News and Events
George Kraus (An Uncommon Accord) runs a poetry series at JCC on the Hudson in Tarrytown, NY called Sundays @ the J with George & Friends. The next reading will be held on May 20, 2012, 1:30 pm-3:30 pm. The programs feature local poets and authors who read from their collected and published works. A wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Visit jcconthehudson.org for author bios and more details.
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We’re excited to announce the four poets whose work will appear in the next Quartet Series volume, set for publication this coming fall:
David Morse, Storrs, CT
Sierra Nelson, Seattle, WA
Eleanor Paynter, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Emily Stokes, Sellersville, PA
We thank all who submitted their work. Check back in this space for further details on the new book.
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During a fellowship in December at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Emily Carr, author of a chapbook included in the Toadlily volume By Way Of, worked with a palimpsest technique and collage to compose an artist’s book using the 1972 Peter Pauper Press collection Emily Dickinson / Love Poems. A video of Emily’s performance of the work appears on her blog, If She Draws a Door.
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We invite you to read our latest book, The Best of Toadlily Press—order online here!
This new book gathers two poems from each of our Quartet Series authors—one old, one new—along with a poem contributed by each distinguished poet who wrote a foreword or back-of-cover comment for a Toadlily book.
On November 5, 2011 at 5 pm, we celebrated the launch of The Best of Toadlily Press with a reading and reception at Poets House in lower Manhattan. Wonderful to see so many friends of Toadlily there!
This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
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On Saturday, September 10, 4-6 pm, our marketing director, Catherine Wald, will hold a book launch party in Yorktown, NY to celebrate the publication of her chapbook, Distant, burned-out stars (Finishing Line Press, June 2011). Location: Amawalk Friends Meeting, 2467 Quaker Church Road, Yorktown NY 10598.
Catherine will also read from her new chapbook on Sunday, September 25 from 4:00-6:00 at the Bean Runner Cafe, 201 S. Division Street, Peekskill. Joining her will be former Chappaqua resident Laura Shore, who will read from her new book, Water over Stone.
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Maxine Silverman’s chapbook Transport of the Aim will be published by Parallel Press, an imprint of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, in fall 2012. Transport of the Aim, a garland of poems about Emily Dickinson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Celia Thaxter, and others in their circles, has been called a “novella in verse” by distinguished Dickinson scholar Judith Farr. As many readers know, Dickinson sewed many of her poems into small collections or booklets now known as “fascicles,” which makes the chapbook form especially apt for this book.
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Fiddler Crab Review has a review of Elizabeth Austen’s chapbook Where Currents Meet, from Sightline, the latest Quartet Series volume from Toadlily. The review also discusses her first chapbook, The Girl Who Goes Alone (Floating Bridge 2010). Elizabeth writes that they are “lovely, generous reviews, too. (Though I’ll have to figure out how to correct the misperception about the nature of my time in South America—lordy, I’m not THAT intrepid!)”
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Myrna Goodman is the subject of a feature article in the Black Lawrence Press newsletter of April 26, Sapling #74. Replying to a question about Toadlily Press’s devotion to chapbooks, Myrna said:
The concise nature of the form allows the reader to get an intense flavor of a poet’s work in a short amount of time. The form also lends itself to theme-based writing without bringing the reader to boredom. Experimental poetry works equally as well.
Since chapbooks are often stepping-stones to full-length collections, we feel especially proud when one of our poets gets a contract for a full-length book.
There are many stories about how chapbooks came into existence. I like the notion that these little pamphlets were carried from place to place under chaps or in saddle flaps . . . .
These days, many people want their literature in short, small bytes and the chapbook fills that need. In 2011, we carry them around in handbags and messenger bags as well as Kindles and iPads.
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Pamela Hart is a mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. As noted in an April 24 article in LoHud.com, “she served a rotation in November [2010], giving her class weekly assignments with a jumping-off point such as a favorite place or a small moment in everyday activities.”
The article quotes an online magazine piece by an Afghan woman who refused an arranged marriage: “‘In my country, I am considered bad, and people blame me for standing against my family, failing to respect my elders, and rejecting a life serving the husband my uncle chose for me whom I didn’t love,’ she wrote. ‘Only my pen tolerates my choices.’” The AWWP website is at www.awwproject.org.
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Blue Begonia Press has just published Elizabeth Austen’s full-length book of poetry, Every Dress a Decision. Elizabeth, whose chapbook Where Currents Meet appears in Toadlily’s Quartet Series collection Sightline, will give readings from her new book on Friday, May 6 at 7:30 pm at Open Books, 2414 N. 45th St., Seattle and on Saturday, May 21 at 7 pm at Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 Tenth Ave., Seattle. A press release from the publisher gives further details.
