Rose Metal Press

A sterling exemplar of what post-postmodern verse can do

2012-02-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

That is just one of many things that Seth Abramson says of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase in his February 2012 Contemporary Poetry Reviews on the Huffington Post. He also says that Jim has penned "a collection of poems brilliantly of and for its time," but you can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Seth.

The Winner of our Sixth Annual Chapbook Contest Is...

2012-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

...Shampoo Horns by Aaron Teel of Austin, Texas.

Contest judge Randall Brown selected Shampoo Horns out of a field of 104 submissions, and the chapbook will be published this coming July. You can sign up to receive the chapbook automatically when it launches by becoming a supporter here.

Thank you to all the authors who submitted—we had a terrific field of entrants this year.

The five finalists are:
First runner-up: Electives & Requisites by Marc Sheehan of Grand Rapids, MI
Second runner-up: Honey Work It Out by Nicolle Elizabeth of Boston, MA
Reprieve and Other Stories by Amy Bergen of Columbus, OH
From Here to There by Tyler Gillespie of Chicago, IL
Bottle Ghosts by Charlotte Porter of Island Grove, FL

The five semi-finalists are:
Block Party by Dorothy Albertini of Poughkeepsie, NY
Anthropocene by Berit Ellingsen of Norway
Rory Gilmore Wants to Fight by Joseph Goosey of Ponte Verde Beach, FL
This Is What Your Pile of Shoes Reminds Me of by Marie Potoczny of Richmond, VA
Out of the Wreckage by Ethel Rohan of San Francisco, CA

Congratulations to all of them!

Selling the best

2012-01-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

Check it out. Rose Metal Press has two books on the 2011 Bestsellers List at Small Press Distribution. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction edited by Tara L. Masih weighs in at number six, and They Could No Longer Contain Themselves by Elizabeth Colen, John Jodzio, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Sean Lovelace and Mary Miller weighs in at number 60. SPD is offering 40% off these and the other 98 bestselling titles of 2011 here. Add to cart!

Pete Michael Smith reviews Betty Superman for New Pages...

2012-01-10T05:50:00.000-08:00

...and according to him:

"Betty is complex, and the format of this book (the winner of Rose Metal Press’s fifth annual Short Short Chapbook Contest) allows for those complexities to exist in a way that a novel could not. A novel would be given to explanation and exposition and some sort of superstructure in the time-space continuum that Tiff Holland has no need for. Instead, we are free to move from third husbands to animal carcasses to lesbian aunts and the men they love. Our time in the transvestite beauty parlor is all too short, and yet, I’m happy to move on to Shakespeare in gardening hats and domestic assault."

You can read the whole lovely review right here. Thanks, Pete!

Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas...

2011-11-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

...hosted Rose Metal Press yesterday for a talk on RMP in particular and independent publishing in general. As you can see from this handsome sign, the lecture was part of their Shop Talk series... ...and the audience... ...on both sides of the room... ...was gracious and attentive. We and our Powerpoint (pictured below) had a great time discussing hybrid genres and career opportunities in the fields of writing and publishing: Thanks to everyone who came to listen, and to Dr. Ty Jaeger for inviting us!

Pre-order The Louisiana Purchase by Jim Goar...

2011-10-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

...right here, today! It looks like this, and you will definitely want to be able to see--and read--it in person:

Helen Scully reviews Betty Superman...

2011-09-13T19:17:00.001-07:00

...by Tiff Holland in 3:AM magazine.

"Clocking in at only 33 pages, Betty Superman should be relished the way Betty eats one of her ubiquitous candy bars, on a plate with a knife and fork, cut 'carefully into bites as if it were a steak,'" she says.

Read the whole review here. Thanks, Helen!

Two new reviews of They Could No Longer Contain Themselves...

2011-09-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

...appear in the Lambda Literary Review and decomP. According to Terri Solomon in the former: "Flash fiction. Like lightning, it’s a brief illumination, the sky of your mind brightened with an image that, at its best, lingers after you’ve turned the page."

And according to Spencer Dew in the latter: "A biding of time—a starving out of childhood, a holding of one&rstquo;s breath through relationships—is, perhaps, the common resonance of these books."

