![]() Portland, OR— December 15, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of The Tin Can House and Other Stories by Susan Pepper Robbins. The Tin Can House and Other Stories is a remarkable short story collection by renowned Virginia author Susan Pepper Robbins. Featuring some of her best short stories, the collection delivers powerful, gritty characters full of heart and spirit. Ranging from longer stories to one-page hitters, Robbins masters the pen and sprays ink economically. From the collection: "The A-Frame was shingled in flattened tin oil cans on the wrong side so the old names of Esso and Texaco didn’t show. The sun shot a pale greenish light through the oak trees’ April leaves. The tin house gave the right impression of one of the crazy projects thought up by our delicensed doctor, hammering out all those cans after using a can opener to take the round tops and bottoms off. Those he used for decorative trim around the two doorways and four windows. Thousands of shingles nailed, one by one, three nails each, to the beams, in the 1950’s. Some people continued to go to him not in his office, of course, which had to be closed, but at his ranch house where he would invite you in and listen to your symptoms. Not ours. We never went back to him after the sheriff picked him up for walking in the next county dressed as a woman. Who’d want to do that Fred asked me, serious and not meaning anything about my beige and navy outfits." Susan Pepper Robbins lives in rural Virginia where she grew up. Her first novel was published when she was fifty (“One Way Home,” Random House, 1993). Her fiction has won prizes (the Deep South Prize, the Virginia Prize) and has been published in journals. Her collection of stories “Nothing But the Weather” was published by the indie press Unsolicited Press, and her second novel, “There Is Nothing Strange,” was published in England in 2016,. A second collection of stories will be published in 2019. "Local Speed," a novel, came out in 2018 from Unsolicited Press. Her stories focus on the drama of ordinary lives. She teaches writing at Hampden-Sydney College and wrote a dissertation on Jane Austen at the University of Virginia. The Tin Can House and Other Stories by Susan Pepper Robbins. is available as a paperback and ebook. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Unsolicited Press announces the immediate availability of TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS by Ayendy Bonifacio, an American from the Domican Republic. In this nostalgic volume, the image of the river carries us to and away from home. The river is a timeline that harkens back to Bonifacio’s childhood in the Dominican Republic and ends with the sudden passing of his father.
Through panoramic and time-bending gazes, TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS leads us through the rural foothills of Bonifacio’s birthplace to the streets of East New York, Brooklyn. These lyrical poems, using both English and Spanish, illuminate childhood visions and memories and, in doing so, help us better understand what it means to be a migrant in these turbulent times. Advance Praise for TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS “I’ve learned, unlearned my language too many times,” writes Ayendy Bonifacio in To the River, We Are Migrants. Childhood, exile, faith, grief are all part of the language he shapes into luminous poems that remember in English and in Spanish. His voice is lyrical, direct—he confesses “[t]ime has made us strange” but also transforms a river into a rosary. These poems are exquisite, heartfelt." —Eduardo C. Corral "The actual Dominican river that gives title to Ayendy Bonifacio’s To the River, We Are Migrants is also a river of words, the river of life, the river of death, the river dividing us from our truest selves and the river that delivers us home again. These are poems of immigration, separation and grief, but they are also poems that honor home, family and the enduring powers of language and memory. I am deeply instructed and moved by the mundos of this beautiful book." —Kathy Fagan "Desde Broadway Junction hasta Bao, Ayendy nos lleva en su tren—the one que comienza with a word-dream born in the eyes of his father. Está lloviendo desde adentro, desde que dejó de llamar mundos a los countries. Cada verso estruja la nostalgia, y nos presta un rosario in order to survive here-there and en rotundo futuro que se rompe. Corre el agua con cada metáfora, con el pasaporte que se tragó el campo donde se regresan a descansar las palabras. Este poemario es una corriente encima del cuerpo, un ardor, pain, el recuerdo de su abuelo and the smell del idioma que tuvo que darle rompa en su lengua. To the River, We Are Migrants nos lleva “más allá de líneas de inmigración,” el principio y el final de los días largos cuando la pérdida de un ser querido estruja la mirada, “paper planes when our motherlands liberated us,” es un basement donde reciben los campesino, es la habitación donde su madre hospeda los nuevos recién llegando que parió Quisqueya. Vamos soñando in english and español silenciosamente “para que las nubes no se rompieran.” Leer a Ayendy, es encontrarnos where nos habíamos dejado; en la desembocadura de un río que nos dispersó en alguna parte con una promesa hecha cicatriz." --Fior E. Plasencia About Ayendy Bonifacio Ayendy Bonifacio was born in Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University. His areas of scholarship include American literature and culture, including Latino/a/x studies; digital humanities; public humanities; transamerican poetics, specifically the reprint poem as a form of public discourse; and hemispheric studies. His current book project, Poems Go Viral: Reprint Culture in the US Popular Press (1855-1866), draws examples from over 200 English- and Spanish-language popular dailies and weeklies between January 1855 and December 1866. This book studies what Bonifacio calls the virality of nineteenth-century poems. Akin to the way an image, video, and a piece of information go viral on the internet today, certain popular poems and poets circulated rapidly and widely through newspaper reproduction. His research is published and/or forthcoming in American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography; Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism; Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature; Postcolonial Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies; The Journal: A Literary Magazine; and The American Review of Books. He is also the author of Dique Dominican (Floricanto Press, 2017) and To The River, We Are Migrants (Unsolicited Press, 2020). In 2018, The Latino Author named Dique Dominican one of the “top ten best non-fiction books of 2017.” Connect with Bonifacio at www.ayendybonifacio.com. TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS by Ayendy Bonifacio Availability TO THE RIVER, WE ARE MIGRANTS is available on December 8, 2020 as a paperback (978-1-950730-56-8) and e-book. The book is brought to the trade by Ingram. The publisher and author have active publicity and marketing campaigns in place. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. The pandemic has made shopping for friends and family quite different, so our team would like to make it easier to send gifts to your favorite book lover that reduces in-store contact. For the holidays, we are offering two gift card options that make gift-giving simple and affordable.
The Unsolicited Press $25 Gift Card offers a unique experience that connects the recipient with our editors to help them find the perfect book (a book concierge experience). You simply buy the gift card and provide the recipient's information and we will handle the rest. The Unsolicited Press PayPal Gift Card is offered through PayPal and is a more traditional gift card that permits you to select how much you want to send to the recipient. The gift card funds are stored in a PayPal wallet and can be used however and whenever the recipient wants to directly on our website. Both are excellent options. No matter what you choose, our press appreciates your decision to support our small press. ![]() Portland, OR— November 24, 2020 — Unsolicited Press humbly announces the long-awaited availability of What Is Said About Elephants, a collection of short fiction by the late Wendell Mayo. Unsolicited Press and Wendell Mayo were in the middle of preparing his short story collection for publication when he suddenly passed away. Our team, in coordination with Mr. Mayo's wife decided to publish the collection posthumously to honor his life and support the local animal shelter in Lorian county. All profit from the sale of What Is Said About Elephants will go to the Friendship Animal Protective League in Lorian County. Mayo begins his new collection with a brief tale and utterance made by an elephant trainer at a zoo: “It’s said,” Beasley says, “an elephant won’t pass by a dead elephant without casting a branch or some dust on the body. A kind of homage, I suppose.” In a variety of ways, the twelve stories that follow are tributes to characters who find themselves on the fringes, at the sides of roads. In “When the Moon Was Ours for the Taking,” a man recalls a brief few days he found himself fishing with his NASA-physicist father who is otherwise preoccupied with the Space Race craze of the 1960s. In “A Mindfulness Becoming Less,” an aging, out-of work Homer Lynch convinces himself he doesn’t need the job and health care he needs. In “Vigil for Ammospiza nigréscens,” a veteran of the Vietnam War searches for an extinct bird in the salt marshes of Florida, haunted by the North Vietnamese soldier he killed. In “Burn Barrel,” Cole, a jobless college graduate, despairing that he can never pay his student loans, begins to burn all his university papers, in a strange effort to erase the debt. In these and other stories, Mayo’s characters are people we think we know, in situations we think we understand—and then realize in flashes of truth we can see them—and ourselves—in new ways. Wendell Mayo (1953-2019) was a native of Corpus Christi, Texas. He authored five collections of short stories, recently, Survival House with SFASU Press in 2018. His other collections are The Cucumber King of Kėdainiai, winner of the Subito Press Award for Innovative Fiction; Centaur of the North (Arte Público Press), winner of the Aztlán Prize; B. Horror and Other Stories (Livingston Press); and a novel-in-stories, In Lithuanian Wood (White Pine Press). Over one-hundred of his short stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Yale Review, Harvard Review, Manoa, Missouri Review, Boulevard, New Letters, Threepenny Review, Indiana Review, and Chicago Review. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Fulbright to Lithuania (Vilnius University), two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Master Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission. He taught fiction writing in the MFA/BFA programs at Bowling Green State University for over twenty years. WHAT IS SAID ABOUT ELEPHANTS (978-1-950730-55-1) is available (paperback and ebook) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. The author is available for media appearances, interviews, and readings. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. ![]() Portland, OR— November 17, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of From the Land of Genesis by Stephen J. O'Shea, documentarian and explorer. From the Land of Genesis is literature at its best. Crafted in short story form to achieve a number of vivid slices of life, this collection accurately illustrates the hardships of normal life after living wartime experiences. O’Shea traveled the globe interviewing veterans and taking special care to authentically portray the veteran experience at home. The result is a literary fiction / narrative nonfiction hybrid, with fictional characters and settings, but references and experiences of war that are drawn explicitly from interviews, transcripts, and source materials. Any one of these stories contributes so much on its own and is unique in its own respects, and yet the overlapping characters and themes flow more like a novel than a short story collection. O’Shea writes on a number of widely varying lifestyles of veterans who all carry the burden of war into their new lives, wherever they have ended up. He demonstrates expert control of conveying emotions, individually and interactively, which plays to his theme of depicting the reality of post-traumatic stress syndrome. To name a few, he emphasizes feelings of alienation, depression, paranoia, confusion, and regret. However, the stories also feature glimpses of hope amidst the despairing truths, making a beautiful literary medium for readers to experience vicariously the extremes of the human condition. Stephen J. O’Shea is a writer, documentarian, and (now) sailor, who tells stories to stay alive. His research for From the Land of Genesis was the catalyst for a sailing expedition around Cape Horn to raise awareness about veteran suicide rates. Having miraculously survived that feat (and transformed that journey into the feature documentary, Hell or High Seas) he's now writing and producing stories through a number of mediums, including literature and film. From the Land of Genesis (978-1-950730-58-2) is available as a paperback ($17.00; 302p.) and ebook, and can be purchased from all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Mr. O'Shea is open to scheduling events, speaking with the press, and getting involved in literary panels. Both publisher and author have active social media presences, and have developed a robust marketing plan. