#n news
Video Poem: Lydia Havens
a poem by Lydia Havens from their chapbook, I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here, available from Nostrovia! Press here:
http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/product/i-gave-birth-to-all-the-ghosts-here-by-lydia-havens
“Aubade for gender (or a lack thereof)”
If I must have a corporeal form I will do so
on my own terms: I will exist the most when
the sun also exists the most. Raging
against the dying spite. Making every
third-story window into my own
reflection. There is pink in the sky
every morning, so there will be pink
in my own face always. My hair will
grow into its own astronomy. I have
entire months under my fingernails,
and they all taste like the pronouns
that do not rest easy in my mouth
anymore. May this be my coming out
poem. May this be another liminal
Sunday morning. I’ll fall asleep at 10AM
to the rhythm of my legal name,
wake up to the effortless syllable
that all my friends call me.
There is light coming in through
the shutters. It all reminds me
of my own arms.
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress
Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1
Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2
Week 13: Covers!
Week 14: Stephen’s Video Poem
Presales
We’ve been truly humbled by your support this last week–we’ve already accounted for most of our entire first print run! While we still have copies left, we’ll be moving to a smaller 2nd print run soon to make sure you have access to these chaps in time for the holidays <3
Get a chapbook for pay-what-you-can rates here: http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/
Video Poem: Stephen Furlong
a poem by Stephen Furlong from his chapbook, What Loss Taught Me, available from Nostrovia! Presshere:
http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/product/what-loss-taught-me-by-stephen-furlong
“Introduction to Creative Writing”
The first time I read James Wright’s
“Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s…”
the last line was cut off—a machine-made
mistake. The chicken hawk looking for home instead of I have wasted my life.
You requested amnesty, yet class called uproar. Sounded barbaric yawps.
Words change, worlds change, and
words change again.
Still, two pines surrounded the poem’s frame, cornered by words tinged with nostalgia, carefree. A couple of years have passed
and I’m thumbing through my notebook
from that class. I’ve noticed my words
reaching out, under influence
of these same forces. Creating
heaviness, bounded notebooks should have unbounded ideas.
You taught me words could help me love
—again, I had doubts. Like shadows, they crept, finding the corners of walls.
Where two ends meet: Collisions.
That’s what Ron Carlson calls ideas—collisions.
Words combine, fuse, link—fences, not walls.
I’d rather see where I could go than trust
where I might go. I’ll tell my secrets to the river,
reveal myself like a wound-up wrist, watch
the colors of the bridge begin to blend into sky,
and read these words to passersby.
Explain to them before troubled lights and vanishing avenues, William Olsen wrote
the past must have loved me though.
I try to arrange those words
to arrange my feelings.
Though the past must have loved me.
The past, though, must have loved me.
The words ring, a refrain I refrain from hearing.
I will let the call go to voicemail. I will hit
save. I will hear those words
over and over again.
The past must have loved me though.
And one day when you and I go for a walk
in this city along the river,
next to the wall with the faces,
we’ll be above the river at last.
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress
Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1
Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2
Week 13: Covers!
It’s a huge day for Nostrovia! Press, as today we’re not only sharing the covers of the three 2018 chapbooks, but PRESALES begin, too!
Covers
Without further adieu, here are the covers for our chapbooks(!):
illustrated by Jennifer Walton
Presales
PRESALES HAVE BEGUN!!! As usual, we’re selling these limited edition chapbooks at a pay-what-you-can rate, so anyone who wants some beautiful writing can get a copy. We’ll also be releasing these collections as free PDFs come Spring 2019.
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress
Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1
Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2
Blurbs!
Very excited to share the next batch of blurbs for our upcoming chapbooks!
“Like a howl through a crowded room, this collection draws attention, an urgency unconcerned with politeness. An honest, youthful exploration of personal history and the queer body, I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here builds a world and invites you in. Lydia Havens is special, plain and simple. They are truly an artist to watch.”
