still reading…

By mieladmin / On / In Movement, Publishing

dickinson house writers residency belgium garden

This morning was spent designing Jonterri Gadson’s chapbook. This afternoon was all re-reading of work that came in during our open reading period in June—the hardest part of running a tiny press, because reading lots of good work inevitably makes me want to publish everyhing, when realistically we can only publish a few chapbooks, maybe a book, every year. So that’s to say I’ve been sending out rejection letters again, and I’m sorry about that. Writers, rest assured—and I bet this applies to most small presses—that very often the rejection has nothing to do with how ‘good’ your work is (‘good’ meaning ‘publishable’). It has everything to do with the material circumstances of being a small press, wanting to do right by our authors (meaning having the energy and means to promote their books, not to mention design and bind them) with the limited resources I have. To the twenty or so of you who are still waiting to hear, I’m aiming to finish re-reading and deciding by the end of next week. In the meantime, please enjoy this view of our garden.