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. ![]() If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Lin Manuel-Miranda. I’d spare him my cooking and order delivery, though. I overcook everything. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? As I reflect, I think the most consistent recurring fear is being wrong/misstating something and either not realizing it or not being able to correct it. I combat this not-so-irrational fear in two primary ways: by checking and revising facts/phrasings, and by reassuring myself “I’m human. If something is wrong, I won’t die. It’ll just feel awful for a while.” Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Did I say Lin Manuel-Miranda already? Oopsie. Repeat answer. Love him. (Hamil-geek here.) What books are on your nightstand? Psychology books because there’s so much to learn in the field of psychology/mental health. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the dash. It’s rebellious, bold, versatile, and less formal than a colon. To me, the dash reads like people speak. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I was a really good student. Yet I've always read slowly. So I did a few CliffNote versions. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My laptop. “Computer, thank you for coming back after dying twice during the process of finishing MeaningFULL.” If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Passion + Persistence = Possible. Does writing energize or exhaust you? ENERGIZES ME! What are common traps for aspiring writers? Giving up. What is your writing Kryptonite? Imposter Syndrome. Sometimes it freezes me. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? I threw out MeaningFULL at least once. At least. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes. It depends on how we define writer. If we mean “someone who writes,” then the person could find a niche that doesn't require them to convey strong emotions. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I’m friends with a number of people who have published articles or books. Every bit of feedback helped me become a better writer--whether from a published author or not. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I haven’t decided yet if this might become a series. I wonder what readers would like to see, and welcome suggestions. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I changed my writing process a great deal since I had previously done primarily academic writing. Conversational stories were foreign to me and required a mentor. Some narratives came from recorded interviews and transcripts, which helped capture the storyteller’s voices. Other stories required editing only. Either way, the process evolved and was quite collaborative. This book changed nearly everything about how I write, and I’m grateful. It's what I wanted to read years ago. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? Money spent for a mentor helped me to be a better writer. Consultation with lawyers taught me about publication. And if MeaningFULL helps people, then it all was the best money I ever spent as a writer. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? It’s been years since I read for pleasure, and I refuse to say anything negative about any author I have read while trying to grow and learn as a clinician. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? My parents had a plaque in the house with this Calvin Coolidge saying, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence…” Once I knew what persistence meant, I watched for how persistence showed up in the world. That passage has influenced me ever since. Most recently as a therapist, I see how important the way I say something is; it can have real influence in how people can recognize their best choices. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Ethan Frome. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Chunk the Groundhog (check YouTube). Day after day after day, he shows up. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? I owe them gratitude for their generosity, protection of their identities (where appropriate), and honor. From the bottom of my heart, I’m touched they trusted me with their life-experiences. What does literary success look like to you? Reaching and positively impacting people is literary success to me. Would I love some nice reviews, to earn an award, or to make a list? Heck yes. But when I started this journey, I promised to do my best to reach and impact the most people I could with this book and the messages contained in it. And that will be enough. What’s the best way to market your books? Let me be direct here: “Readers, if you enjoy MeaningFULL or if it means something to you, please tell your friends about it and share it on social media.” Those are the best ways to spread the word. What did you edit out of this book? I tried to give enough pain to feel for and with the storyteller, but not get mired down in the heavy content. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Eating Disorders Specialist in private practice in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. To learn more about my practice, visit www.TherapyHelps.Us About Alli's Book!![]() MeaningFULL: 23 Life-Changing Stories of Conquering Dieting, Weight, & Body Image Issues is a blend of motivational self-help, memoir, psychology, and health and wellness. Alli Spotts-De Lazzer is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, an expert in eating and body image issues, and a woman on the other side of her own decades-long struggle with food and body. ![]() Readers and reviewers are smitten with Anne Leigh Parrish's latest book. Kirkus Reviews says “these tales are also wonderfully worthwhile, courtesy of an indelible voice that leaves a lasting impression.” In sixteen short stories and a novella, award-winning author Anne Leigh Parrish explores the magic of life, love, and the soft boundary between fact and fantasy. Here is fiction that lifts off from reality and startles us into recognition. The wife of an artist disappears under mysterious circumstances; a woman has the gift of taking away sorrow; another finds inner strength through writing poetry; and a great-grandmother spends the day sitting on a folding chair in a grocery store parking lot, contemplating the nature of the human heart. Women are the foundation of this collection, and it’s their unique issues that hold sway. Marriages gone bad, violent men, and children who disappoint weave through settings and scenes with fine dramatic tension. Loneliness, often a thing to be avoided at the cost of one’s self-esteem, becomes embraced as a source of strength. Quiet souls make themselves heard, and the timid prevail. The underdog doesn’t always win, and more often than not learns to accept what cannot be changed. Literary fiction at its best, What Nell Dreams is Parrish’s eight book of fiction. MORE ADVANCE PRAISE “Anne Leigh Parrish’s collection, What Nell Dreams, lets readers peer into lives at that precious moment of transition and discovery.” — PAM MCGAFFIN, author of The Leaving Year “Parrish is a master at creating strong and authentic female characters.” — CHRISSI SEPE, author of Iggy Gorgess and Bliss, Bliss, Bliss About Anne Leigh Parrish Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of seven previously published books: Maggie’s Ruse, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2019); The Amendment, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2018); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead From Home, stories (Press 53, 2011). Where to Buy WHAT NELL DREAMS WHAT NELL DREAMS is available directly from the publisher and all major retailers such as Amazon. Readers who prefer to shop at independent bookstores can buy a copy through Indiebound. An ebook is also available through Amazon's Kindle program. ![]() Unsolicited Press announces the long-awaited release of WORKING TITLE, a poetry collection by Chuck Harp. Set to release on November 10, 2020, Working Title investigates a spectrum of emotions: disillusionment, fatigue, anger, frustration, and indifference, and others through a series of poems that honor the Everyman. The speakers of the poems share the same face but not always the same uniform. They are workers from the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. What emerges is a painting illustrating the consequences of spending more time in an office than out in the world. The numbing nine-to-fives. The blinding blue light of computer screens. Working Title is a portrait of the mundane everyday of modern civilization in the western world. Chuck is a writer of various forms who currently resides in Los Angeles. He published Before I Forget with Black Rose Writing, What Must Go On with Unsolicited Press, and Blooming Insanity with Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. WORKING TITLE (978-1-950730-67-4) is available (paperback, ebook) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. ![]() Working Title by Chuck Harp presents a confluence of the integrity and denigration of human spirit in the digital-industrial modernity we reside. Under a less nuanced poet this material would come across as didactic, but what Harp does so well is turn the reading into a rhythmic flow that feels like you are looking through the eyes of a camera on a track which is spinning to focus on different people as it rolls. The layman, the unknown artist with their own rich history and voice, is celebrated from the start with “The Cheap Seats”, a title reverberant with the influence of Neil Gaiman’s “The View from the Cheap Seats”. It is here that we find the handshake of the reader and the author, unapologetic and outward with influence for this reader I immediately found a home in Harp’s work because of this. Yet, despite the similar titles, the poem racks us fast into the ironic world we reside in which billions of people with hardly any money pay full price to see a film like Avengers Endgame while Disney makes off with even more fuel monetarily and in the minds and hearts of the poor masses cheering on as Captain America proves he is worthy to wield the Hammer of a Norse God. The frustration and anger at this irony is palpable, but not anywhere close to off putting, if commiseration is the focus of many of the early poems in the book then vulnerable humility is the undercurrent that takes mainstage after the initial venting has passed. “The Hunt” takes us into the uncomfortable space of recognizing how fragile the support of monetary future is in a world where jobs are unreliable long term, or even worse, time and energy consuming for the artist. “Skills” the anxious negotiation between the self we perceive vs. the self we present to be hirable or publishable, and not only the mental strain that puts on a person, but the dilemma of living as an autonomous artist when you may have to change your work for it to be shared, and to possibly have a future continuing to share it. The poems continue their journey through the dregs of the working class and the time and life they lose in their survivalist state. The push and pull between the responsibility to strike and the pressure that puts on one’s ability to live, the corporate assholes who need cheap labor’s practices, and how the idea of money plays with one’s self-worth are also on the spit. Where the journey soars though is not in the misery of these experiences, but in the beautiful spaces that are found and the suffering endured to survive being able to return to it. The poem “Overtime” takes this into account and breathes so much living air into what we as readers have not only endured in the process of going on Harp’s journey, but what many of us have gone through in living in America. Even something as small as staying up an extra half hour when already exhausted just to kiss your partner goodnight is deep balm for all that is churned and torn. Especially if you are an artist of any medium who is reinforced with the need to constantly compare their accomplishments to the quality of their character in society. This utilitarianism is actively critiqued multiple times over by way of the emotional accounts present. The accumulative poem aptly titled “Working Title” is button on the journey. It is heart breaking, heart affirming, exhausting, and something that should be stood by in solidarity. Chuck Harp knows not only his poetic voice, but how to allow confluence between each poem. The synthesis makes the read digestible, while also being incredibly complex. I hope to see more work and poems from him in the future, and for more publishers to give him the attention and time he is due. Nominating books for awards is really hard. Every book we publish has meaning and is an important member of the book world. And having to select a handful is like asking our editors to choose their favorite child.