–Clementine von Radics, In A Dream You Saw A Way To Survive
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“Laura Villareal’s The Cartography of Sleep is a sublime map of dreams and a guide to the heart’s darkness. Finding your way in her poetry is no easy journey. Villareal offers her readers new mythologies and seasons. The turns are sometimes bloody, sometimes funny, sometimes wild, sometimes surreal, but all the time enlightening. Make no mistake, these poems bite back, sweetly, vengefully, and with grace. Or put simply, these poems are dangerous.”
–Willie Perdomo, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets)
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“If you want to know what tenderness means, and what it looks like, and how it graces the lines of a poem, you should read Stephen Furlong’s What Loss Taught Me. If you want to know the courage of tenderness, or the way it can be turned toward the self, you should read this. These poems take the hard risk of being honest, and vulnerable, of making out of deep, impossible hurt a kind of home. They inhabit and transcend the wounds that make up our everyday. When I lift my eyes from the page and look around, I see how everything is capable of holding some kind of violence, some kind of beauty, and some kind of love. Stephen’s work is a work of grace in that way. “Eventually, love,” he writes, and I say yes. But also: the love is here. In the aftermath of cruelty, violence, and fear, Stephen has brought it out. No more eventually. This book ushers love back into the world.”
–Devin Kelly, In This Quiet Church of Night I Say Amen (CCM Press)
*
We’ll be sharing the covers and starting presales NEXT WEEK!!!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress
Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1
Another week, another weekly review <3
Blurbs
Very excited to share the first wave of blurbs for our upcoming chapbooks!
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“These are brave poems that have a remarkable immediacy of voice. They mourn; they bear witness; they warn. While about abuse, they transcend their topic. In the end they do what all compelling poems must – speak to what it means to be human in all its facets, both good and bad.”
–Sue William Silverman, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (University of Georgia Press)
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“We begin with a question ‘I want a healthy coping / mechanism that still allows me to be / heard. Where do I find something like that?’ and the search begins as the poet steps into a voice that is stepping into every light refracting from this prism in the center of their chest. this is giving birth to all one’s ghosts. giving them voice, forms, breaks, breadth and breath. names are praised and names are named. the self is extracted from the darkness and the self endures. Havens’ ghosts light the way ahead to help us see. To make us seen.”
–Jess Rizkallah, author of the magic my body becomes (University of Arkansas Press)
*
“Villareal positions herself the cartographer in this short and poignant collection of poems. With each page she pushes her text to transform and so we encounter the map as text for guidance, map as data, map as myth. Each bit of movement expands the landscape Villareal’s poems define and, in doing so, charts wider territory for the reader to move into. I’m saying, with The Cartography of Sleep I stepped into a series of bound pages and stepped out into an expanse. How grateful I am for it.”
–JR Mahung, Since When He Have Wings (Pizza Pi Press)
*
We’ll have more blurbs to share soon!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress
Wow! Can’t believe it’s already October!
We’ve been going back and forth with Lydia, Laura, and Stephen these last two weeks! But all the work has been worth it: as of now, all 3 chapbooks are finished for their interiors (layout, lineup, editing), have their excerpts picked, and cover images decided (with initial mockups)! Can’t wait to share those soon ;)
For now, the three writers are picking pieces from their MSS to create video poems <3 We’ll be sharing the video poems all next month, which is also when presales begins.
For October, we’ll be sharing blurbs, and then finally the covers! Also diving into print proofs! Stay tuned!
Reviews
BTW(!), if you’re interested in writing a review of any (or all) of these upcoming 3 chaps, please let us know! We’ll be sending out ARC PDFs soon–if you write a review and post it, we’ll get your address to send a complimentary thank-you copy once they’re printed in December <3
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
Weeks 7-8: Editing
These last two weeks have been crazy with activity (hence us missing the last review!), but we’re back with another update!
After talking a little with the three winners, we dove into the timeline for the next few months, making sure to lay out the challenges we’ll be facing. Bob and I asked for any extra poems the writers had considered (but not included) for their MSS–in all three instances, we found ~2 poems that really struck us as important additions.
