…and to celebrate, we want to give you a present. Or, well, thirteen of them, to be exact.
That’s right. We’ve got Lisa Solomon’s Hand/Made (a monograph of mixed-media work); Laressa Dickey’s four chapbooks; Josh Wallaert’s A Guide to the Northwest Territory; Nancy Campbell’s nearly-sold-out How to Say ‘I Love You’ in Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet; issues 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 of 111O; Shana Youngdahl’s winter/windows; and George Szirtes’ Langoustine. We may well pop a notebook and some cards in there when the time comes.
All you have to do is leave your name and email address and a comment telling us about why you support small press books. If you tweet or post elsewhere about this, include our Twitter username (@MIELbooks) or our Facebook page (you can find it here) in the tweet or post for an extra entry. The giveaway is open until April 2—spread the word! And thanks for your support the past two years.
Happy second birthday! that is awesome to hear.
Uh-oh, I can’t remember if I ordered How to Say ‘I Love You’ in Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet! Congratulations on your birthday.
And why? Why, small presses are the lifeblood of poetry.
(Finn wants to add: “Ya-uh-ai-uh-ai-uh-ai.” Which is also a good reason.)
I found you on internet while a book tour on USA was going on. A neat web page and delicious titles made the rest.
Greetings and love to you from Southern Europe! You are one of the preservers of our esprit!!
why i support small presses:
small presses are intentional in a way big presses don’t have time to be. small presses are personal, super creative in communicating their aesthetic, and show readers how much they are valued. big presses sometimes skimp on these qualities in order to rush publication. not to generalize, but big presses also tend to value dollas over hollas (i.e. don’t have time to be relational). i appreciate miel because of all this plus its whimsical, minimalist aesthetic.
lurv, @bcarlson518
Small presses are run by artists, and art brings pleasure – the pleasure of creatively expressing emotions like love and peace, and the pleasure of encountering emotions like pain and sorrow in a way that I recognize but never would have put into form in the same way. I keep a stack of small-press books on the table next to where I nurse the baby and pick one up to page through in the middle of the night, hungry for some small crumb of beauty. It’s what many of us turn to.
bmaryk8@gmail.com
Happy birthday!
One of the reasons I support small presses is because I find that their publications tend to be less formulaic or more unexpected than publications from bigger presses; there’s a certain combination of strange and beautiful and brilliant (which I love) that seems to come mostly from small presses. I also like knowing that I’m supporting people in doing something they love. MIEL’s got both going for it!
I like small presses because they keep literature from being completely commercialized and sterilized. Keep up the good fight!
I love that literary and arts communities build up around small presses, and that, in turn, people in those communities start more small presses or art spaces or journals. Small presses, integral to the arts organism. Thank you.
Happy Birthday! I support small presses because they CARE. I mean care. I mean hand-bound by the hundreds. That is love folks. xo
Small presses give me all my inspiration! And they make such pretty books too. :)
MIEL is the nicest thing that’s ever happened to any of my poems, and one of the nicest that’s ever happened to me. This is publishing as collaboration, as art, as act of heroic generosity. Happy Birthday, Miel!
Happy birthday MIEL! You’ve been making such beautiful books, it’s always a pleasure finding out what you have in store for us. Small presses rock! They’re the foundation of literature nowadays, offering us sharp, beautiful and brilliant new books!
Happy Birthday Miel! I support small press books because they are unique and not constrained to one commercial vision. And the publishers and artists support each other and lovely community is created.
All the best,
Danielle
I support small press literature because it’s THE PEOPLE’S LIT. Did you know the biggest bookseller in America is…. Walmart? How sad. There are so many great books being published this day in age, and I want to read the best of them. Big Press books need to appeal to a Walmart audience. That’s not necessarily what I want to read. I also support small press lit because I think it’s important to support small businesses in general. Cheers!
Happy birthday, yo.
I support small presses because I like good writing, which a lot of small presses just keep on putting out, and I like the risks many take simply by focusing on the work instead of the bottom line. If I ever win the lottery I’m starting one of my own.
small presses keep the flickering flame of independence burning in the deep dark forests of sameness
i wish you a happy birthday.
and i hope to send you some reading material in June…
Happy Birthday, Miel!
You’re putting together some very beautiful, innovative pieces. I hope to see more of them.
-Cole