Nevertheless, it must be done. This year we made nominations based on sales and heart, with heart leading the way. This year is about the authors and books that garnered notice without having to scream from the mountaintops. These books worked for themselves. The nominations go to: ![]() If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Kurt Vonnegut, though I have a feeling we’d skip dinner and cut straight to the bottle of whisky. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The scariest stage in my writing is transporting a good concept onto the page, and into good, compelling writing. There are endless ideas for stories floating around in my mind – the question is always: which ones will translate well into fiction, and which ones will result in a great waste of time? And while it’s impossible to tell in the moment, the way that I always overcome that block is by remembering that there is no wasted time. If I write 9 terrible stories for every decent one, my one good story isn’t the best despite those other stories – it’s the best because of them, and the time that I spent writing all ten. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? It’s a kind of man-crush, but I’d have to go with George Orwell. His reckless idealism and embedment in the Spanish Civil War screams of the same kind of lust for adventure and stupidity that led me to jump on a 36-foot sailboat for Cape Horn. That, and 1984 might have been the first book I ever really, truly read. What books are on your nightstand? Right now, it’s The Overstory by Richard Powers and Awakening Osiris – the Egyptian “Book of the Dead.” Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love the double dash. Bordering a non-essential clause with “—” is a habit I’ve yet to break, and I often have to go back through my writing and limit myself to one dash-distinguished clause per page. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. I just read the sparknotes (and sped-read them, at that.) I regretted it so much later in life that I went back to read it, and then I read Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath AND East of Eden (which is a behemoth of a book). What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My thermos. It followed me across three continents, and more journeys and adventures than I care to recount. While I was scrapping by during the first year of my PhD, it was how I drank my coffee slowly at coffee houses – ensuring that I could wring a good 6-8 hours out of a single 16-ounce cappuccino, without having to buy more (I am the bane of every cafe manager’s existence). If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? There are probably enough inspirational quotes for aspiring writers on twitter and Instagram. I’d probably just write what I’ve found to be true – “abandon comfort.” People adjust to their circumstances, and there’s no paved road forward. You just have to carve your own path. During the first year of my PhD, I lived off of 50 GBPs a week. Before that, I lived out of my car – travelling the country and working part-time jobs in 10 different states. I’m not saying you have to be prepared to starve in order to succeed – just that, when you find what works for you, trust it, and roll with it. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing fiction energizes me. Writing almost everything else drains me. (Except for this Q&A, of course.) When I’m in the middle of creating and writing a good story or scene, it becomes a force of its own. I’ll lie awake at night thinking about my characters and their journey. I’ll walk right past a giraffe in the road without looking up, I’m so engrossed in their world. And yet, it’s invigorating. Writing, and getting into flow, is one of the most life-affirming experiences that I’ve ever practiced. What are common traps for aspiring writers? Believing in the artist mythos. Creative geniuses don’t exist in a vacuum. Originality and craft comes from practice, experience, and study. I always told my students that writing is only 33% practice. The other 67% is reading, work-shopping, and research. What is your writing Kryptonite? I often get inside my own head about flow. If all I have in a day is one hour to sit down and write, I’ll sometimes convince myself that it’s not worth it. That, unless I’m able to dedicate the entire day to writing, and getting into a flow, than it might as well be a waste. The truth is, however, that writing anything is better than writing nothing at all. Even answering these questions is better practice than forfeiting an afternoon to menial tasks and busy work Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Oh, definitely. Readers block can be tricky, because reading on some level feels like a luxury, or a past-time. If you take the morning to read, you’re wasting time that could be better spent writing or working or being productive. The reality, of course, is that reading is a crucial part of writing. And that, sometimes the best way to break through writers block is simply to read. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Absolutely. See my previous comment about the artist mythos. Artists often aren’t as they’ve been portrayed by romanticists, or the eccentric “creatives” who wander production houses/advertising firms/etc. More often than not, the individuals who propagate those myths have serious insecurities about their own creative process. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My best “author” friends were my peers and supervisors during my PhD. And I believe it is essential to surround yourself with writers, creatives, or storytellers of any form – to learn, to listen, and to talk through your own ideas. But you don’t necessarily have to be “friends” with them. Relationships are complex, and while I thrive in creative environments, etc. I often find myself connecting more with non-writers about non-writerly things. The key, as with all things, is balance. If you’re in an MFA, and the only people you surround yourself with are writers, you’ll exist in an academic bubble. But if you have no writers in your life, you’re probably not challenging yourself or work-shopping your writing like you should be. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? A little bit of both, I think. From the Land of Genesis was actually the catalyst for my idea behind Hell or High Seas, the documentary that set me sailing for Cape Horn two years straight. While FTLOG explores a variety of narratives from various veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Hell or High Seas is a deeper, more involved investigation of a single non-combat veteran, former-navy-rescue-swimmer Taylor Grieger. The two compliment each other, I believe, and moving forward I might build on those themes. But I’m also working on projects that are completely outside of the military experience, and I’m really looking forward to fleshing those out. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Publishing my first book has been really helpful in terms of affirmation. It took over two years from when I completed From the Land of Genesis to when heard back from my first publisher. After two years of crickets, I got offers from three different publishers… within the same week! Before that week, I was really struggling with self-doubt and whether I should abandon my efforts to publish FTLOG and just move on to my next book. And I did move on from FTLOG, and I began writing for the documentary and for magazines about our journey, and I started writing a memoir of our sailing journey around Cape Horn. But I didn’t stop querying agents or submitting to publishers. So I learned that you don’t have to give up on one book in order to move on to the next. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? When I got accepted to the post-graduate creative writing program in Glasgow, Scotland, I received a scholarship that covered my tuition for the first year. It was a gamble, because accommodation alone in downtown Glasgow was going to cost more than I’d ever had in my bank account. But I sold my car, bought a one-way flight, and signed a year-long lease with graduate-student housing. It took me three months to find a job bartending in Glasgow, and even afterwards I was only earning minimum wage. I scraped by that first year, working weekends, teaching undergrad courses, and completing mandatory courses for my masters of research course. Then I received a studentship with an additional living stipend to complete my PhD. Those three years ended up being the most formative in my life. So I think the best money I ever spent was that one-way flight to Scotland. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Oh, there are plenty of those. Shakespeare and Chaucer, to start. Then there was Hemingway, who I despised at first, then idolized, then eventually settled on the middle-ground of respect. Steinbeck was another I grew to love. Stephen King I grew to admire, though I think I was only ever put-off by the genre of horror and not really his style as a writer. Countless short story authors. I think the trick is to give them a chance. Once you get into the rhythm and style of their writing—especially the more traditional, historical authors—the craft itself falls to the side and you’re able to absorb and appreciate the message and themes at the core. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? It must’ve been my junior year of high school, when I started taking my English assignments seriously. We learned the ethos, pathos, and logos of arguments, and at that time I thought the powers of persuasion were limitless. It didn’t take long for that view to falter, and so I returned to writing stories to expand the mind, rather than trying to change it. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? Probably “Treats” by Laura Williams. I bought the book from a small, independent publisher based out of Glasgow that has since gone out of business, and I bought it for about five quid. I really didn’t expect to like it, and then I was instantly pulled in by the humor, wit, and sharpness of tone. The book itself was a collection of vignettes and flash fiction, and I can’t tell you what half of them were about, but I remember savouring the entire book. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I had to ask my fiancé about this one, since I don’t know much about spirit animals or avatars. She said my spirit animal is a brown bear, though I was kind of hoping she’d say “turtle duck,” in reference to The Legend of Korra cartoon series. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? More than most authors, I imagine. My situation is unique, since most of the inspiration for my characters and their experiences are drawn directly from interviews that I conducted with veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. To them, I owe my sincerest gratitude: for being who they are, for enlist to serve on our behalf, and for sitting down to help me, and all of you, better understand what they’ve endured, and how their difficulties in transitioning home have been disregarded and misunderstood by the public at large. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? Fortunately, just two. One of which I wrote while I was in middle-school (yes, it’s a 600-page handwritten fantasy novel). The other is underway, and the rest are still incubating. What does literary success look like to you? Being able to tell meaningful stories as my career. What’s the best way to market your books? No idea. I imagine, most of the time, that’s the publisher’s responsibility. I think as an author, maybe the best marketing technique is to be kind and gracious, to express gratitude to the people who have supported you, and to be proud and confident in – not bashful of – your book. A large part of your early audience is going to be your community. And the best way to reach your community is to serve them. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Not allowing my own biases or diction to slip into the prose. But, honestly, it’s no different than writing any character that’s from a different background or culture than yourself. As an author, you must constantly be exercising empathy, immersed in backstory, and reminded of the subtle cues that give yourself away. What did you edit out of this book?” More than half of the stories that I wrote. That, and a lot of clichés and adjectives. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Anything that allowed me to create. Stories, ideally, in whatever medium I could. But if not film / writing / radio, I’d probably be an architect or craftsman of some kind. ![]() Adventurous, magical, and often dark, the stories that comprise Feral Boy Meets Girl are about outsiders in their own communities, homes, and even intimate relationships. Feral Boy Meets Girl blends literary fiction with elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror to tell stories of outsiders within their communities, their homes, and even their intimate relationships. In “The Death And Life Of Bob,” a collective of textbook sales reps watches in amazement as their marginalized coworker returns from the dead with a new zest for life—but one sees something far darker in his new beginning. In the title story, “Feral Boy Meets Girl,” a young teenager, raised in the wild by a cougar until his adoption by human parents, is on the cusp of full integration into society, but finds that “civilization” is nothing of the sort. In “Static,” an experimental wormhole leads to a father receiving cell phone calls from his son twenty years in the future—and what he learns about himself isn’t pretty. “Minutes of the Pine Valley Residents’ Board” features a depressed, cynical secretary observing his condo board becoming a court of star chamber, but as a non-voting member he can only witness and record, rather than intervene. In “The Sound of His Voice,” a mother goes to near-superhuman lengths to care for her three-year-old son who has been infected by a zombie virus. And “Do Not Break The Heart Of Charles Nelson Bereiter” offers instructions on how to date an emotionally-broken man literally haunted by a spirit from his past. William Jablonsky is originally from Rock Falls, Illinois, and earned an MFA in fiction writing from Bowling Green State University. He is the author of two previous books: The Indestructible Man: Stories (Livingston Press, 2005) and The Clockwork Man (Medallion, 2010). His short fiction has appeared frequently national magazines and journals, including Asimov’s, Shimmer, The Florida Review, Phoebe, and many others. He teaches fiction writing and interdisciplinary humanities at Loras College, and lives in eastern Iowa with his wife and son. ![]() Portland, Oregon— October 20, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announced immediate availability of Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories by Matthew Duffus. Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories paints the stories of Americans from sisters vacationing in Southern California to the kudzu-covered fields of Mississippi. Each story, built on luxurious landscapes, hones in on the turmoil of living in 21st Century America. Readers come face-to-face with the struggles of living off-grid and fighting for artistic credibility in a society that refuses to let freedom ring...all in favor of commerce. Advance Praise for Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories "Matthew Duffus’ debut collection is a powerful hymn to families—chosen ones, second ones, makeshift ones, loving and fierce, troubled and turbulent. The stories in Dunbar’s Folly unfold like stretches of gentle country road, tracking the signposts of relationships with an unassumingly clear-eyed lucidity. Each story navigates its dips and turns so smoothly that its ultimate destination—a sharp, illuminating crossroads—feels revelatory, every time."--Suzanne Rivecca, author of Death Is Not an Option "Matthew Duffus is a superb writer, one whose stories I found instantly engaging. In part, that's because he has no time for the trivial. He's exploring the mysteries of the human heart and doing so with both grace and wonder. This is a deeply moving collection, one that I will return to many times."--Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World In an easy and lucid style, Dunbar’s Folly immerses the reader in the conundrums of life—wayward children, divorce, retirement, suicide, and unfettered pride. These insightful stories will absorb you with honest compelling characters. Matthew Duffus has most assuredly written a classic within the pages of this flawless collection.--Russell Helms, author of Fade Matthew Duffus is the author of the novel Swapping Purples for Yellows and the poetry chapbook Problems of the Soul and Otherwise. He lives in North Carolina and can be found online at matthewduffus.com and on twitter @DuffusMatthew. Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories by Matthew Duffus Availability Dunbar's Folly and Other Stories is available on October 20, 2020 as a paperback (978-1-950730-54-4) and e-book. The book is brought to the trade by Ingram. The publisher and author have active publicity and marketing campaigns in place. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?
I’d have to say Edgar Allen Poe, because he had so much tragedy and sadness in his life, and I think I’d like to provide him with a moment of warmth and kindness. No better way of doing that than with good food. I’d probably cook him some nice Hungarian goulash, if only because it’s delicious and hearty and he likely wouldn’t have had it before. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The inner critic is merciless. Makes you wonder if everything you’re doing is crap. I keep thinking about that scene in Funny Farm (starring Chevy Chase) in which his character hands a copy of his novel manuscript to his wife to read, and she reads it and then starts crying. My wife is my first and best editor, and so that reaction is something I dread, almost irrationally. Plus, some of my ideas are a bit out there and are largely execution-dependent. I get past it by recognizing that I have to be true to my own imagination and aesthetic, and just doing it--if I blow it, I either start over or fix it. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? This is probably a somewhat obscure reference, but the most recent crush I had on a character was Mrs. Singh, Ray Singh’s mother in The Lovely Bones. She’s a peripheral character, not really that important to the plot, but she’s a beautiful, elegant character who carries herself with incredible grace even as her life is falling apart. What books are on your nightstand? Too many—one at a time would be better, but I like to sample and flit. David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Karen Russell’s story collection Vampires In The Lemon Grove, the reissued Miracleman series by Alan Moore (a revisionist super-hero series wherein the titular character ends up setting up a theocracy with himself as God), and Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s collected edition of Monstress (a fantasy comic that is very dark and strange and features talking cats). This will probably tell you a lot about me. Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? I get ideas from so many places—sometimes it’s things my wife tells me about her work day, or my interactions with students and/or other faculty. My son, who is what you’d call high-functioning on the autism spectrum but who will probably have close to a normal life, has given me tons of material to work with—“The Sound Of His Voice” was directly inspired by some of the early intervention we did with him, and my current novel project is largely inspired by him and the life I want/foresee for him, but transformed into subte science-fictiony terms . And sometimes it’s a combination of a great many things—“Minutes Of The Pine Valley Residents’ Board” came about at a time when I was a committee secretary (a pretty typical service activity for new professors) and was also very actively annoyed by my neighbors’ children (seriously, I was thinking of setting up glue traps for them on my back porch). Really, they can come from anywhere. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I try to avoid too much fancy punctuation simply because it feels too much like diagramming sentencings to me. So while I do like the semicolon and the em dash, I’d have to say the period, because there’s nothing like a simple, short, declarative sentence that falls like a hammer blow. Case in point, from Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”: “The man himself lay on the bed.” It’s creepy, and there’s a finality to it because it confirms what we were already led to believe. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? The Grapes Of Wrath. Sorry, Mrs. Thome. I did read it as an adult…and still didn’t care for it. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My height-adjustable swivel chair. Not only am I tall and so need the increased height, but sometimes when I get stuck on a particular passage I spin around in it like a small child. Helps clear the noggin. Why do you write? The first 5 words that come to mind. Go. To exorcise my bountiful demons. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Two words: “Commit Yourself.” This is what sets publishing writers apart from those who merely call themselves writers and have umpteen unfinished manuscripts in their desk drawers or flash drives. You really do have to commit to a project fully and wholeheartedly, even when enthusiasm for it wanes (it will), even when you think what you’re writing is absolute shit (some of it is), when it seems too daunting (it often is). You have to power through and finish a draft first, even a shitty one, then go back and make it less shitty, then hit it again and actually make it good. Each draft teaches you how to write the next one—you have to let it. ![]() If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Without question Hunter S. Thompson, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind I can’t cook and would be cool with a couple burgers and a lot of beers. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? The editing process has got to be the worst. It’s like looking under the rug at all the crap you overlooked. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Does Elektra from Marvel Comics count? What books are on your nightstand? The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Mario Puzo’s The Sicilian. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The question mark. Just because it makes the reader unsure if what they are reading should even matter. It’s almost like the writer and reader are attached by handcuffs. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? 1984 by George Orwell What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The inanimate carbon rod. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? Do whatever the hell you want. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize. What are common traps for aspiring writers? The Internet, noisy neighbors, and the worst of them all….overthinking. What is your writing Kryptonite? In terms of process, it will always be writing a beginning. