First Book Interviews with Keith Montesano
Although I’m not an expert on the poetry of Keith Montesano, I’m sure I’ll be reading his first book soon. I’m told it’s a killer manuscript that’s won all sorts of finalist spots in contests and such. And most of the poems from that manuscript have been published by now in some nice journals. So, it’s just a matter of time.
Unfortunately, that time has been filled with lots of rejection, revising, contest fees, increased postage rates, more revising, querying, and research. Also, I imagine lots of alcohol in there somewhere. I don’t know all the specifics – you’d have to click his blog to see how long he’s been working on this manuscript and to read some funny, if you could call it that, rejection situations. I only know that this whole thing has sort of inspired Keith to seek out other authors with first books, other authors who have gone through the whole process themselves. What follows, then, is First Book Interviews, an interview blog that continues the tradition of Kate Greenstreet. He’s just posted interview #1 with Matthew Guenette, and he soon plans to post interviews with the following people: Paul Guest, Jason Bredle, Mark Wunderlich, Sandra Beasley, James Allen Hall, Jennifer Chang, Alison Pelegrin, Brian Barker, Jericho Brown, and Dan Albergotti.
!!!OMG!!!Avery Anthology Gossip!!!OMG!!!
If my Facebook feed is correct, and if we can trust the information on the Avery Anthology weblog, then Avery coeditor Emma Straub and Avery designer/art director Michael Fusco got married this past weekend in an impressive power grab at indie giant Avery House Press. I admit that I did not try to contact Emma and Michael for a comment, nor did I ask Emma’s permission to use this yummy picture. Instead, I just sort of clicked around the Internet for a while.
Anyhow, now I understand the inactivity on Duotrope recently – instead of reading submissions, they were getting married and eating a lot of chocolate.
Congratulations, you two.
Now when is Avery #4 coming out?
I took a picture of Ellen Kennedy
Ellen Kennedy at Envoy Gallery, 9/28/08.
I Want to Give Someone a $6 Bailout Package
The economy doesn’t look good, but I have a plan.
I have $6 left in my PayPal Account Balance. I used to have more money, but I used that money to purchase many things: the first issue of The Open Face Sandwich, a chapbook from Octopus Books, some subscriptions to literary journals, Shane Jones’ novel from Publishing Genius, and stuff like that.
I would like to give away that $6 to someone or some press or some journal or something. It is not a lot of money, I understand, and I would like to receive something in return, preferably a chapbook, or a book, or some other neat trinket. I know that is a lot to ask for.
The idea is that I could then read that chapbook or journal back issue or whatever and talk about it in another post to promote literature and the economy and capitalism and other American things.
I guess this is like a reverse auction?
I am interested in these places:
Jaguar Uprising
Paper Hero Press
FuturePoemBooks
Ugly Duckling Presse
Chiasmus Press
Future Tense Books
Black Ocean Press
I am going to stop listing things, because it is time for bed. I realize that $6 might not cover the full cost of whatever. I hope that is not an insult. It is all the money I have right now in the account. At least someone will make a sale?
At least one unit will move, I guess?
I am also up for suggestions? Please, tell me about a cool thing I can read that I might have missed, preferably something that looks nice and I can touch in a nice way as I read it.