Stacey Mangiaracina and Roy Johnston of “Between the Sheets,” a show on BlogTalkRadio, were kind enough to have us on for an interview. They wanted to know what our process has been in launching a small literary press and we read some of the poems from Kim’s collection.
The two hosts were really great, generous and supportive, and we’re looking forward to speaking to them again. (Thanks Rafael for the hook-up.)
Once inside, you will see our entire catalog of books. Don’t freak out when you see only one title in this catalog, because we all know that it’s going to grow into something incredible.
For now, you have the option to buy the old fashioned way…by mailing us a check. And the check needs to be made out to me, Chiwan Choi, because we haven’t been able to set up a business account at the bank yet.
Or, for those of you youngsters out there who like to do everything through the interweb, we have the Amazon link for the book. Yes people, the book is up on Amazon.com finally! (We think it’s going to be on the Barnes & Noble online.)
Hopefully, our PayPal system will be set up by this weekend and we’ll be able to put one of those “buy now” buttons on the page so you don’t have to mail a check or go to Amazon.
(Note: It is wonderful getting our book on Amazon so those of you not nearby can purchase the book, and we definitely encourage this. However, I think once we set up the PayPal system, it will be better for us when people purchase directly through our website. Amazon just takes such a big cut from the sale that it’s difficult for small presses. BUT either way you buy the book, we’re 100% thankful! So shop away!)
Thank you again for all the support and pass the word to friends, family, neighbors, strangers…
For all those who came out to our Launch on Friday night, our eternal gratitude. And for those who wanted to be there but couldn’t, we know that your thoughts were with us.
It was an incredible night for us, for Kim, for the bar, for all the friends and strangers that were there. I don’t want to say it was beyond what I could have imagined because we all expected a special night, but well, it sort of was beyond our imagination.
I didn’t take make photos because somehow, in all the excitement, my brain just froze up and I was telling Judeth, “Um, I forgot how to use this point and shoot camera that I’ve taken about 10,000 pictures with already.” (So for those of you who were there and took pictures, PLEASE EMAIL SOME TO US!)
On a night we released a book called Who’s to Say What’s Home, we felt at home.
Kim read as well as I’ve ever heard her. The pieces she chose from the book really took us all on a great personal journey. Even those who were there and had never really been to poetry readings before were completely engaged and moved by her poems. And Justin Klippel and Mike the Poet, two of our faves who were gracious enough to share a little bit of their own work and take part in the festivities, were the perfect “warm-up” acts.
I’ll keep posting more about the event and the aftermath as the days go by, including pictures if/when we can get them, but one thing I wanted to share with you is the feeling that Judeth and I were left with all weekend:
On a night we released a book called Who’s to Say What’s Home, we felt at home. We felt part of a special community, one that we cared about and one that cared about us. And for the first time in a long while, we felt like we didn’t want to move again.
One of the things we wanted, needed, to have before finishing up the layout of the book was a blurb. A few blurbs would be even better, of course. We wanted to have a few quotes to print on the back cover and after thinking about the people we wanted to give galleys to, we decided on three.
Kim was both nervous and excited to ask Chris Nealon, a wonderful and unique poet who was her professor at UC Berkeley. She dreaded the idea that he might find her book to be, well, not so impressive.
I reached out to an old friend, Mike Sonksen. Mike is an old friend and known all over Los Angeles as Mike the Poet. He literally is everywhere, hosting and running readings in theaters, bookstores, cafes, bars. That’s of course when he’s not teaching poetry at a charter school or driving his bus around town for his one-of-a-kind tour of Los Angeles. He is also a great performer and fine writer, whose own book, I Am Alive in Los Angeles, Judy and I reviewed for our short-lived column on Suicide Girls. He is the hardest-working man in the business.
The third person that received the galley was Jack Grapes, a poet and an editor (of ONTHEBUS) and perhaps most importantly, a teacher. I am pretty sure everybody who has been part of the Los Angeles literary world knows, or at least has heard of, Jack. He has taught hundreds and hundreds of writers everything we know about writing. Kim and I met years ago in one of his writing workshops. She, as I had years before, found herself in his class as a teen. Judeth also took his workshop when she moved out here and she and I published many of the writers in the class through our literary magazine, Wednesday. I felt the same nervousness waiting to hear back from Jack as Kim felt waiting for Chris Nealon’s blurb.
When Jack emailed a blurb over to us, I was completely overwhelmed with — I don’t know what I was feeling. Relief. Pride. Ecstasy. A bit of sadness at finally feeling like we were little babies no longer and we were all learning to stand on our own, to claim our places in the literary world.
The others soon wrote. Both Chris Nealon and Mike the Poet gave it sparkling reviews. The fact that three such different types of poets and teachers found “Who’s to Say What’s Home” to be so compelling, challenging, and moving, gave all of us a great deal of comfort and confidence.
Each time I pick up the book, which is often, I turn to the back cover and read the blurbs again.
The poems in this collection will knock your socks off, and if you’re not wearing socks, they’ll bring you to your kness. Every generation produces a poet of unique sensibilities, and Kim Calder is that poet, a bright new light announcing her presence with this book of poems. There are only a few poets who can bring such use of language and the heartfelt sense of loss to bear on the work at hand. As a first book which portends many more to come, it ranks with Sharon Olds’ Satan Says, Dorianne Laux’s Awake, and Richard Jones’ Country of Air. You will be reading Kim Calder’s poems for many years to come, and they will change your life. — Jack Grapes
I think that this is close to what I felt when I first Kim read about ten years ago. I think that maybe, we have done a very important thing by publishing this book.
