Newswire archives are delayed by two weeks.

The CLMP Newswire
A Biweekly Email News Dispatch on Independent Literary Publishing
A Project of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (http://www.clmp.org)

Table of Contents for March 15, 2002 (Volume 2, Number 5)

• Note to New Subscribers
• AWP Roundup
• San Francisco-Based Krupskaya Celebrates Fourth Year As Collective Press
• Hyde Park Review Offers New Venue for Small Press Publishers
• In Brief
• Announcements

NOTE TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS

The CLMP Newswire--available exclusively in an e-mail format--covers literary publisher news, including: notable achievements, innovative marketing and fundraising programs, people news, e-publishing ventures, grant making and fundraising trends, politics and policy issues affecting small literary publishers, and awards and grants deadlines. Issued on the 1st and 15th of each month, the newswire is now free of charge to both CLMP members and non-members. We hope you enjoy it! If you do not wish to receive the newswire, please send an e-mail to rcasper@clmp.org with "unsubscribe newswire" written in the heading.

Although the CLMP Newswire provides hyperlinks to particularly important major news stories that have appeared elsewhere on the web, the goal is to uncover news of special interest to literary publishers that hasn't appeared in print before. Send news items to Leslie Schwartz at lschwartz@clmp.org.

AWP ROUNDUP

This year's Associated Writing Programs (AWP) conference in New Orleans proved to be the largest ever, according to David Fenza, Executive Director of the organization. There were over 2,500 attendees--400 more than last year in Palm Springs--and 160 presentations. Most importantly for Fenza, there were over 500 student attendees, many of whom were able to attend for free or at a reduced cost because of the sponsorship and support of their universities. Except for the hotel accommodations--one day there was no hot water, and fresh coffee was scarce throughout--there were no major disasters to report. Matt Burriesci, Office Manager at AWP, said that this year's conference "went fantastically smooth." Calling it the most trouble-free conference in the history of the organization, he credited New Orleans with infusing excitement into the event.

The success of this year's conference was nearly jeopardized by the events of September 11th. Though Fenza says he always fears airline or service industry strikes, nothing could prepare him for the anxiety that the attacks caused. "9/11 put a terrible chill on planning the conference," says Fenza. "But we had a lot of people register at the last minute, and there seems to be a response now that people are really letting go of some of the repressed energy caused by the tragedy."

Fenza says one of the most successful aspects of this year's conference was the Bookfair, which boasted the most exhibitors in the conference's 27-year history. Over 100 presses and publishers attended. Fenza says of the Bookfair's success, "It's the one time the exhibitors get to talk to their peers, and it's also the first time for many of them to meet their contributors face to face. These two things make it a huge success." He also says the layout of the room used for this year's Bookfair allowed for good foot traffic and easy accessibility to the exhibitors.

Here are three different takes on the event, from three CLMP magazine members: Olivia Sears, Editor of Two Lines (http://www.twolines.com), calls the AWP Bookfair the cream of the crop. She says, "I've been to lots of book fairs, and you always end up next to the Christian Science Reading Room or some technical journal on computers, and people come up to you and say, 'What's literature?' At AWP every booth was like us or like Copper Canyon Press, something we aspire to be." She adds that she finds the conference "very inspiring." Sears does not attend the conference primarily to sell issues, but to network--and in the two years that the San Francisco-based journal has attended, she feels she has benefited enormously from contact with other editors. This year, for instance, she was part of a panel on translation and, though she says it was sparsely attended, those who did show up were enthusiastic. Sears also sees AWP as an opportunity to define the journal's mission: to feature "the art of translation."

Pablo Peschiera, Managing Editor of Houston-based Gulf Coast (http://www.gulfcoast.uh.edu), called this year's conference "a mixed bag." "I got the most from panels on the nuts and bolts of running a literary magazine and from the panels that focused on the way writing comes into our lives," says Peschiera. He found the pedagogy-based panels the least interesting. "It seems like the teaching culture is trying to give itself a certain academic value in order to perpetuate its own credibility rather than talking about writing in more basic terms as something credible in itself," he says. Regardless, he found the networking and exposure at the Bookfair a valuable asset for his magazine. "It's difficult to make sales and gets subscriptions, but meeting other editors helps [me] to make decisions about my own magazine," he says.

