Fresh Pressed February 2017: Your Monthly Independent Literary Publishing Update
Barely a Month...
Dear Community,
Just a month into the new administration in
Washington and many in our community have
already mobilized to preserve the federal safety
nets essential to the flourishing of the literary
arts.
First, though, how wonderful it was to see so
many of you at the Association of Writers and
Writing Programs Conference recently! Being
surrounded by thousands of publishers and
writers speaking out about free speech while
remaining focused on their literary missions
was truly invigorating. If you weren't able to attend, scroll down to listen
to exciting and useful panels presented by CLMP and Small Press Distribution.
Back to politics, and on the NEA front, the federal budget has yet to be
announced. Once the budget is finally released, if things like the NEA and NEH
have indeed been cut, it may be too late to make changes, so it's important to
act now. Signing petitions is terrific, but the most effective thing you can do is
to directly contact your representatives. They care about your future votes.
If you have yet to call your local representatives about protecting the NEA,
please take these simple steps:
1. Call (202) 224-3121, the Capitol Switchboard, and state your zip code,
and you will be connected to the office of your representative.
2. Express your concerns. A human being will kindly write down your
comments. If you care about multiple issues (and there are plenty to care
about: immigration, women's rights, the environment, just to name a few),
I suggest you call with one issue at a time, calling every day until you've
exhausted your list.
3. If you live in a zip code where your representatives already support the
issues you care about, call and thank them. Budget items are often
negotiated, and it's important that local constituents make known what's
most important to them.
Please join me in giving a special shoutout to New York's Senator Gillibrand for
drafting a letter in support of the NEA and to the 24 representatives who
signed it. You can find the letter here on Twitter. Please "like" the tweet and
then "quote retweet." Then tweet to thank the senators who signed if they
represent your area. If you don't have a senator represented, a simple retweet
will still help.
Here are all of their twitter handles:
@SenGillibrand
@SenatorTomUdall
@SenatorCollins
@SenCapito
@RonWyden
@SenAngusKing
@SenMarkey
@SenatorShaheen
@SenatorBaldwin
@SenatorLeahy
@SenFeinstein
@ChrisCoons
@SenatorCardin
@SenBlumenthal
@SenatorHassan
@maziehirono
@SenFranken
@SenJackReed
@SenGaryPeters
@SenStabenow
@ChrisVanHollen
@SenWhitehouse
@SenSanders
@SenatorMenendez
You may also be interested in reading "The Original NEA Legislation Is
Actually a Great Work of American Literature: On What We Risk Losing in
National Funding for the Arts," an article I wrote for LitHub. It's moving to
remember why the NEA was created, let alone read a beautifully crafted piece
of legislation that also works as literature.
To be kept informed about legislative actions coming up affecting the NEA, as
well as other issues about the field of Literature of national interest, I urge you
to sign up for LitNet Action Alerts below.
Also below, some very exciting news about our newest CLMP staff member, as
well as a welcome to a number of new CLMP publishers.
Thank you for publishing, for writing, and for reading!
Keep up the good fight,
Jeffrey Lependorf, CLMP Executive Director
PS If you are an individual who is not yet a Friend of CLMP, please consider
joining us!
Exciting New Staffer at CLMP
Alison Meyers joins CLMP as
Director of Development
Alison Meyers served as Executive Director
of Cave Canem Foundation from 2006 2016, and now she's at CLMP as our
Director of Development. Previously, she
served as Poetry Director and Director of
Marketing & Communications at HillStead Museum, Farmington, CT; and
General Manager of the Oberlin
Consumers Co-operative, Oberlin, OH. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize,
Alison is a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in Connecticut
Review, Freshwater Review, ragazine, Stone Canoe, the anthology "Gathered
Light: The Poetry of Joni Mitchell's Songs," and elsewhere. At CLMP, she will
work with staff, board and members to raise needed funds; deliver workshops
on budget development, fundraising, and marketing; and help spearhead
CLMP's 50th Anniversary rebranding.
Welcome, Alison!
Sign Up for LitNet Action Alerts
Stay informed to take action.
Whether you're a publisher, a writer, or
anyone interested in protecting the NEA
and the NEH, as well as other national
issues affecting the field of Literature,
stay current with LitNet Action Alerts. LitNet, a coalition of nonprofit literary
organizations founded by CLMP and Poets & Writers, supports freedom of
expression and promotes funding for the literary arts.
Click here to sign up for LitNet Action Alerts!
Listen In on AWP 2017
New Audio Recordings for Fresh Pressed readers...
Weren't able to attend AWP or attend our panels there? Hear experts in the
field reflect on literary publishing trends, diversity, and how emerging writers
and their small press publishers have been working together by clicking on the
below and hearing recordings of these AWP panels presented by CLMP and
Small Press Distribution last month in Washington, D.C. for AWP 2017:
Current Trends in Literary Publishing
Featuring Porter Anderson of Porter Anderson Media; Katie Freeman of Penguin
Random House's Riverhead Books; Dawn Davis of 37 Ink; Literary Hub's Jonny
Diamond; and Michael Reynolds of the independent publisher Europa Editions.