It has been something to hold the proof copy, our first proof copy, of Kim’s book, our first book. On the day it was supposed to arrived via UPS, I took the elevator down about six times to the building office just to check if UPS had dropped the package off there.
We’ve been pretty much geeked like this with each next step in the process…with the exception of one: proofreading.
Originally, we had five people read through the manuscript. And we caught a few errors and corrected them right away, all of us happy at how clean the manuscript was to begin with. With each subsequent step, however, we got a bit more lax on it, until at the end, by the time we set up our digital files with the printer to order the proof, I was more obsessed with the poems, the flow of the book, the overall quality and vision of the collection, to focus entirely on the details.
Well, that carelessness has cost us a few dollars because we will have to reload the digital files with a couple of corrections. I can sit here and tell you that in the big scheme of things, the money (80 bucks) won’t be a big deal. But Writ Large Press isn’t Penguin Books and we need to be careful with every bit of resource, which means each dollar spent, each penny.
After the pure joy of having the proof wore off, I noticed an error inside and Kim caught a mistake on the cover. They were truly minor–an extra space on top of one page inside, a missing dash on one of the blurbs on the back cover–but they were mistakes that should have and could have been caught. I can chalk it up to being overextended as a two-person team or say that we’d all just looked at the book too much for too long and had become too close to the material.
But ultimately, what we’re calling it is a lesson, a tripped up baby-step. A reminder that Art, above all things, is not careless.
So other than the monetary loss, everything is go. The corrections are being made, with one last, last look through to check for errors, and we’ll be ready order our first shipment of books to have for the launch at La Cita.
And, after all that, it is truly a beautiful book.
Yesterday, we received the proof copy of who’s to say what’s home from Lightning Source.
We spent a good amount of time going through the pages, checking for errors, and mostly staring at it from all angles. To paraphrase our dear friend Michelle in New York, it is beautiful and perfect. (Okay, there was one slightly misaligned page that we instantly corrected, but still perfect!)
Today I’ve been sitting here, feeling sort of sick with this nasty cold that’s been going around forever. We’d also received a box of books from Amazon yesterday and I thought I’d start on one of them, the new Junot Diaz novel.
But I didn’t. Instead, I’ve been reading through Kim’s book, poems that I feel like I’ve read a thousand times each over the past two years or so of editing. And I am amazed that even now, each poem feels so new, as powerful and original as the first time I held them in my hands.
Next: ordering the first batch of copies and getting the word out to local press!
We just talked to a manager at La Cita and he says it’s a go. We’re going to have our launch and release party there on May 2nd. So mark your calendars and plan on joining us.
They’re letting us have the back patio of the bar at no cost, other than all the booze that people will be buying and drinking, on a Friday night. But one drawback - well drawback for you young ‘uns that like to go out real real late - is that it will be slightly earlier in the evening than we were hoping. It will start at 7 and we’ll start wrapping up around 10′ish.
We’re still trying to figure out details - you know, what time to have the actual reading segment of the night so people can hear Kim read, buy copies of her book and get her to sign them, stuff like that. As always, we’ll keep you updated.
What better place to launch our company than in a place called La Cita, no?
Well, that’s it for now. MARK YOUR CALENDARS: Friday, May 2nd, 7 pm on. The Writ Large Press Launch. Kim Calder book release.
And just to be redundant, the details once more below. (Thanks Keith at La Cita!)
Join us for the LAUNCH of
WRIT LARGE PRESS
with the release of
Kim Calder’s
“WHO’S TO SAY WHAT’S HOME”
Friday May 2nd
7 pm
LA CITA BAR
336 South Hill St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
We’re keeping our fingers crossed on this, but I think we’ve found the perfect spot for our launch/book release event. I’m supposed to hear back from the manager today, but when we talked on Saturday evening, he seemed to think it was a go. But until you have confirmation…
The place is a downtown bar called La Cita. It’s on 4th and Hill, across the street from Angel’s Flight. They have a great back patio that could accommodate a reading and a celebration.
We considered Beyond Baroque, but feel it’s too far out West for us for this particular event, considering both we and Kim are on this part of town. Also, we thought the bar would be better for a party. But a reading at Beyond Baroque is still something we want to organize. I mean, as an LA publisher, as an LA poet, you gotta do something at Beyond Baroque, right?
So, keep your fingers crossed for us. We’ll be hearing from them today.
Our poet, Kim Calder, will be reading at this month’s Tongue & Groove, a great monthly series hosted by Conrad Romo.
Kim will be reading pieces from her upcoming collection, who’s to say what’s home, and maybe pieces we haven’t seen before (I hope!).
Conrad has been running Tongue & Groove for about 4 years now, I believe, the last couple of years at the Hotel Cafe, one of our favorite venues in the city. Bar. Food. Stage. Mood lighting.
The other readers on the bill that night are: Joshuah Bearman, Gary Phillips, and Dana Johnson. Music by Izzy Cox. And Conrad usually reads some short pieces too.
This is NOT our official book release reading/party. That’s coming in April and we’ll be keeping you up to date. However, it is a great chance to get a glimpse, a listen, to some of the work that will be appearing in the book.
See you there! Read on for details.
Sunday 3/30
6 pm
TONGUE & GROOVE
at The Hotel Cafe
featuring:
Kim Calder (who’s to say what’s home)
Joshuah Bearman (McSweeney’s, Harper’s, This American Life)
Gary Phillips (Citizen Kang)
Dana Johnson (Break Any Woman Down)
music by Izzy Cox
We are Writ Large Press
We plan to peel the cover off of the unstoppable creative collective that is the Los Angeles literati, pulling the writers out from the shadow of the Hollywood sign and into the international spotlight.
