course correction

When the Press was started conceptually in 1998, co-founder Dianne Miller and myself envisioned a vehicle to publish those who would be participating in the month-long poetry festival, Bardfest, in Berks County, PA. As I have mentioned previously, that didn't work out exactly as planned.

Then when Katy and I took over the operation of the Press, I had already gotten an inkling of another direction I wanted to pursue with some of our time and resources. That started to become visualized with the prototype projects Fast White and InCityTogether. Neither of these projects have come to bear yet. But both have combined visual as well as textual prowess that we have been seeking since beginning.

It's the reason that we have posted the quotes that we have. From El Lissitsky, from Stella Waitzkin, and the truest of all quotes from Brian Andrew May, who created the cover for Plastic Sunrise. "Books with only words.....suck".

Stay-at-Home Press, a division of Plan B, was begun to explore the possibilities of making books that have more visuality. Richard Erdmann's "Without" and Mark Terrill's "Something Red" have been created with these ideals beginning to play out for us. We are beginning to seek artists to work with poets, to create 'artist books' instead of poetry books. It has been pointed out that "anyone with a copy machine can make a book" and that is certainly the case since the mimeograph revolution of the 1950's, but that isn't always a good thing. That leads to glut, to a watering down of quality, to an overwhelming of the audience out there for such books to begin with.

Beginning in the Spring 2009 season we will be moving into this uncharted (for us) territory. We may be like a small Granary Press, or an up-to-date Toothpaste Press or the Perishable Press limited. Our projects will change. We will be gearing more toward the visual, the artist book, the limited run/limited edition project instead of the work we have done to date.

We remain committed to the possible. And the possible is .....wide open !


stevenallenmay