Mary Rockcastle, Editor of Water~Stone and Director of the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Hamline College, says, "I wear several hats so I go to AWP." To that end, Rockcastle feels she benefits in several ways. The first is that AWP offers an opportunity for her to meet people who have contributed to the magazine. The other is exposure. "AWP is a great way to spread the news about the journal and the MFA program," says Rockcastle. "But the conference has also given us a presence to help grow our magazine." While Rockcastle says the publication does get a few new subscriptions at AWP, the larger benefit is the number of quality submissions that come out of having a table at the Bookfair. "We get so many good writers wanting to submit to us from AWP," says Waterstone. "The number of submissions has grown astronomically and has really benefited us." She also says of the conference, "It was an opportunity to attend readings that showcased writers of the region. You have the chance to hear voices you wouldn't normally hear from that part of the country."

Next year's conference will be held February 26 through March 1st at the Baltimore Harbor Hotel. Fenza admits that, while New Orleans as a location was one of the main draws for this year's conference, next year's conference in the Northeast will most likely be even more popular since most of AWP's and CLMP's members are concentrated in that region. For more information, log on http://www.awpwriter.org.

It wasn't easy choosing a name, according to Joceylyn Saidenberg, Founding Editor of Krupskaya Books' (http://www.krupskayaboooks.com). Saidenberg had no problem forming a publishing collective in 1998, but when she and Co-Editors Hung Q. Tu and Rodrigo Toscano tried to decide what to call it, the going got rough. Nevertheless, the name Krupskaya--taken from Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's politically-oriented wife--stuck. That's because Krupskaya devoted her life's work to Marxist ideology, which appealed to the collective's leftist politics (Saidenberg herself was once a labor organizer in New York City.) Also, the Stalin administration eventually purged Krupskaya's memoirs and other writings, which struck a chord with Saidenberg.

Saidenberg and the other editors decided to make the press live up to the ideals of the person it was named after. "What we really wanted to do was infect it with a politics and not just create a press that would publish our friends." Their first objective was to make the press as democratic as possible. They decided to make decisions on publication not by vote, but by consensus. They also decided to make the press a rotating collective, save for Saidenberg. Each editor serves a two-year tenure, then suggests names for her or his replacement (the final decision also made by consensus). "I started this press but I didn't want future editors to be people I knew, so that's why outgoing editors get to make the selections," says Saidenberg.

The for-profit press, which publishes five books a year, is dedicated to experimental poetry and prose--but the aesthetic definitions stop there. The important point for the collective is that each work has significant social and political implications. Saidenberg cites such definitive examples as Goan Atom by Caroline Bergvall, a book that she says "deals with subjects that refuse to be fixed around a knowable gender identity," and Argento Series by Kevin Killian, which uses the films of Dario Argento to examine the AIDS era.

While Krupskaya garners these and other contributors from around the world, Saidenberg keeps the press fairly local in terms of its marketing efforts and presence. She says she has been particularly surprised by the involvement from the San Francisco arts and literary community. For instance, when the collective made the decision to include a CD with the latest books, poet Taylor Brady helped design and create the CDs and a friend of the press in the film business did sound editing. While Saidenberg admits there is no money to place ads, she uses the community via readings and author events to spread the word on new publications. Saidenberg says the press also stays afloat because many of the books are adopted into academic MFA courses. "We have a network of people that teach experimental writing and use our books in their courses," she says.

As for the future of the press, Saidenberg admits she never plans. "Every year you re-evaluate," she says. "I love doing the work. I love designing and making books. As long as that doesn't go away, I can't imagine stopping."

HYDE PARK REVIEW OFFERS NEW VENUE FOR SMALL PRESS PUBLISHERS

In recent years, newspapers and magazines have radically slashed their book review sections. Several daily newspapers have discontinued publishing their standalone Sunday reviews and those that have kept their reviews intact have shortened pages and lacerated poetry and independent press coverage. Now a new online publication, Hyde Park Review (http://www.hprob.com), hopes to fill some of the review void left behind by the ever-shrinking print publications.

