I’d cross any river if a poem or a story were on the other side, and that’s one reason I lobbied to become an editor for Free State Review in 2011, and eventually the book acquisitions editor for its publisher, Galileo Press. Being an editor lets me walk along hundreds and hundreds of rivers. It lets me see so many sides, each one crossed or swum or leapt in different ways by so many authors.
Book publishing isn’t for everyone, especially if you don’t want to be curated—if being ‘curated’ has you feeling trapped in a gold cage. If you’re rapidly changing or evolving or if you’re too streaked with emotion in the wrong places, then publishing can be like putting a frame on a wet canvas. Let it dry maybe.
But there are times when a book relationship with a publisher can give you the confidence to take risks you would have never dared on your own. We are living in a world where those risks must be taken. As an editor, I don’t want to be the handcuff; I want to be the hand.
During the month of October, from National Poetry Day (October 3rd) until Drake’s Birthday (October 24), the press is open for manuscript submissions. We’re hoping to add a few titles to our late 2020 and early 2021 catalog, so we’re looking for manuscripts that are buttoned up and ready to sail. This highway has a toll—an $8 reading fee for chapbooks and $16 for full length.
No one likes a toll road. You’re thinking, hey, I’ve got a driver’s license. I’ve got a car. Why do I have to pay the bridge toll?
The toll road travels very fast to our door, but there’s always the scenic route: for anyone reluctant to pay a reading fee we will launch a no-fee pitch campaign in February. The top twenty pitches will receive coupons for our late spring reading period for both manuscripts and manuscripts in progress.
Even if you aren’t ready to send something along, please visit anyway. I love to have company.