These leaders in the field discussed everything from how publishers are
encouraging "global empathy" to issues of diversity, to how smaller great books
get known.
Face Out: Maximizing the Visibility of Emerging Writers
How do independent publishers and emerging writers collaborate to market
their books? Hear publisher+author teams Alan Felsenthal of The Song Cave
with writer Emily Skillings, Sarah McCarry of Guillotine with writer Lyric
Hunter, and Stephen Motika of Nightboat Books with writer Ely Shipley share
what they have been doing to initiate, develop, and market their small press
projects.
Publishing Diversely: Challenges and Successes
Piyali Bhattacharya, editor of the NEA grant-winning anthology, Good Girls
Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion
and Charles Flowers, founder of BLOOM, a journal for queer writing, discuss
issues and challenges of publishing diversely. Trisha Low, Small Press
Distribution's Publicity Manager, moderates.
Click here and Listen In!
Publishers: Visit the Library for More AWP 2017 Audio
We've added recordings of these panels of particular interest to publishers to
the CLMP Resource Library.
Say Yes to the Press: How Effective Small Publishers Do What They
Do
Hear Martin Riker, the publisher of Dorothy, a publishing project; J. K. Fowler,
publisher of Nomadic Press; and Neelanjana Banerjee, Managing Editor of
Kaya Press reveal how they do what they do and sustain their publishing
efforts. Moderated by Brent Cunningham, Operations Director for Small Press
Distribution.
Untangling the Web: Lessons Learned from Publisher Website
Redesigns
This group of publishers and web designers reflect on the challenges and
surprises of creating new websites, from how to better serve multiple
constituents (authors, readers, booksellers, educators, funders) to how best to
create a compelling presence that invites repeat visits. Featuring web designer
Bud Parr; Erika Goldman, Publisher of Bellevue Literary Press; Minna Proctor,
Editor of The Literary Review; Dan Machlin, Publisher of Futurepoem; and
moderator Montana Agte-Studier, Director of Membership and NYSCA NYTAP
at CLMP.
Word Banks: Accounting for Small Presses
Brent Cunningham, Operations Director for Small Press Distribution; Jeffrey
Lependorf, Executive Director of CLMP; and Rafay Khalid, whose career has
been spent on Wall Street assisting companies to grow and develop discuss the
unique bookkeeping and accounting issues and challenges facing independent
literary presses. Hear tips and strategies on such topics as monitoring sales,
structuring margins, tracking author royalties, and dealing with bad debt.
Welcome Our Newest CLMP Publishers
Crosswinds Poetry Journal
Crosswinds Poetry Journal provides a forum for
well-crafted English language poetry on all subjects and supports poetry outreach
and programs that assist with food pantries.
Golden Handcuffs Review
Golden Handcuffs Review brings neglected experimental writing
to light, focusing on challenging essays, fiction, and poetry in the
traditions of Black Mountain, the Lower East Side of the '60's, and
the San Francisco renaissance.
Nixes Mate Review
Nixes Mate Review wants to challenge the
preconceived notions of reading on the web by using
off-the-shelf technology to build a best-in-breed
literary magazine, featuring small-batch artisanal
literature created by writers who've been honing their
craft the time-honored way: one line at a time.
Sputnik & Fizzle
Sputnik & Fizzle press cultivates a space where
academics and multimedia artists cross paths, where
texts disturb comfortable formal territories, where
national and linguistic boundaries are transposed via
translation, and where the discourses that shape social,
political, ecological, scientific, and artistic life coincide.
Thoughtful Dog
Thoughtful Dog online magazine features
literary fiction, interviews, essays and articles on the art of writing and the literary
life. Thoughtful Dog aims to be earnest about publishing good writing and
literature without taking themselves too seriously.
Washington Writers Publishing
House
WWPH is a non-profit co-operative press
reflecting both the diversity and the devotion to
literature of writers in the greater Washington,
Baltimore, and Northern Virginia areas. For 40
years the press has published more than 100
volumes of poetry and prose.
Click here to see all our members!
Become a Friend of CLMP!
Become a Friend of CLMP! When you do, you join a dedicated community with a
stake in the future of small press and lit mag publishing. Your donation, regardless
of size, helps ensure a place at the publishing table for writers of all backgrounds,
for work in translation, and for genres not fully supported by commercial
publishing.
Thank you for helping keep the literary field healthy, inclusive, and diverse!
CLMP is grateful for support from
and Friends of CLMP
Be sur e t o f ol l ow us on f a ceb ook | t wi t t er | i nst a gr a m