Otherwise, Bob and I did ~6 back-and-forth edits for each MS before passing it back to each writer for review :) We’ve confirmed the size of the chaps with Craig at @bottlecappress, picked out a typeface for each book, and are working now on the formatting and layout of pieces (shifting from 8.5x11 to 5x8). And we’re investigating cover art options!!
Stephen, Lyd, and Laura are all a pleasure to work with <3
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
Week 6: The Winners!
It’s our tremendous joy to announce the 3 winners for our 2018 Chapbook Contest(!):
* Stephen Furlong - What Loss Taught Me
* Lydia Havens - I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here
* Laura Villareal - The Cartography of Sleep
Cheers and much love–we can’t wait to share these powerful chaps with you all <3 Presales start in November! Set for December release!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Week 5: Featured Finalists!
We’ve got some huge news today!
Before I share the updates, let’s just dive in with the list of Finalists and Honorable Mentions!!!
Much love to all these tremendous writers <3
This Last Week
So Bob and I got it down to ~20 chaps by Wednesday night. We reread again, and discussed a bit, and by Saturday afternoon we had our top 10.
With that decided, we knew we had to reach out to everyone who’d submitted. Rejecting folks is always the worst part of the chapbook contest, so Bob and I spent several hours on Sunday, reviewing our comments, noting what we admired most from each chap.
The writing was very good this year, and we wanted to send along as much love as we could. To this end, we made personal notes on 102 of the responses (81%). I spent most of Sunday and Monday sending along notes.
Yesterday we reached out to the Finalists, letting them know! We’ll be sharing a feature later this week, including an example of their work <3
Next week we’ll have the winners! Now Bob and I need to determine who those will be. Crazy stuff!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Week 4: Determining Top ~20
Hi Everyone!
Quick update: I’ve finished reading all the chaps Sunday evening :)
Talking with Bob, our goal now is to review all the chapbooks we both loved, getting a list of ~20 MSS. Then we’ll reread everything, trying to get that list down to 10 finalists for the next review!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N!process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1: Submissions
Week 2: Reading Chaps
Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading
Hi Everyone!
Bob and I have continued to read your work–as of now Bob has done the first read-through of all 135 chapbooks! I got a bit distracted (proposed to my lady this weekend), and have fallen a little behind. Please forgive me ;) But I’ve still completed a little over 100 chaps, and I’ll be reading the remaining 35 this week no problem!
Bob Thoughts!
Woohoo, it’s time for some new thoughts from Bob:
It took 2 and a half weeks, but I’ve finished reading through all 135 chapbook submissions. The marathon of reading was both exhilarating and exhausting. And while it’s been a joy to see so many voices and styles, I’m really excited to spend time lingering with some of these chaps over the next week or so as we narrow down our finalists. Generally, I’ve been overwhelmed by the quality of work. These chaps cover such a range of topics, there are so many brave poems, so much formal innovation and play—I feel like we’ve read a little bit of everything that makes contemporary poetry so exciting to me. We’ve written notes about each chap to start the process of narrowing down our favorites, and there’s undoubtedly more than three deserving chapbooks here. Tough calls are ahead, but this first round of reading has been such a delight.
For this next week, I’m trying to finish reading all of the chaps. And then Bob and I can start work picking the finalists!! Crazy times!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Hi Everyone!
It’s been a busy week, but Bob and I are making our way through your chapbooks. We’re trying to do 8-10 a day, as we don’t want to burn out while reading your work <3
So far we’ve read ~80 chapbooks! Even though I feel like I say this each year, I’m very impressed by these entries–many of these chaps have a clear purpose in mind and have been revised with care. Lots of strong writing. Lots of risks being taken. To honor the folks who submit early (which is always scary), we’re reading in chronological order. As of now we’ve done all the Day One and Day Two submissions <3
Our goal is to try to have the first read-through done by the end of next week! From there, we’ll see what’s stuck out to us, and begin rereading and re-rereading ;) Hoping to have the finalists decided by the end of the month. I like keeping things FAST!