Elizabeth writes: “I also had the great good fun of being interviewed for National Poetry Month along with Billy Collins on [Seattle public radio station] KUOW—more info, and the audio, here: http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=23034.”
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Meredith Trede’s book, Field Theory, will be published by SFA University Press, Stephen F. Austin State University, September, 2011.
Thomas Lux writes: “Field Theory is a book of grown up poems written by and for grown ups: unflinching, tender, original, and deeply skilled.” For more, visit www.meredithtrede.com.
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Marcia Arrieta’s book triskelion, tiger moth, tangram, thyme is now out from Otoliths.
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On Sunday afternoons, March 27, April 24 and May 22, from 2:00-3:45pm, authors from Toadlily Press will present original works at JCC on the Hudson in Tarrytown, NY. Poets reading on March 27 include Michael Carman, Carol Stevens Kner, George Kraus and Maxine Silverman.
Admission is free. JCC on the Hudson is at 371 Broadway (Route 9) in Tarrytown. For additional information, visit jcconthehudson.org or call 914 366-7898.
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Andrea Bates’ poem “Mrs. Just In Case” has been selected by Cathy Smith Bowers (poet laureate of North Carolina) as the winner of the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Poet Laureate Award for 2011. The poem will be published in Pinesong, the Poetry Society’s annual publication, in May.
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Sarah Suzor is the 2010 winner of the Hudson Prize, and her collection, The Principle Agent, will be published by Black Lawrence Press.
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A big welcome to:
Catherine Wald, who joins Toadlily as Director of Marketing, and Andrea Bates, author of the chapbook Origami Heart in Sightline, who will be blogging for us. Visit our blog to read Andrea’s posts.
Catherine, a freelance writer for more than two decades, is the author of the chapbook, Distant, burned-out stars, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in May, and The Resilient Writer: 23 Tales of Rejection and Triumph (Persea, 2004), and translator of Valery Larbaud’s 1912 short stories, Childish Things (Sun & Moon, 1994) from the French. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Reader’s Digest, Writers Digest, Journal of Creative Nonfiction and Westchester Review.
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Diana Woodcock’s full-length poetry collection, Swaying on the Elephant’s Shoulders, which won the 2010 Vernice Quebodeaux International Poetry Prize for Women, is forthcoming from Little Red Tree Publishing. One poem in the collection, “Survivor,” was selected by Mark Strand for inclusion in Best New Poets 2008. Another poem, “The Pol Pot Soldier Tells His Side,” was included in Hawai’i Pacific Review’s ‘Best of the Decade’ issue, 2007.
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Congratulations to Jennifer Wallace, whose book of poems and photographs, It Can Be Solved by Walking, will be published by City Lit Press in Baltimore.
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Matt Nienow writes with more happy news: “2011 has been very good to me so far. In the first week of January I received a $7,500 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation in support of my first full-length manuscript, had a poem (”Ruin”) picked up by online hotshots, Blackbird, and won the 2010 Codhill Press Poetry Chapbook Award for my ms., The End of the Folded Map.”
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Congratulations also to Matt Nienow, who has just been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry. See the NEA website here for more details, and see Matt’s website and blog at matthewnienow.com.
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Congratulations to Andrea Bates on winning the 2010 Consequence Prize in Poetry, an annual award given for an outstanding poem on the subject of war. Andrea’s chapbook Origami Heart appears in our latest book, Sightline. For more on her award, visit www.consequencemagazine.org.
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Maxine Silverman, one of our Desire Path authors and a former Toadlily editor, will read her poetry on Sunday, November 7 at 3 pm at the Nyack Library, 59 South Broadway, Nyack, NY.
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On Sunday, September 12 from 10-6, Toadlily Press will have a table at the Brooklyn Book Festival. This is a huge, free public event at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street. We are table #118. www.brooklynbookfestival.org
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On Saturday, November 6 from 5-7pm, Toadlily Press will hold a Fifth Anniversary Reading and Launch of Sightline, the sixth book in the Quartet Series, at Poets House, 10 River Terrace, Battery Park City, New York, NY. Directions and details: www.poetshouse.org
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The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center is sponsoring a Small Press Celebration on Sunday, August 29th at 4:30, featuring books and readers from Inkwell, Slapering Hol Press, The Westchester Review and Toadily Press. Michael Carman and Myrna Goodman will represent Toadlily Press. We hope you can join us at this celebration; as many of you know, the Center is housed in the picturesque Philipse Manor railroad station and is a beautiful setting for literary events.
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Diana Woodcock has a new chapbook published by Finishing Line Press: In the Shade of the Sidra Tree. Planned publication date is October 2010.
