the mouse is about to roar

!!!

adding language to our website

Over the weekend we read two stories dealing with the demise of publishing and the crowning "achievement" of e-books, prompting us at Plan B Press to adding language to our website that we PUBLISH ON PAPER. We believe in print. We believe in the physical thing that is a book. We believe in community structures called libraries and in rooms of one's home that are often called the same thing. We believe that there is something to thousands of years of writing and storing those writings that a devise can not compete with. To those who think of a book as a "bound text", then we can see them becoming excited about a devise that shows only text.

To those, however, who see a book as something more than text, we appeal to their nature - their truer nature - for we also see the book as something more than text, and always will. It is not enough to "talk the talk". We do not use Lulu, for example, since their operation is Print-on-Demand. We would rather work with human beings known for centuries as PRINTERS. Ben Franklin, for instance. A Printer! Another Philadelphia based publisher, Robert Bell, should be as famous as the author of a pamphlet he published in 1776 called Common Sense. These are real and actual people. Today, we are supposed to praise machines like The Expresso Book Machine for what they can potentially do "for publishing".

We don't buy the concept; nor the machine. Unless books made by machines are also made FOR machines, there is a flaw in the celebration for the emperor's new clothes. He is naked, as are the arguments toward paper-free books and machine generated books and an entire future programmed out of our (human) hands.

We will have none of it, thank you very much. Others see things entirely differently and that is their right. But, we like what we do and plan (B) to continue doing it for a long long time.

days of the summer dog

Time moves like molasses
the kids are too much, trapped inside when the heat index soars toward 100.
we live - we read (manuscripts), we publish(books), we try to stay cool.


stevenallenmay

the problem of poetry on e-book format

This is why Plan B Press publishes books; Poetry and ebooks. ebooks may be the wave of the future, but they haven't perfected the presentation of poetry just yet. Good!

Poetry is a niche "market", if you will, and small presses are more dedicated to its presentation than e-book companies because small presses are invested in the art form more, those who profit from e-books treat poetry as "just another text" and it's not. It's possible that in the future, perhaps even the near future, that poetry and visual poetry will be achieved properly in an electronic format, but as of today - As of today, poetry is still best served by publishers like Plan B Press.

congrats go out to Kim Roberts

(this photo was taken in April 2010 at the Historical Society of Washington DC )


The fabulous Kim Roberts in July 2010 was awarded the Washington On-Line Award for her contribution to the Washington, DC Arts Community. The award was presented by Grace Cavalieri, president of The Bunny and the Crocodile Press and Forest Woods Media Productions, on behalf of the writers of DC. This was the inaugural award of what is planned to be an annual event.

To say that Kim Roberts has become a fixture in the DC literary and historical communities is a vast understatement. We are very fortunate to have teamed up with her for the making of Full Moon on K Street.

new book out - Janet McCann's House

We are proud to announce that the winner of the 2010 poetry chapbook contest, Janet McCann, has her chapbook freshly released and available to all. It's $9.00. It's available through the Plan B Press website and will soon be available through Amazon as well.


best

s - a - m

Special Plan B Press issue of Beltway Poetry Journal

Kim Roberts asked me a few months back to put together a history of the Plan B Press for a special issue of her much acclaimed Beltway Poetry Journal, and that issue is now up. We are grateful for the consideration and for the opportunity to have made a lasting impression in the Washington DC poetry community that we believe publishing Full Moon on K Street has given us.

best


stevenallenmay

Jim Mancinelli moves his series....

Jim informed me today that his series will be moving to the Slingluff Gallery 11 West Girard Ave., Philadelphia, PA effective immediately.


thanks for you continued interest


s - a - m

Congratulations all around!

First of all, congratulation to Janet McCann from Texas for winning our 2010 poetry chapbook contest for her collection "House".
This book will be available soon!!

Additionally, congrats go out to Corey Mesler for the release of novel Following Richard Brautigan published by Livingston Press and to Liz Abrams-Morley for the release of her full-length collection Necessary Turns published by Word Press. Each of these books were published in different forms by Plan B Press in the past. Following Richard Brautigan won the 2005 Plan B Press short fiction contest. We published an early sliver of the final novel.

Liz Abrams-Morley's new book of poetry Necessary Turns grew out of the chapbook we published entitled "What Winter Reveals" in 2006. A number of the poems in that collection including the title piece made their way into the new book.

Also, we are glad to announce that Robert Miltner has recently won the the New Rivers Press book award competition for his full length book, Hotel Utopia, which will be out in October 2011 . We published his 2006 chapbook, Canyons of Sleep.

operating Plan B Press AND teammay simultaneously...

So this is how it works : since 2003, Katy Jean May (Creative Director) and stevenallenmay (co-founder and head honcho) have run the day-to-day operations of Plan B Press as it has grown and matured. In April 2006 our first assistant arrived - her name was Julia Jean. Almost from the moment she came home from the hospital we wondered where in the organization she would be most productive. It has taken her awhile but she is now getting into the swing of things, helping Mommy collate pages for special projects (our own codeword for books before they are ready for sale).

Here's a recent pic of Mommy with Julia working on Michael Fisher's new chapbook, Wolf Spider.

Plan B Press churns out their mighty chapbooks and incredible perfect bound books from their little nest of domestic bliss. It's an odd combination of chaos and bliss. This is one reason that there are fixed limits to the number of books that appear each season. The kids are still a higher priority than the Press, it's as simple as that. While it's true that most of the creative stuff comes from Katy's magic fingers, there are times when s - a- m has to "mule-up" and pull his share of physical production. This is in addition to the lugging of cartons around, filling orders, and generally barking orders at our collected houseplants. The plants are really useless.

While it's true that Julia loves to talk about poetry and do what she can for "the running man" Press, as she calls it, our second assistant hasn't really made any effort to fit in yet. He's cute, that's why we keep him around. I tend not to trust him alone in a room full of recently published books. He's 2 years old, and ah - unpredictable. When he gets quiet I usually rush to check what mischief he has gotten into. We know better than leave out projects that are incomplete. We court disaster if we allow William free rein. He thinks we mean "free reign". Perhaps he will be our court jester too, it remains to be seen.



he is cute though, isn't he?