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Hi Everyone!
After taking a mini-hiatus for the first half of 2018, we’re so excited to be back in action at Nostrovia! Press. Another year, another chapbook contest! We’re trying to change a few things this time around…. First and foremost, Jeremiah and I are overjoyed to have Bob Sykora joining the team!! As both a previous chapbook winner (I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography) and a superb editor and poet, Bob is jumping in with some fresh energy. We’re lucky to have him <3
Submissions Received!
Speaking of changes, Bob and I thought it’d be fun to change our submission window a little–we still really loved the urgency created by a 48-hour period and thought it was an important part of the contest’s identity. So a week-long submission period was out of the question (lol). But we settled on adding a third day, kicking things off on the last Friday of July: 7/27
Success! I’m excited to share we received 134 submissions in 72 hours <3 Again, tremendous thanks to everyone who entrusted their manuscripts to us, or supported us by spreading the submission call. We always got much love for our friends.
Our goal is to have all of the chaps read these next two weeks, followed by picking our ten finalists the week after, and then the winners. We’ll have more info on that as we go ;)
Bob Thoughts!
After three years of sharing behind-the-scenes info, I think it’s especially important to have Bob offering his own unique insights. So here’s Bob’s corner (<insert fireworks, etc>)
“I’m still a little bit (lotta bit) reeling from seeing all of these submissions in my inbox. I knew people would be interested, but the night before we opened I briefly had the panicked thought that no one would submit. As submissions started coming in, I opened the emails and read the bios of our submitters in real time. It was wild to see the names and submissions from all sorts of backgrounds, with all sorts of credentials, even from out of the country. A lot of names I recognized and even more names I didn’t. At some point over the weekend the magnitude of actually reading these submissions hit me. Not just the quantity of submissions, but I know from my own experience how terrifying it is to send some mysterious press a whole manuscript, the sense of relief and horror that comes with clicking send and suddenly letting go of a project I poured myself into. The thought that people were trusting me with their work felt big and scary and wondrous.
After two days of reading submissions—and barely scratching the surface—it’s wild to think that I might not have read any of the winners. On the other hand, there’s already been some tremendous work—vulnerable, brave, formally inventive, funny. What I’m getting at is that the opportunity to read these chapbooks is an honor and a delight. I’m so grateful by the poets and poetry I’ve gotten to meet so far. And so excited to see what comes next.”
-Bob
Full agreement–year after year, it’s still so humbling to be trusted with your words, and equally exciting to see the quality of what’s been shared.
As a final note: we’re putting together a questionnaire, which we’ll be sending out soon to everyone who submitted. We’re curious about the demographics for folks sending us their work, and want to see how we can do better as editors. Stay tuned.
Much love and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Nostrovia! Press is excited to announce our nominations for The Pushcart Prize:
- Alain Ginsberg @alainginsbergofficial – “on ‘shim’”
- Katie Clark – “february water”
- Joseph Parker Okay @josephparkerokay – “how many red caterpillars are in the world hold on let me count”
While we’re sharing these pieces with you, a final reminder that our 2017 Chapbook Series can be found as limited edition, pay-what-you-can printed chapbooks.
But for now, enjoy these fantastic pieces:
on “shim”
Shim, noun, a thin strip of metal used
to align parts, make them fit, reduce wear /
I was first aware of the word in middle school,
how there was a need for a word and no one
to tell us it was not the right word, all interest
in aligning the parts to the idea of a body, make
fit, reduce, reduce, reduce /
Shim, noun, not quite a boy, not a real
woman / example / is that human,
that he-she, that shim /
example / she is not a woman for how
she believes herself to be, that’s a shim,
or, synonym, something flaming or,
synonym, combustible or, synonym,
to be laid onto a pyre or, synonym,
if you burn someone at the stake you will
gain five more minutes of warmth.
