hiatus is not forever

after the successful publication of Gushue, Martin, and Belluomini (is that a law firm?) Plan B Press went on hiatus. A year and a half later, we are out of hibernation just in time for winter, and the following Spring season. We will be bringing out two new chapbooks in the Spring of 2016.

dusting off our loose skin

I had forgotten this blog was here - it doesn't talk to me, honestly, or my hearing aid needs new batteries. At the same time, Plan B Press is still reading manuscripts but needs to be WOW'd. Wow'd I say, blown away WOW'd. We haven't been - unfortunately. Not of late. Not for too long a period of time which has nothing to do with the lack of writing this blog but has to do more with, well, forgetting one's place in line. A plate too full. Etc.

A few weeks ago, there was a great reading at a small bookstore in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia featuring Daniel Collins, Blaine Martin, Michael Gushue, Michele Belluomini, and myself. We published Blaine and Michael within the past year. We published Michele for the second time last year as well. A Whole Armada of Loss is Blaine's book. Michael Gushue's chapbook is entitled Pachinko Mouth. Michele's second chapbook we have published is signposts for sleepwalkers.

congratulations to Jake Syersak of Seattle, WA

winner of our 2013 poetry chapbook contest for his collection, Notes to Wed No Toward.

Announcing the Plan B Press 2013 poetry chapbook contest

10th annual Plan B Press poetry chapbook contest. Judge: Don Yorty. Prize : $240.00 plus 50 copies. Entry Fee: $15.00. Deadline: March 1, 2013. Details and prospectus @ http://planbpress.com/contest or call (215) 732-2663

Explore the Store!

New books - new season - check out the Plan B Press store! Thanks for supporting independent small presses!

poetry scene keeps changing, Bowery Poetry Club closed

Bowery Poetry club shuttered I saw this article today and was saddened. At the same time, I pondered in amazement that it remained open for 10 years. This is New York City and the Bowery Poetry Club was RENTING. Not in the Bronx, not in Brooklyn, not Queens; but Manhattan!

AND it was a bar where poetry also popped along with the bubbly. It was a wonderful marketing tool for Bob Holman but was it a wonderful for the art form? That's a debatable point and those who love the energy that Holman bring to everything he does would say that indeed Holman is great. I don't doubt that. At the same time, I was just on the website and noticed that all the items sold on their "store" was Bob Holman stuff. Not poetry, per se, but poetry per Holman.

So, this location is now literally gone from the literary world. Others will open. Maybe not in Manhattan but the world is bigger than Manhattan (shocking to hear, I know, but true!) and perhaps the jolt of losing this space will lead others to open similar or perhaps decidedly dissimilar spaces both in NYC and elsewhere. I vote for the elsewhere. The fact that NYC is a media mecca doesn't always translate in what is happening in York, PA or Towson, MD, or Harrisonburg, VA. People live there too. Many people. Art & culture happen everywhere, not simply in the five boroughs (six if one counts Philly, as some try to do).

One of the points I was trying to make in 1999 when I started Bardfest in Berks County, PA was that art & culture WERE everywhere. We held readings and workshops across the county. In hamlets, in area libraries where no houses stood close-by, in schools, in restaurants. Nothing had been done like that before in those areas. It was novel, it was new, it was decidedly NOT what they were used to. And that was precisely the point. Maybe that is the take-away from this unfortunate closing. Don't try to recreate the wheel in a city with so many wheel-makers, but go where no one has attempted it before and do it there. Make the interaction itself as fresh as the idea sparking across your waking mind.

Then take THAT out to people who would never travel to New York City, least of all to go to a poetry "club". That's a conversation worth starting. Worth having. Worth sharing.

too many oars in the water

it's bloody impossible to keep up with all the platforms that Plan B Press has, especially with two kids under foot and losing EVERYTHING on our Hard Drive a week ago (computer:I don't see a HD) All gone, all fucking gone.

William is obsessed with Star Wars and dance class. Julia is obsessed with going into First grade. I am obsessed with making sense of our incredible loss and putting together our Fall 2012 season, and what the hell else is going on with everything while trying desperately not to think about what was lost. (ie, EVERYTHING!)

it's impossible to keep up, to keep relevant, to keep my 17 oars rowing in something like the same direction - without whacking me in the head. This is where I find myself. Looking to our running man icon and wondering where in the hell he is running to.

this is a great idea, for someone able to do it!

biking across America with a typewriter

paraphrasing Bruce Springsteen

it's hard to be a press in the city

two times as flabbergasting

A few years back, Jason Hafer of Wolfgang Books in Phoenixville, PA told me that a film crew had been in his shop, shooting footage for a movie to be called 99 percent sure and sure enough, when the trailer for the film came out I was flabbergasted to see the main characters standing in front of shelves of chapbooks and small press books because all I saw were Plan B Press books! Whoa! Product placement! (it's at 1:58 of the trailer I've attached) The film was released in November 2011. I don't know it's status at the moment; video - Netflix - streaming. Still, we were sparkly for quite awhile just knowing our little press was on screen somewhere. That feeling was doubled when our good friend Jim Mancinelli sent me a link for a film featuring Lamont B Steptoe (whom we published in 2003) called Verse so I found it and watched it in the short "chapters" that it was presented in and then, it happened again. Bob Holman was speaking to the main character of the movie about Lamont B Steptoe and he mentioned South China Sea Blue Nightmare and before I could even say to myself, "hey we published that book..." there is Holman handing the character our book, and the character holding it in his hand for the rest of the shot. Okay, a book that we published was in a film featuring Lamont Steptoe, Bob Holman, Taylor Mead, John Giorno and others. Pinch me quick! Tell me I am dreaming! Reality can be that much better sometimes, like now for instance. stevenallenmay