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes and no. It’s more that I’ve written myself into a corner and need some time to figure out how to escape. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? I’m sure they can. But it must be a whole lot harder. But try and think of those serial killers walking amongst us. They can put on a smile too. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? My friend, author Benjamin DeVos, who basically told me to submit my poetry. But other inspirational creatives that write in other forms are: - musicians Jon Carlucci and Phill Lien - rapper Internal Rhyme - writers Angelo Ciccio and Adam Mitropoulos. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I think the style and themes are the overall connection. Besides that they simply stand on their own. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? The very first book I wrote (which was not, and never will be, published) was me trying too hard. Overthinking, and adding in bits of nonsense that I wrote off as “flavor” or “style”. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? With the very first check I got from writing I put gas in my car. I guess that. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? If I disliked them, they pretty much never entered my life again. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Probably around the time I got into hip hop. Everything from the use of graffiti to rap itself. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? Probably a tortoise. Maybe like that one in the old Guinness ads. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? A beer or two. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have 2 novels and 4 poetry collections. What does literary success look like to you? Freedom. What’s the best way to market your books? When I figure it out I’ll get back to you. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I try not to think about it and just write. What did you edit out of this book?” I think there was a suicidal poem that I deleted. Who wants that? If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Probably still have my current job and be a weekend bartender. ![]() Unsolicited Press announces the long-awaited release of a debut poetry collection by Amy Shimshon-Santo on September 22, 2020. Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is a testament to the lost, the loved, the courageous. The collection includes the viral poems “no (no. 10)” which has been used by educators to teach personal consent to students, and “good fuck poem (a definition)” an erotic testament to affection and the body. Shimshon-Santo, who has been widely interviewed by outlets including BBC radio, speaks to a moment in history framed by crises in public health and public culture. “Poetry is designed for the subtle work of liberation,” the author said in an interview with Frontier Poetry. Placeholder Press in the United Kingdom describes her work as having “seemingly effortless mastery that can only come from meticulous and dedicated work" and calls her poems "companions for all of us, lost and afraid in a time of crisis.” Shimshon-Santo’s creative career began in dance, and sent her on a journey from Los Angeles to improvisation in New York; revolutionary community theater in Central America; co-directing a transnational performance ensemble rooted in Bahia-Brazil; molding arts education policy in California, and mentoring leaders in higher education. She balanced the responsibilities of public service and single parenthood with the internal introspection that writing provides. Even the Milky Way is Undocumented is a unique departure from her other creative and philanthropic works, as she turns her lens inward and focuses on the ongoing pursuit of radical honesty and self-acceptance. The book spans 25 years of life told through 37 poems, each one carrying us a little bit closer to the heart of the artist. The collection is “a whole life lived,” writes Joshua Roark (Editor, Frontier Poetry). “These poems know deaths and betrayals, police killings and sexual assaults,” writes poet and translator Dan Bellm. Shimshon-Santo finds strength in ritual, music, and family. Author Gayle Brandeis writes that the book “reminds you to listen, to pay attention, to live.” Writing poetry is “my thermometer for authentic living,” said Shimshon-Santo, who is aware of what it means to be the first woman in one’s family to fill a page and be published. “Poetry helps me know myself, and seek freedom.” About Amy Shimshon-Santo Pushcart Award nominee Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer and educator from Dogtown, a place in Los Angeles that no longer exists. Her interdisciplinary work connects the arts, education, and urbanism. Her work crosses genres from poetry and creative non-fiction to choreography and social science. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her creative non-fiction (2017), Best of the Net for her poetry (2018), and was recognized on the National Honor Roll for Service Learning. She is the author of the chapbook of erasure poetry Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press), and the editor of Arts = Education (UC Press). Her writing has also been published by ArtPlace America, Yes Poetry, Zócalo Public Square, Capsule Stories, Anti-Heroin Chic, Rag Queen Periodical, SAGE Publications, Entropy, Imagining America, Tiferet Journal, and SUNY Press. She is currently an Associate Professor in Arts Management at Claremont Graduate University. To learn more about her work visit www.amyshimshon.com. About Unsolicited Press Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. EVEN THE MILKY WAY IS UNDOCUMENTED (978-1-950730-29-2) is available (paperback, ebook, and audio) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. ### Press only, Unsolicited Press Eric Rancino 619.354.8005 marketing@unsolicitedpress.com For artist interviews, readings, and podcasts: Amy Shimshon-Santo shimshona4@gmail.com ADVANCE PRAISE FOR EVEN THE MILKY WAY IS UNDOCUMENTED “Amy Shimshon-Santo’s poems are the words of a survivor, a warrior, and a creator. Time and time again, across borders and languages, her writing takes us into sensuous and deeply emotional places, finding beauty and rootedness and meaning in everyday moment and extraordinary landscapes.” — Héctor Tobar, Author of Deep Down Dark “My imagination/is ambidextrous,” writes Amy Shimshon-Santo; so is this stunning collection. These poems are deeply rooted in the body and reach for the stars; they are spacious enough to hold the pain of police brutality and the beauty of an apricot tree, to both interrogate and celebrate, to hold a yes on their lips and a no in their pocket. The poet calls the reader “beloved” in the very first poem, and each page of this collection is suffused with love, with “a grammar/made of kindness”—the kind of love that is unafraid to show you the truth; the kind of love that reminds you to listen, to pay attention, to live. A beautiful and stirring achievement.” — Gayle Brandeis, Author of The Art of Misdiagnosis “I’ve decided to dress my body / in blessings,” a poem called “grace” announces, toward the end of this wonderful collection by Amy Shimshon-Santo. Which does not mean that blessings come easy: these poems know deaths and betrayals, police killings and sexual assaults, and a parent’s everyday fears for her children’s lives, but on the power of ritual and music they emerge into strength and grace. A couple of the poems – “no (no. 10)” and “a good fuck poem (definition),” maybe others – are already underground anthems being passed from hand to hand. The body and the natural world are one in Amy’s work; languages and lives are “borderless,” ever crossing and re-crossing; and words from her pen are “strings of indigo light.” — Dan Bellm, Author of Deep Well “Shimshon-Santo's debut collection rings with music—we need more men like these poems, more women, more human beings with "shark teeth grinning / at the spools of happiness / stored inside." The poetry of Even The Milky Way Is Undocumented devours a whole life lived, leaving bare Shimshon-Santo's vulnerable bones: the work breathes simultaneously political, maternal, erotic and furious. The world hungers for more books like this." — Joshua Roark, Editor of Frontier Poetry “Amy Shimshon-Santo is “a true poet. the kind that breaks the old language and reconstructs the new from shards and visions. I am grateful for her as we always are when the artist appears just at the nick of time.” — Deena Metzger, Author of A Rain of Night Birds “I urge you to discover the poetic beauty of Los Angeles’ very own Amy Shimshon-Santo. Her voz magnífica will leave you breathlessly glowing in the dark. Amy’s rhymes are alive and connect with your cuerpo, your body, your mind, and every desire in between. Her voice and verses will satisfy your poetic cravings. Embrace the gift of these poems.” — Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Author of Flashes and Verses ![]() Portland, OR— September 8, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of KATHMANDU by Anuja Ghimire, a poet based in Dallas, TX. “Kathmandu” contains reflections of an immigrant mother raising two young children in America. In the backdrop of her memories of Kathmandu, Anuja Ghimire is trying to find her place in the world and trying to make sense of it. Through a journey of political violence from her first home to her new home, she finds enduring love and hope in the first sightings of spring and in the blossoming of her children. “Kathmandu” poems speak of being a neighbor while still feeling out of place, speaking a foreign tongue while finding it to be a lifeline, all the while readjusting the conclusion of what home is. Ghimire’s poems reflect the incomplete circularity of returning and moving forward. To understand her children, she returns to her first years and to her mother. To comprehend maddening gun-violence in America while her children begin attending elementary school, she returns to the bombing of Rajiv Gandhi in India when she was a child and the Royal family massacre in Nepal when she was a teen. To satisfy her immigrant hunger, she returns to semolina pudding, the first comfort food she made as a ten-year-old for her little brother. To persevere through headlines fraught with political calamities, Ghimire remembers surviving, as a child, India’s blockades of oil and sugar. To poetize while being lost in transit, she makes art in Walmart. In the twenty-one poems that span a decade, Anuja Ghimire writes about the complexity of never leaving home while moving “to keep things whole.” Anuja Ghimire was born in Kathmandu, Nepal and came to America to attend college. She began seriously writing and publishing since 2008. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, she has published poetry, creative nonfiction and flash fiction in the U.S., Canada, Nepal, and the U.K. Most recently, her work appeared in Finished Creatures (UK), Glass: A journal of poetry, Medusa’s Laughs Press Microanthology, and EcoTheo Review. She works as a senior publisher in an education-based company near Dallas, Texas. She lives with her husband and two young daughters near Dallas. KATHMANDU (978-1-950730-51-3) is available as a paperback and ebook, and can be purchased from all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Ms. Ghimire is open to scheduling events, speaking with the press, and getting involved in literary panels. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I would choose Parijaat, a Nepali author (Blue Mimosa). I would make aloo paratha (potato stuffed roti). What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Not saying something important in an original, crystal clear way. I also feel like anytime I am not writing, I am thinking about writing again while being scared of the process at the same time. I read good poems, edit my poems that have been rejected, and most often, I look for submission calls and one theme or another triggers me to write. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Currently, Francie Nolan of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is my most favorite character. Her flaws, strength, ordinariness and endurance moves me. What books are on your nightstand? Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” and Layli Long Soldier’s “Whereas” Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? I think the sources of inspiration keep changing yet remaining the same for me. Politics, life events, (after motherhood) big questions about raising children, and some signs from the universe give me ideas for poems. Sometimes, it is as clear as a conversation with a neighbor about her recently deceased mother, a mute man in the grocery store begging for cash, or a news headline about a pedophile abusing children in Nepal. Listening to the universe inspires me. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I like commas because they can link the unexpected together sometimes. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I don’t have one. But, I was told everyone cries upon reading this lyric book Gauri and my tears didn’t come. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? My Macbook. My husband gave it to me as a gift after our second child was born. I have composed, edited, and submitted most of my poems while having it on my lap. My corner in the couch where I sit with my Mac are definitely on my acknowledgement list. Why do you write? The first 5 words that come to mind. Go. To feel and record life If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? The way you remember the world matters. ![]() KATHMANDU is available for preorder on August 1, 2020 and releases on September 8, 2020. Copies are available directly through the publisher or wherever books are sold. An ebook is available directly from Amazon. ![]() If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I would begin by preparing brunch for Maya Angelou. I have eaten her quiche lorraine, and I would like to return her kindness. When I was a girl, my parents brought me with them to an epic loft party in San Francisco that lasted for three days with musicians, poets, artists, and activists. We celebrated all day, slept at night, and it would kick off again the next morning like a train with different stops. During the party she read from And Still I Rise. I should say, she sang it. Witnessing her recite, dance, and cook made me believe that growing up to be a woman could be a phenomenal thing. She danced with me, and whispered “If I was still teaching dance, I would teach you for free!” The words we say to each other can do tremendous good. Their ripple effect can go on, long beyond the living. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? Writing is a practice. I write everyday, and am not afraid to do it. Turning writing into something for other humans to read is more challenging. That’s when fear can creep in. I can be afraid of how my writing might be received. Do I want people to know this about me? Is it something that should be shared? I can’t reason with fear. Fear would always win. Instead, I tell myself that fear may, or may not, be accurate. Avoiding taking risks would prevent me from experiencing the unknown. Write anyway, I tell myself, even if you are afraid. Especially if you are afraid. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Crush is exactly the word. When it comes to writers, my crushability is polyamorous. I don’t always know how to act around writers I’ve crushed on literarily. I kissed Sonia Sanchez’s hair once at a book signing. Inappropriate. I’ve taken selfies with Eileen Myles and Patricia Smith because it turned out we had friends in common. Not so bad. When Donika Kelly complimented my shoes after a reading I swooned right in front of her partner. Relax. I almost levitated during a reading by Terrance Hayes, Ocean Vuong, and Rita Dove. Pure enthusiasm. When Nikky Finney and Natalie Diaz read at AWP I positioned myself in front of the podium. Face the music. I hugged Naomi Shihab Nye after one of her readings. Necessary. How to deal with a literary crush? Remind yourself — just because you’ve read someone does not mean you know them. It just means that a total stranger was able to reach you in a very personal way. What books are on your nightstand? Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self Regard has been a kind of torah for me. I’ve dreamed many nights with Adrienne Rich’s Collected Poems, Lucille Clifton’s Collected Poems, Eileen Myles’ I Must be Living Twice, and Mary Oliver’s Devotions close at hand. I like to read different things simultaneously. Poetry and prose. The current stack is Camille Dungy’s Black Nature, Arecelis Girmay’s Teeth, Billy Ray Belcourt’s NDN Coping Mechanisms, and Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste. The books are mixed with notebooks, one arm’s distance from my pillow. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? I love this question. It makes me think of Aracelis Girmay and the ampersand. It belongs to her. She also used dots like bullet holes in The Black Maria which was painful and visceral. Girmay made me reconsider what punctuation can do emotionally, and, also, graphically. I love the hand-slash-space-making-movement of a good em dash. S.A. Sukop turned me on to em dashes. An em dash is a gesture that the Orisha Ogun would make while dancing. It slices the line without stopping the flow. It is more assertive than a comma. If I had to choose just one, I’d settle on the simplicity of the period for its finality. It is a hole, a circle, and the end. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? In high school I learned that literature was the materia prima for theater, music, and social change. My English teacher, Peter Sawaya, was also my Theater teacher. Once he taught a rock poetry class where we analyzed lyrics. John Prince asked us to blow up our TVs and eat peaches. Find the simple pleasures. Create a home to nourish your family on things that you all make. That’s what I did with my kids. Home became an antidote to the world outside where women and children were not often taken seriously, and where racism and patriarchy were consistently troubling. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? Blue ink. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? “Write. I want to read you.” Does writing energize or exhaust you? Writing humbles and excites me. Stepping up to the page is like accepting a dance with the eldest salsero on the dance floor, and knowing you have to fully commit to keep up. Listen in 360 degrees. Flow. Editing is more laborious, and can be exhausting. When the work is finally done, and it reaches readers, it re-energizes me again. Re-energizes sounds too mechanical. It feels more like glow. Writing is the glow left inside my body after the words come through. What are common traps for aspiring writers? There are myriad traps. Self sabotage. Lack of time. When I was a young artist, I made a bonfire and burned a stack of diaries as tall as my body. I turned my voice into ash. This event inspired the last poem in the collection “esh.” At the time, I was afraid that writing was distracting me from being a serious dancer. I’d bought into the limiting notion that I could not do more than one thing. The burning was an act of violence against my creative self. I burnt the languages and collages I’d made on the train riding from home to rehearsal and back again. Now, I know better. Don’t start fires, especially not inside yourself. Many years later, a friend taught me a new word. “You are a polymath,” he said. Over time, I have relaxed into my multiplicity. What I could not burn out of me became a defining trait. What is your writing Kryptonite? That would be time. The pull between living and making a living. My creative life has always had to coexist with the responsibilities of being independent, and heading a household. I’ve been the trunk of the tree. This next phase of my life will include more time to write, and more of my sustainability derived from writing related pursuits. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes. I will put a book down and leave it, but I’m learning to give books a chance. Be patient with them. Once I set down Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things until my daughter told me it was one of her favorites. My daughter is a bibliophile, and one of my favorite writers. I trust her opinion, so I picked it up again and read it with new eyes. The icky orangedrink lemondrink man made the book one of my all time favorites. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Emotions are powerful, disobedient things. Strong feelings can make for empathy, care, and good storytelling. Like many writers and artists, I have a rich emotional life. Writing and performance have given me an outlet to express strong emotions in a fruitful way. Meditation practice has also been centering for me. I was raised in an immigrant household where you were supposed to be strong and not let anything stop you, much less feelings. My friend Michelle Talley taught me that one can’t rationalize emotions into submission. They are what they are. Feel them. Find the message. They are important information. I’ve learned how to move around inside them, and let them flow through me. Your emotions are there for a reason, and can help guide you toward a more fulfilling life. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? Glenis Redmond had a catalytic effect on my writing life. I met her in the state capitol when I was doing advocacy work. I don’t know how a poet wound up at an arts advocacy conference, but there she was. She had us harvesting words from gemstones and trees in her workshop. She wanted to make us rich with language. After class, she came over to me and said, “so, you are a poet.” I always had been, but I was undercover. She saw me, and said something. That sparked a pivot in my life, and we’ve stayed in contact ever since. Gayle Brandeis has been a catalytic force in my writing life. I worked with her during my MFA studies. After graduation, she pushed me into the ring and published my work. She is an outstanding teacher. As an educator myself, I know great teachers when I see them. I have learned a tremendous amount from her as a writer, activist, mother, and a mentor. Adrian Cepeda has been my poetry buddy for the past five years. We read and provide editorial support for each other, and are in each other’s writing corner. Deena Metzger is a writer, and auntie, who reminds me of the bigger picture of writing and living. I sit in her writing circle each month with writers who are my elders. This helps me imagine a life in writing over time, and how I can grow into myself as a small elder. In her presence, I feel I am sitting at her feet and learning how to age as a writer and facilitator. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? My mother is a visual artist who worked in series, so I know what that looks like. You knead the materials for years until you have had enough, or you get excited by something else, and then you shift. I pay attention to what wants to come through me. I’ve written about family and parenting, teaching and learning, immigration and migration, polylingualism and diaspora. My imagination wants to trouble overly simplistic narratives about family, identity, nationalism, and belonging that never fit me or mine. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? Putting together this poetry collection placed a microscope on a specific period of my life. Selecting and sequencing the work was an existential process that revealed a larger journey. Each poem is its own experience, but, together, I noticed the story of a single mother raising her kids, and herself, in an intercultural, multifaith, transnational family. My daughter told me she saw the book as a story of radical truth and self acceptance. I can see that. It is a book I needed to get out of me to welcome the next phase of living. Dance and writing use different materials, but they are similar. The process of choreographing a full length concert resembles the making of a book. You take what you have been making, and spread it out. You listen to what the different works might want to say to each other. In dance, a standard mainstage performance lasts 90 minutes. You have two 45 minute acts to fill with work with an intermission in between. In the book, I divided the collection into sections. In performance, you experience the journey of the story with the audience at the same time. In writing, it’s a delayed response from readers that is spread out geographically. Different times. Different spaces. In dance, the art object is your body and you remake the work anew every performance. You can’t hold it and reread it, like you can a book. There are no flipping of pages back and forth. There are no margins to write notes in. I did try something that resembles performance publishing once. It lasted seven days. Placeholder Press published a flashbulb chapbook I made during the pandemic called Endless Bowls of Sky. It was available in print internationally for one week only. People posted photographs of the chapbook on social media, and I got to see the chapbook travel all over the world like I wished I could. It was fun watching people receive their special editions in the mail during quarantine. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? The best money I’ve ever spent as a writer has been every tax dollar invested in our public library system. Public libraries made it possible for me to raise my kids to become literate and curious. They made it possible for me to keep studying and learning. I do daily walking meditations listening to audiobooks on the LA Public Library App. I appreciate the added benefit of hearing writers read their own work. Toni Morrison. Thich Naht Hahn. Kiese Laymon. Sandra Cisneros. Louise Erdrich. Amazing. My son is a musician and an audio engineer. He was able to turn Even the Milky Way is Undocumented into a sound object — an audiobook. I hope that listeners enjoy the print and audio versions, and I’m happy that the audiobook will make the work more accessible. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? Participating in theater taught me that language has power. Once I was cast as Alice in a school production of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I remember looking out across the checkerboard stage at a boy pretending to be a Caterpillar smoking a hookah. “Who are you?” he asked. My voice left my body and floated out into the space. The audience was listening. Rows and rows of blue plastic chairs with human beings inside them, listening. That was my first memory of ever feeling like I was heard as a child. It is so important to listen to kids. The arts can do that. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? I am a dragon. It chose me. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Their forgiveness. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I try to finish what I begin. I have a list of book ideas written in blue light on the inside of my skull. I keep track of them in my sleep. I’m slow, but persistent. The next one up is a collection of essays that is nearly done. I can’t wait for them to live next to each other inside of one book. What does literary success look like to you? Literary success means living a life nourished by reading and writing, and being able to participate in the world of publishing and performance as a creator and collaborator. It means having writing in the center of my creative process, what I do for a living, and my activism and public service. Literary success means being able to speak to these times and be heard, to help other people find and use their own voices, and to generate better futures for our children, grandchildren, and the planet. What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? I don’t see genders as opposites. I prefer the notion of gender identity as personally inscribed along a spectrum. Do it your own way. That is true to my experience. I have never felt that I quite performed my gender correctly. I learned this at six when I was called a tom boy because I wanted to play ball during recess. Once a grandfather gave me a Barbie. I cried. I exchanged it for a football and was happy again. Gender norms have always seemed a bit absurd to me. I am the kind of woman who likes to move, sweat, think, and play. I aim to write compassionately about all living things. My writing has focused on the worlds of women and children. My son appears as a male character in Milky Way. I write about his sound. His form. He is depicted as a possibility, as beloved, as a loving brother, as a person in danger of racist violence, and as an inventor of music. My father also has a cameo in the book. He walks across the page with a granny smith apple. There are male spectres in the book. They have ghostly presence. I don’t like corruption and our future depends on disrupting dominant hierarchies. In “Naked Congress” I ask the senate to undress. I use a similar approach in an essay about my paternal grandmother where I introduce the dead members of the House Un-American Activities Committee in a courtroom scene. I wanted to dispel the negative spectre that McCarthyism and xenophobia staged around my family, and countless innocent people. I wrote about their bodies, their pencils, their coffee, and their XY chromosomes. These white men were empowered by Jim Crow, and were not held accountable for the damage they did through any process of reconciliation. In this case, I didn’t care much what the characters might think of my depictions of them. I did hope that my grandma would find it funny. I laughed while I typed. It was a kind of literary vengeance. What did you edit out of this book?” The seed prayers and meditations I wrote to myself to help me keep going, and grant my imagination permission to continue. If you didn’t write, what would you do for work? Not writing isn’t an option for me, at least not now. I wrote quietly. Now I write publicly. I will keep on writing, and creating spaces for more people to do so. ![]() Amy Shimshon-Santo is the author of EVEN THE MILKY WAY IS UNDOCUMENTED. You can purchase a copy in print, as an ebook, or an audiobook today. Portland, OR— August 7, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announces immediate availability of The Last Tiger Is Somewhere by Scott Poole and Rob Carney, authors based in Vancouver, WA and Salt Lake City, Utah. In The Last Tiger Is Somewhere, two poets from the West bring their work together and take apart the news. Recent history gets jigsawed. Current events get skewered. The result is thirty praise songs, fairy tales, guilty verdicts, and mathematical equations. There are prayers here, and new commandments. There are portraits and photographic negatives.
Rob Carney and Scott Poole turn the news on its head in The Last Tiger Somewhere, a poetry collection that brings to together the best of both poets. The poets jigsaw recent history and skewer current events. What results is a series of prayers, praise songs, fairy tales, commandments, guilty verdicts, and mathematical equations. Scott Poole is best known for his 11 year stint as the "House Poet" of Public Radio International's Live Wire! radio program. He is the author of 3 previous books of poetry and Vacancy, an art chapbook of paintings and poems. In his spare time, he's a painter and software developer. He lives in Vancouver, Washington with his wife and family. Rob Carney is the author of six previous collections of poems, most recently Facts and Figures (Hoot ’n’ Waddle) and The Book of Sharks (Black Lawrence Press), which was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and won the 2019 Artists of Utah Magazine (15 BYTES) Book Award for Poetry. Accidental Gardens—a collection of 42 flash essays about the environment, politics, and poetics—is forthcoming from Stormbird Press. He is a Professor of English and Literature at Utah Valley University and lives in Salt Lake City. THE LAST TIGER IS SOMEWHERE (978-1-950730-50-6) is available as a paperback ($16.00; 108p.) and ebook, and can be purchased from all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. Learn more at www.unsolicitedpress.com. ### ![]() Portland, OR— August 5, 2020 — Unsolicited Press announced immediate availability of And Yes She Was, a striking novel by Tsipi Keller. Annette, soon to turn thirty, has been transplanted from New York City to a small college town where her husband has been hired to teach rich girls "the basic tenets of History and Culture." The girls have arrived from all over the country with their horses, and Annette wonders how the seemingly spoiled girls manage their busy daily schedules, but they do, they seem to thrive in the fresh air of intellectual and physical pursuits, while Annette, not much older than the girls, feels she has become something she never imagined was possible. One morning, reaching for the notebook where she writes down emergency numbers and To Do lists, Annette, as if compelled, begins to write two diaries, one she titles Squabble Diary, and the other, Love Diary, or, more precisely, Sex Diary, in which she will dutifully record the times her husband (whom she names "Monsieur") deigns to acknowledge her and her needs. At some point, the two diaries become one, and what began as an exercise in futility, and as an uncertainty—will she keep at it—becomes a habit, and "this notebook is filled with words, feelings, stories, historical events, and me." Back in New York and on her own, Annette, adjusting to her new situation, summons the Arabic proverb: yom asal, yom basal—one day honey, one day onion—telling herself she must be strong and keep in mind E. Graham Howe's wise advice: "It is better, if we can, to stand alone and to feel quite normal about our abnormality." Novelist and translator and the author of fourteen books, Tsipi Keller is the recipient of several literary awards, including New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Grants, and National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships. Her latest novel, Nadja on Nadja, was published by Underground Voices. AND YES SHE WAS (978-1-950730-48-3) is available (paperback and ebook) directly from the publisher (www.unsolicitedpress.com) and all major retailers. Ingram Book Group distributes the title to the market. The author is available for media appearances, interviews, and readings. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. ![]() At once delicate and visceral, the poems in To Drown a Man chronicle the long gauntlet from a life of secrets to a life of intimacy. “The only difference between imprisonment and hiding,” Russell writes, “is who shuts the door.” Exploring the meaning of redemption and shame as related to the personal, the marital, and the spiritual, these are the poems of a soul at war with itself. They read like chunks of ore being burned of their dross. Tyler James Russell lives in Pennsylvania with Cat, his wife, and their children. He teaches English and Creative Writing, and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of British Columbia. His work has appeared in Riddle Fence, Apiary, and Inwood Indiana, among other publications, and was a nominee for the 2011 Rhysling Award. You can find him at Tylerjamesrussell.com. TO DROWN A MAN is available on August 4, 2020 as a paperback (978-1-950730-47-6) and e-book. The book is brought to the trade by Ingram. The publisher and author have active publicity and marketing campaigns in place. Unsolicited Press was founded in 2012 and is based in Portland, OR. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. ![]() If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? I think I’d be embarrassed to cook for anyone, actually. I’m not a terrible cook, but my cooking isn’t usually Instagrammable. I guess, though, I’d make coffee and some sort of baked good for Walt Whitman. For some reason, I feel like Walt might like strong coffee and biscuits? What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? I write a lot of things that belong in the political realm that I am way too afraid to even move from my journal to Google Docs. I almost view these journal entries as just me venting… but I wonder if I’ll ever get serious about revising these fragments into something. For now, I’m a little afraid of that process. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? Oh, 100% Carl Phillips. His poems got me into poetry. What books are on your nightstand? Poetry and the Anthropocene by Sam Solnick Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder Real Life by Brandon Taylor Homie by Danez Smith Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval The Museum of Disappearing Sounds by Zoë Skoulding Heaven’s Thieves by Sue Sinclair Favorite punctuation mark? Why? Em dash is my favorite. I was often called out in Grad School for overusing it. I also fell for that rumor that the Em dash was named after Emily Dickenson… I think I even told my comp students that! Then my comp instructor told us that it’s simply the width of an “M.” Let’s see: “M” “—” To my eyes, the Em Dash looks a bit wider than the M. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? I didn’t read much of anything in high school. I didn’t go to class much either… I dropped out. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? I would thank the serpentine stone I keep in my pocket, which is worn with worry. I found it on the beach near where I live. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? “Roll your cart and plow over the bones of the dead” — William Blake, from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” Does writing energize or exhaust you? Energize. What are common traps for aspiring writers? As an aspiring writer, I’m sure I don’t know… maybe worrying too much about acceptances? Or perhaps not reading enough? Probably not writing enough... What is your writing Kryptonite? My phone. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? Yes - and that’s when I know it’s time to switch to something else, or just take a break. My conception of what “reading” is, is not limited to traditional texts like books; I think we are always reading the world, and we get tired of it! Meditation helps. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly? Yes, I think plenty of people are. What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer? I have some poet friends… at lots of different levels. The best thing is sharing work and having the sort of relationship where you can be completely honest in the comments. My cousin Lucretia and I swap poems regularly (she is an undergrad at Columbia College in Chicago) and my friend Josh, who is in the MFA at Oregon State also work on each other's work. It’s very important to me to have some people I trust to work with; and I find working with them to be very generative as well. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? I think the former. How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? This is my first chapbook and I’m very happy that Unsolicited Press thought it was worthy of publication. It’s given me a bit of confidence, just like each acceptance has. One way my process is evolving is that I’m learning to trust my instincts more; sometimes the first idea is the best idea. Sometimes workshopping gets in the way. What was the best money you ever spent as a writer? On books. Buy all the books. Subscribe to some journals. It’s never money wasted. What authors did you dislike at first but grew into? Some of the older poets… 19th century stuff (mostly) took a very good teacher in grad school to get me to appreciate. I love the British romantics now, and definitely wouldn’t have bothered if not for studying literature with a good teacher. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power? I understood from a young age that one way to get ahead was to read and write well. I grew up in a poor family who wasn’t very book-oriented, but I could see that the successful adults around me all had one thing in common: a love of books and writing. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel? I really love a novel called “Remainder” by Tom McCarthy. I never hear anyone talk about it. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal? My spirit animal is 100% my dog, Millie. She is my luck dragon. What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters? Honesty— or a beautiful lie. How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have? I have a lot of poems. I have a lot of fragments of poems. Not sure how that translates in to books... What does literary success look like to you? Being read and understood. What did you edit out of this book?” The lunes in my chapbook are comprised of fragments from perhaps a dozen longer poems about the same subject. So, I suppose a lot got erased, but I think of each stanza as an excavated piece of the story. Caleb Nichols is the author of 22 Lunes, a poetry chapbook.
Both poems and essays work on the reader from two directions, the brain down and the ground up. Poems like “I want to be Mary Oliver” seem whimsical at first but quickly instigate a new look at an old subject. The words themselves are cairns guiding readers on an inward journey to a deeper plane of understanding our relationships with everything, seen and unseen. Many will find the poems worthy of weddings, funerals, and letters to dear friends. Poems that immediately jump into deep water like “Depression,” offer a sense of liberation via blunt and unvarnished authenticity. Cairn speaks from these two hemispheres of the human experience in a way that aids those who start out with discomfort around poetry. It quickly demonstrates that poetry need not be a strange or inaccessible medium after all. Intertwined with the poems are essays that echo back to the poems in images of nature, human nature, and the sacred.
Cameron Miller is a writer and preacher exploring the sacred hiding in plain sight. He writes fiction, poetry, and a weekly newspaper column for the Finger Lakes Times (NY). Miller’s website (www.subversivepreacher.org) includes some of his work and is devoted to navigating the ordinary sacred as a spiritual practice. He has two novels in print: Steam Room Diaries (DAOwen Press, Canada, 2015); and Thoughtwall Café: Espresso in the Third Season of Life (Unsolicited Press, 2018). As an emerging poet with single poems published in print anthologies – Poetry Quarterly (Summer 2015); The Poet’s Quest for God (Eyewear Press, UK, 2016); Crossroads(2016); and Inwood Indiana Press (2016), as well as online at Silver Birch Press(January and February 2016). Cairn: Poems and Essays by Cameron Miller is a paperback distributed through Ingram; an ebook is also available. Mr. Miller open to scheduling events, speaking with the press, and getting involved in literary panels. Unsolicited Press is a small publishing house based in Portland, Oregon that publishes titles from award-winning authors. The press strives to produce exceptional works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors. If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make? Right now I’d probably say Marilynne Robinson. Of course, if you asked me any other day you’d get any other number of answers: Cormac McCarthy, David Foster Wallace, Michel Faber. But I just read an interview where Marilynne Robinson said something to the effect of, “You have to live with your mind your whole life, so you ought to make it a good place to be,” and I find that such a profound and beautiful and necessary thing. I feel like I would benefit from that. As far as what I’m cooking, I think I know myself well enough to admit I’d fall back on grilling something, steak tacos maybe, or doing that awful thing where I tried to pass off whatever I’d made as something I “just threw together,” even though I hate that. Religieuse for dessert, maybe, though it would probably take me three tries. What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears? There’s definitely a fear of finality, and the inevitable disappointing reality that what ends up on the page falls short of what began in your soul. In response to this, I’m a devotee of what Anne Lamotte calls “shitty first drafts,” where I’ll do dozens and dozens of passes over a given piece, which more or less tricks my brain into always believing there will be another opportunity to make it less lame. Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character? There’s a character I’m working on right now who seems to keep echoing my wife. I keep discovering facets of her in the way this character behaves. She’s a fire, for sure. What books are on your nightstand? Right now, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (no relation) and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mendel. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road seems to always be there, and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence isn’t, but ought to be. Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? Madeleine L’Engle likened the creative process to a pregnancy, and that rings true for me (at least I imagine, having never been pregnant). I’m not sure the point of genesis for any ideas, but I often feel it as something within that gradually takes on size and shape until it’s ready to take its place in the world. Favorite punctuation mark? Why? The em dash—it feels clean, and more organically similar to our natural speech and thought patterns. What book were you supposed to read in high school, but never did? Frankenstein, which I now teach, ironically. What inanimate object would you thank in your acknowledgements? The author would like to thank the barstool at his kitchen island, whose backlessness prevented him from getting comfortable to the point of sleepiness while writing and editing these pieces. Why do you write? The first 5 words that come to mind. Go. Because art shapes our lives. If you could write an inspirational quote on the mirrors of aspiring writers, what would you write? “Make a place to sit down. Sit down.” From “How to be a Poet” by Wendell Berry Tyler James Russell is the author of TO DROWN A MAN, a collection of poetry available on August 4, 2020.
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