I research shim the same way I research
everything else; how long will it take
for me to die after being one?
A friend is followed by a military man,
which is to say someone who wishes for
Chelsea Manning to not pass out as
the flames lick her screaming mouth,
and the police pull my friend over,
let them be doused for how easily
the parts align / and
making a body fit into a machine
to be able to watch it leave you /
Shim, verb, wedge to fill space,
and we do so overcrowd this planet,
losing water, food, and autonomy,
and when the ocean drowns the land, whose
bones will we use to build boats of?
Whose going to fill the caskets or, synonym,
who will eat all of the bullets or, synonym,
who will we let ourselves consume when
the non-human animals perish or,
antonym,
I drift through crowds like a ghost,
I am a ghost, I am spectator or
spectre, or no one sees me in what
would not be called a campfire or
in this world the same pieces used
to align machinery will be used
to destroy it, to throw ourselves on
the cogs of that which kills,
when they see my body
burning the world, they will only
be able to call out
my name open-mouthed
and without breath.
——————————————————
february water
moves like milk does:
it doesn’t.
this was never something i picked out.
i just watched you walk across a lake, and it was
mid-winter,
and so it happened.
i think today i loved you,
which is another way of saying
it doesn’t always happen in the order that it happened.
on monday,
i found my last-year body floating in the lake you walked across.
there was no reflection.
the lake has thawed and frozen over again,
and again, and she is less for it.
she was angry i cut my hair.
tuesday,
we are in the basement and you are holding spines.
i watch as they clean crooked
curl around your fingers,
alive, somehow, and not.
to think this was body, but now,
here in your hands: bone.
a week later,
there was my spine and how you held it,
but i don’t remember that part.
wednesday,
i am still lying on your desk,
your hands and the projector light are
dewing over my shoulders like morning.
you kiss me even though my jacket
is orange and i like how the cold
tastes on you.
thursday,
a year after this, my partner reaches for me, but i no
longer have any bones. i’m trying to tell you
i think i know how the story ends now.
friday,
i don’t know what it means or what it doesn’t that i accidentally smiled at you
in passing. i heard you have a job that makes you grateful
and that makes me grateful.
i need you to know you did not ruin me.
what’s left of saturday:
gold glitter and whiskey spit.
my friend leaves, you stay,
we all regret this.
i was wearing my roommate’s basketball jersey.
i do not think i brushed my teeth before.
i remember it like this:
i don’t. i had breakfast.
you tell me i didn’t say yes,
but that we could try it again.
you said you didn’t have to tell me;
i hated you for that.
sunday,
i wake up with your body by my body
like a needed fact. it happened. it still
happens, but less now.
the week starts over.
i think maybe this time,
i will pull myself out of the lake,
walk her home.
——————————————————
how many red caterpillars are in the world hold on let me count
nuyan is riding a bike through a forest. “i’m the frickin fastest bike rider in this dang ass forest” says nuyan. suddenly they hit a fallen tree and go flying thru the air. they do 13 flips before landing in the unsuspecting arms of a large, beautiful bear. the bear looks down and is shocked and immediately begins to weep. the bear has been alone and scared in this forest for so long and now she finally has a friend.
nuyan starts singing “crazy town” by ozzy osbourne to calm the beautiful bear down. and it works!! the bear actually starts singing along!!!!
and!! she has a beautiful voice!!!!
“wow” nuyan thinks to themself, “i could take this bear back to civilization with me and make a fortune taking her on day-time talk shows” but then instantly feels upset with themself and pushes the thought from their mind.
nuyan knows their upbringing in a capitalistic society is to blame for intrusive thoughts like these. they have truly no interest in profiting at the expense of others and it makes nuyan sad to know that in the society they live it’s considered “subversive” to look at the beauty in the world and not want to exploit it.
the bear finishes singing the song and does a cartwheel. it makes nuyan feel 100% better. they tell the bear they will come back to see her tomorrow and then rides their bike away without holding onto the handlebars.
the beautiful bear is so extremely happy and sleeps 13 hours that night. while she’s asleep she has a dream that she’s in the dmv. the bear does 7 kick flips in a row and then pushes mongo out of the dmv. in the parking lot she does a 50-50 grind on the back bumper of hulk hogan’s stretch limo.
the bear skates to a nearby park and jumps off the skateboard. she walks over to a palo verde tree and starts licking it.