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Toadlily author Pam Hart has been selected as one of three inaugural fellows at the new Purchase College Writers Center, starting this fall. We’re excited to learn more about her endeavors at the Center, which the college says is “intended to give the college the same visibility in writing as it has in the visual and performing arts and to give writers what they need—a place to read, write, to do research and to meet other writers.”
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Advance praise for Sightline by Elizabeth Austen, Andrea Bates, Carol Stevens Kner, and Sarah Suzor, available Fall 2010:
Four players and four instruments working four overlapping themes, remarkably cohesive considering that each movement has been created by a different composer. The poets are all impressively deft with their craft. Each of them rejects the oversimplified and embraces—with elegance—her complex interpretation of the world. They are all worth reading and re-reading—or, to keep the musical metaphor in mind, listening to, again and again.
—MOLLY PEACOCK
What I love about this quartet is the fact that, while each poet has her own particular music and driving fascinations, there is a real interconnectedness among them. There is great tonal range here, but it is obvious that these writers own restless minds and expansive hearts. This collection of poets offers the pleasure of hearing fine soloists and compelling four-part harmony.
—TIM SEIBLES
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Congratulations to Emily Carr, whose chapbook the story will fix you it is there outside your & appears in By Way Of and who is enjoying a residency at The Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, FL. Her book directions for flying won the 2009 Furniture Press Poetry Award, and her manuscript 13 ways of happily: books 1 & 2 received the 2009 New Measures Poetry Prize and is due out this year from Parlor Press. For more details: http://kerouacproject.org/author/emily_carr/
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Toadlily author Diana Woodcock will present a paper on “The Poetry Chapbook: Blessing or Curse?” at the 8th International Conference on the Book, St. Gallen, Switzerland, November 6-8. “For many poets, getting a chapbook published is the first step to getting their full-length collection published,” she writes. “New and emerging poets find in the exercise of preparing poems for a chapbook a way to assemble their best work to date and explore the shape of their first full-length book. As a means of presenting more poets to the public and facilitating the careers emerging poets are building, the chapbook cannot be praised highly enough.” For more details on the conference and Diana’s presentation, click here or visit booksandpublishing.com.
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Elizabeth Ganga of The Journal News, a Gannett newspaper in Westchester County, NY, has a charming article about Toadlily Press editors and authors in the paper’s April 25 issue: click here for her article, or visit lohud.com.
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We’re delighted to announce the authors whose work will appear in Toadlily’s 2010 Quartet Series volume:
Elizabeth Austen (Seattle, WA)
Andrea Bates (Wilmington, NC)
Carol Stevens Kner (New York, NY)
Sarah Suzor (Venice, CA)
Our great thanks go to all who submitted work during our January submissions period.
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In the Fall 2008 issue of Whiskey Island Magazine, A. E. Felix reviews Edge by Edge and The Fifth Voice and finds much to like in both.
Edge by Edge “offers the richness of emotion recollected in tranquility but a 21st century format.” Of Gladys Justin Carr’s Augustine’s Brain–A Remix, Felix says, “My favorite of hers is ‘The Bench’ in which two obviously educated middle aged people speak to each other with an ‘arthritis in the syntax / phrases like calculus of mushrooms.’ Top that!” Emma Bolden’s “God Is in the Ceiling” is “a totally enjoyable look at a girl growing up, with such lines as ‘I am sick / with purity’ telling it as it is, of the need to explore, to live.”
In The Fifth Voice, “Pamela Hart’s The End of the Body is a celebration. . . . The bravura effect ‘I fell into a detail of Mitchell’s Untitled 1963′ in ‘To Make a Portrait of the Self’ is worth the price of the book.” Read, and re-read, Victoria Givotovsky’s “Long-married Love,” Felix concludes, “and when you put down the poem, you will realize how much more you have learned about love and life than when you read it the last time. This is poetry.”
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And congratulations to contributing editor Matt Nienow on winning a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize for three poems. Details, including the text of Matt’s winning poems, are at http://www.dorothyprizes.org/2009awards.htm.
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NOW AVAILABLE: BY WAY OF, the fifth volume of the Quartet Series, FEATURING poets Diana Alvarez of Northhampton, MA; Emily Carr of Quincy, IL; Matthew Nienow of Seattle, WA; and Diana Woodcock of Doha, Qatar.
To order any of our books
BY WAY OF in the poetry section of Books on the Common, Ridgefield, CT
OTHER NEWS
Diana Woodcock’s chapbook Mandala, which is dedicated to the Tibetan people on this 50th year anniversary of the 14th Dalai Lama’s forced flight into exile in India, will be published by Foothills Publishing as the 14th in their Poets on Peace series.
Toadlily Press congratulates Heidi Hart (Edge by Edge) for winning a Pushcart Prize (XXXIII 2009). Her Poem, Door Psalm, appears in 2009 Puschcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses. Read or listen to Door Psalm.
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