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?

from the Creative Loafing blog...

How Indie Presses Will Save the World and How You can Help Them

so, poetry....

Over the past few months, my kids have been engaging me in post-bathtub conversations before they go off the bed. These conversations begin the same, "so, poetry...." and it's become a developing piece of mine by the same title. It's a performance piece and the entire piece is composed of my kids limited understanding of what poetry is. They overhear snippets of conversations between Katy and myself as we discuss the Press, or of poets who visit our house, or from watching video tape of poets reading at various poetry events in the mid-1990's.

Among the lines that my kids recite almost nightly are "poetry is our friend, poetry likes us" and "poetry kills people for real". So when I saw this book, I had to get it for the title alone. Poets Never Kill (that should end the debate entirely, except the one arguing that poetry DOES kill people is 2 years old)

Actually, my kids' understanding of poetry is about on par with the majority of Americans understanding of poetry. Perhaps we need to focus on getting kids informed, and liking it, before we attempt to "educate the masses". Who are the masses anyway but large numbers of former kids! Happy Mid-poetry month! "so, Daddy, let's talk about poetry...."

updating Plan B Press

The latest book we have brought out is Joseph Kerschbaum's Your Casual Survival (the air & the echo). Joseph is 1/4 of an Indiana-based poetry troupe called Reservoir Dogwoods. He along with fellow Dogwood member, Tony Brewer, will be at the next Poetry Lab in Vienna, VA on April 2, 2010. In fact, their appearance will be part of their mini-tour which they are calling "Bottomless Cheetah Blood Tourette"

here's their tour dates:

Thurs 1 April
Zanzibar Brews
740 E. Long St.
Columbus, OH
9p

Fri 2 April
The Soundry
316 Dominion Rd.
Vienna, VA
8p

Sat 3 April
Wild Goose Creative
2491 Summit Street
Columbus, OH
7p - $5 cover

I am glad to say that I am particularly happy that their 3rd leg of the tour will be at Wild Goose Creative in Columbus, Ohio. They held Talia Weisz & Jason Venner book release gig back in December. Good people there. If you are going to be heading through Ohio, trying to set up an event at Wild Goose is an option worth checking out.

Additionally, we are more than happy to announce that Dan Maguire's chapbook Finding the Words has gone into a 5th printing. Incredible, Dan, you are the Everready Bunny, aren't you?

till soon


stevenallenmay

due to successful emergence of the Poetry Lab...

we are creating a Poetry Lab blog to document this fantastic new series.....
suffice it to say that we are overwhelmed with positive feedback we have so far received, and are impressed with the 30 people who showed up for a 10PM start in Vienna, VA!