“o wow” the bear says between licks. “i can’t believe this tree grows without any bark. it’s as if over millions of years of evolution it’s learned it can trust the world around it not to harm it and can now take the energy it would have used building defenses in ways that are beneficial to itself and its surrounding environment.”
all the tree licking makes the bear’s tongue dry so she walks over to the bubbler.
“‘bubbler’ is what people in specific parts of wisconsin call water fountains” the bear explains even tho there isn’t anyone around to hear her.
… weird .. …. it’s almost as if she knows she’s in a story and is aware there are probably some people reading the story who aren’t familiar with this specific regional jargon?
hmmm.
seems suspicious maybe.
the bear goes over to a park bench and continues talking to herself.
“wow” says the bear. “there’s so much we can learn from trees if only we’d start to pay more attention.” the beautiful bear falls asleep on the bench for 3 weeks and when she wakes up in the dream she wakes up in real life. the sun has just started to rise and the bear gets excited all over again when she remembers she’s going to have company today. she does 10 minutes of yoga and then goes out to find a large pinecone to give nuyan as a gift for being her new best friend.
the end
Nostrovia! Press is proud to nominate the following poems and authors for the 2017 Best of the Net anthology(!):
- “Enter: A Body” by Linette Reeman
- “Bi-” by Lydia Havens
- “Being Ready” by Isobel O'Hare
- “On Seeking Asylum” by Ellyn Lichvar
Be sure to check the links above to hear the authors reading their poems! Lots of fabulous work!
Cheers and much love!
Not much going on this week! Everyone who placed their presale orders should have received their copies by now–remember to share a picture with your chapbooks, tagging us, and we’ll add it to our 2017 Series album <3
Thank you to everyone who placed an order this last week. I will be handling your orders this Friday, so they’ll arrive soon after.
We have about ¼ of our first print run still available <3
http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/
Much love, and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1 Review (Opening the Floodgates)
Week 2 Review (Reading + Ordering Supplies)
Week 3 Review (Reading + MSS Observations)
Week 4 Review (Reading + Starting Search for Finalists)
Week 5 Review (Picking Winners)
Week 6 Review (Featured Finalists + Announcing Winners)
Week 7 Review (Cover Art + Additional Pieces)
Week 8 Review (Blurbs + Excerpts + Review Copies)
Week 9 Review (Timeline Check + Interior Design)
Week 10 Review (Front Covers Revealed!)
Week 11 Review (Action Items)
Week 12 Review (Presales Began!)
Week 13 Review (Joseph’s Video Story)
Week 14 Review (Katie’s Video Poem)
Week 15 Review (Alain’s Recording + 1st Review)
Week 16 Review (Printing)
Week 17 Review (Printing, continued)
Week 18 Review (Printing)
Week 19 Review (Winners with their Chapbooks)
Week 20 Review (Shipping Presales!)
This last week we’ve received our first print run of the chapbooks, and have pictures of presales being bundled and shipped!
Receiving Chapbooks
At long last, the first print run arrived at my house last Thursday! I spent a few hours hand-numbering all the copies in 30-chap stacks.
Then I spent +3.5 hours this weekend, handling all of our presale orders! I wrote little notes in the packing slips, included business cards, and got everything packaged :)
Shipping Presales
Then I went down to the post office this last Monday with two grocery bags filled with envelopes, spending an hour with the self-serve kiosk to hand-enter everyone’s zip codes + apply stamps for the +60 envelopes. Better to do this than have the post office employees hate me ;)
But all presales + artist copies have shipped!! Unless you placed an order yesterday or Tuesday, your chapbook copies are set to arrive TOMORROW! And I checked with the writers to make sure they got their copies sent along for their blurb writers.
