presse); writer Mike Faloon (The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock on Gorsky Press and editor of Go Metric Zine); and storyteller Tom Hendrickson (Whack & Blight Press).

Follow this link to listen to the readings from Richard’s memoirs and his poems:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF79DD06C41AB9E25

Follow this link to read an excerpt from Richard’s memoirs:
"You Could Make a Bet on a Street Corner as Easy as Buying a Newspaper"
Go Metric Zine
http://gometric.typepad.com/gometric/2009/04/you-could-make-a-bet-on-a-street-corner-as-easy-as-buying-a-newspaper-part-i.html

Read the Village Voice appreciation of Richard Leck here:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/01/richard_leck_19.php