The publication launched its inaugural issue on February 2, and it plans to fill the e-waves four times a year. Though editors will not entirely shun mainstream, New York-style presses, Hyde Park Review will predominantly cover literary titles by small, medium, and university presses--titles often overlooked by larger reviews. "We felt a lot of books were getting short shrift because their authors didn't fit the celebrity mode or they weren't published by big houses," says Senior Editor Nicole Hammer. "We feel this diminishes the serious book culture in the U.S."

Though the first issue lacks poetry reviews, this will not be the case for future issues. Hammer says that, as of this writing, there is no Poetry Editor--but one should be in place for the next issue. "We understand that whatever difficulty there is for fiction out there, the condition for poetry is even worse," says Hammer. In the next issue, Hammer will also introduce the first of many regular interviews with authors. She hopes to expand the interviews to include small press publishers and small literary magazines that are making innovative inroads into the literary publishing world.

What's most exciting to Hammer is that the online review will not fall prey to the demands of space imposed by its printed counterparts. In addition, the publication will be linked to http://www.readerville.com, an online discussion forum for serious readers so that those who read the reviews may have an opportunity to discuss them, disagree with them, or add their own two cents.

While Hammer is looking for "alternative sources" of funding for Hyde Park Review (she currently pays for it herself), she says that there's been no shortage of reviewers willing to write for free. "They seem as excited as we are about this new opportunity to give authors and small publishers more exposure," says Hammer.

ABA's New Online Publication Available

In January, ABA's publication Bookselling This Week began publishing exclusively online, removing its subscription charge in order to make itself more widely available. Each day, the online site posts the latest on bookselling, authors, free expression issues, and publishing. Bob Cullen, Editorial Director of BTW, says, "For small press publishers, the main marketing challenge is to better understand the indie bookstore. Our coverage lends an eye toward providing small publishers with information that affects them and their relationship to the independent bookstore." Small press publishers can have their own copy of BTW delivered directly via email each week (to libraries or at home) by completing the Bookselling This Week Online Sign Up (http://news.bookweb.org/home/services/56.html). You may also link to a full story about the new online publication by logging on at http://news.bookweb.org/news/99.html.

Don't Forget!

The deadline for applications to National Endowment for the Arts grants (CY 2003) is March 25, 2002!

3rd Bed Events

BOSTON, Friday, March 22, 2002, 9 PM, Beckett's Pub, Commonwealth Ave. at Packard's Corner. $6.00.

Fiction and Poetry by Camden Joy (author of Boy Island and Hubcap Diamondstar Halo) & Noah E. Gordon. MUSIC by The Sea Navy & Shopping.

PROVIDENCE, Saturday, March 23, 2002, 9 PM, AS220, 115 Empire St. $5.00. Fiction and Poetry by Camden Joy & Ron Palmer and Billy X. O'Brien will perform their version of "Poetry Can't Do a Damn Thing." MUSIC by The Haldols & Helms.

VIDEO by Ben Coonley.

AGNI/Favorite Poems Reading

On Wednesday, March 20th, at 8:00 p.m. in Room B50 of Boston University's Stone Building (675 Commonwealth Avenue, Green Line B, "Boston Univ. East" stop), AGNI magazine will present a reading by Frank Bidart, Louise Glück, and Robert Pinsky. In the spirit of the Favorite Poem Project pioneered by former U.S. Poet Laureate Pinsky, the poets will read their particular favorites, drawn from a variety of authors and traditions.

E-zine Sells Out Print Anthology

The Best of the Melic Review: Three Years Online has just sold out its first printing! It's a quality 275 pp. perfect-bound paperback featuring seventy-four authors from the literary net, and the editors of The Melic Reivew are selling it at cost (which includes shipping and handling). You can order the anthology by credit card or ATM through PayPal on the e-zine's homepage, http://www.melicreview.com. Alternatively, send a check for $17 (domestic) or $20 (international) made out to The Melic Review, c/o C.E. Chaffin M.D., 700 E. Ocean Blvd. #2504, Long Beach, CA, 90802.

Correction

The University Press of New England (UPNE) is supported by a consortium of the following schools: Brandeis University, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, the University of New Hampshire, and Tufts University.