Remember: we would LOVE to share a picture of you with your chapbooks, so be sure to contact or tag us with your photos!
If you haven’t ordered yet, check our online store for pay-what-you-can rates
We love giving our limited first edition copies good homes :)
Much love, and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1 Review (Opening the Floodgates)
Week 2 Review (Reading + Ordering Supplies)
Week 3 Review (Reading + MSS Observations)
Week 4 Review (Reading + Starting Search for Finalists)
Week 5 Review (Picking Winners)
Week 6 Review (Featured Finalists + Announcing Winners)
Week 7 Review (Cover Art + Additional Pieces)
Week 8 Review (Blurbs + Excerpts + Review Copies)
Week 9 Review (Timeline Check + Interior Design)
Week 10 Review (Front Covers Revealed!)
Week 11 Review (Action Items)
Week 12 Review (Presales Began!)
Week 13 Review (Joseph’s Video Story)
Week 14 Review (Katie’s Video Poem)
Week 15 Review (Alain’s Recording + 1st Review)
Week 16 Review (Printing)
Week 17 Review (Printing, continued)
Week 18 Review (Printing)
Week 19 Review (Winners with their Chapbooks)
The three winners have received their contributor copies!!
I should be receiving the big bulk of chapbooks tomorrow or Friday, and will be shipping presales soon after. Still looking to have the presales fired out to arrive by the end of the month! <3
If you haven’t preordered yet, check our online store for pay-what-you-can rates <3
Much love, and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1 Review (Opening the Floodgates)
Week 2 Review (Reading + Ordering Supplies)
Week 3 Review (Reading + MSS Observations)
Week 4 Review (Reading + Starting Search for Finalists)
Week 5 Review (Picking Winners)
Week 6 Review (Featured Finalists + Announcing Winners)
Week 7 Review (Cover Art + Additional Pieces)
Week 8 Review (Blurbs + Excerpts + Review Copies)
Week 9 Review (Timeline Check + Interior Design)
Week 10 Review (Front Covers Revealed!)
Week 11 Review (Action Items)
Week 12 Review (Presales Began!)
Week 13 Review (Joseph’s Video Story)
Week 14 Review (Katie’s Video Poem)
Week 15 Review (Alain’s Recording + 1st Review)
Week 16 Review (Printing)
Week 17 Review (Printing, continued)
Week 18 Review (Printing)
Another quiet week (hopefully the last in a while), as shipping the chaps begins soon!
Printing, Continued
Talked again with Craig, and all the printing is now done! At this point it’s trimming paper and binding chaps, and Bottlecap Press will begin to ship as soon as tomorrow, getting contributor copies handled first before moving on to the bulk shipment to my house. From there I’ll handle presales :)
Still looking to have the presales fired out to arrive by the end of the month!
If you haven’t preordered yet, check our online store for pay-what-you-can rates <3
Much love, and see you next week! <3
-Christopher
*
We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!
Week 1 Review (Opening the Floodgates)
Week 2 Review (Reading + Ordering Supplies)
Week 3 Review (Reading + MSS Observations)
Week 4 Review (Reading + Starting Search for Finalists)
Week 5 Review (Picking Winners)
Week 6 Review (Featured Finalists + Announcing Winners)
Week 7 Review (Cover Art + Additional Pieces)
Week 8 Review (Blurbs + Excerpts + Review Copies)
Week 9 Review (Timeline Check + Interior Design)
Week 10 Review (Front Covers Revealed!)
Week 11 Review (Action Items)
Week 12 Review (Presales Began!)
Week 13 Review (Joseph’s Video Story)
Week 14 Review (Katie’s Video Poem)
Week 15 Review (Alain’s Recording + 1st Review)
Week 16 Review (Printing)
Week 17 Review (Printing, continued)