You can read the two reviews here and here. Thanks, Terri and Spencer.

Mini-interview!

2011-08-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

We did one with Andrew's Book Club, and you can read it here. Thanks again to Andrew for picking Tiff Holland's Betty Superman for August.

Michele Finkelstein reviews They Could No Longer Contain Themselves...

2011-08-22T17:52:00.001-07:00

...in the Rumpus. "What brings these writers together?" she asks, then answers:

"Perhaps the results of the contest or a general theme of twisting the serious and dramatic with the absurd and unusual. Either way, They Could No Longer Contain Themselves represents five distinct voices. Like the title and publishers suggest, these writers have successfully pushed their imaginative abilities to leave the reader baffled, excited, and laughing out loud."

Read the whole review here. Thanks, Michele!

Tara L. Masih has a guest post over at the Flash Fiction Chronicles...

2011-08-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

...where she shares a lot of insights--her own and those of others--about using the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction to teach the form. Check out her piece,"You Don't Look that Short," here.

Jason Behrends...

2011-08-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

...reviews Betty Superman over at Chicago Subtext today.

"In Betty Superman, Tiff Holland presents a series of stories that will make you laugh, cry, and drop your jaw in awe all in the matter of a few sentences," he says.

You can read the whole piece here. Thanks, Jason!

Dawn West writes in Word Riot...

2011-08-15T15:25:00.001-07:00

...that Betty Superman by Tiff Holland is "timeless." She also discusses how Tiff walks the knife's edge between fiction and nonfiction, saying:

The fact that this chapbook is a blend of fiction and autobiography was heavy on my mind while reading. Although, asking Holland what is true and what is imaginary never crossed my mind. That’s irrelevant. The way our minds work doesn’t allow us to remember the entire truth of anything, anyway. We strap narratives onto the backs of what we can recall, we assign importance to some things and downgrade others, we remember gulps of water but have no idea what glass, we project, we project, we project. Isn’t that lovely? We are our own stories. So it doesn’t really matter how much is true.

Read the whole review here. Thanks, Dawn.

Sean Lovelace and Andrew Scott both like Betty Superman

2011-08-10T15:46:00.001-07:00

Sean says so here in a boozy review on HTML GIANT. "Betty Superman is one of those books sort of aching for the classroom. (Sorry, I teach, and look for these things.) You could build many, many character exercises. You could hold a semester on verisimilitude. You could discuss linked stories (sort of a hot topic recently). You could have your class look up the lyrics of “Superman” by Barbra Streisand. You could discuss the role of narrator, how they reveal and hide away, to effect. You could seriously discuss creation of a dynamic personage. Betty Superman, the character, pulls you in, because of her contradictions. She is narcissistic and caring, caustic and nostalgic, intolerant and understanding, strong and weak, stubborn and yet able to yield, overbearing and then fading away into a curled ball of dropped thoughts/scattered remembrances/rose-tinted bile. She is complex," he says.

Andrew says so here, choosing the chapbook for his book club.

Thanks, Sean and Andrew!

The Making of Betty Superman!

2011-08-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today is the official release of Tiff Holland's Be tty Superman, winner of our 5th annual short short chapbook contest, judged by Kim Chinquee. Betty Superman can be yours by ordering here!

As with all of our chapbook winners, we printed the covers for Betty Superman by hand on a Vandercook letterpress at the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. For two amazing days in early June, we cranked out 350 covers—twice, once with red ink and the smoking hand, and again with the metallic silver ink and text.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how the Betty Superman covers were created:
First we printed the smoking hand linoleum cut that designer Rebecca Saraceno (left, running the press) carved in red ink on the red paper. Also pictured is Rose Metal Press co-founder Kathleen Rooney,
who was at that time laying all the newly printed one-color covers out to dry. We all wo-manned the Vandercook printing press throughout the day.

Once the red ink dried it was time to set the type for the text and print the metallic silver ink!
Here is Rose Metal Press co-founder Abby Beckel printing the silver text on the formerly one-color covers.
Here's a finished Betty Superman coming off of the metal type we pulled and set by hand.
And the finished covers out to dry all over the Museum.
Check out this video of Betty Superman on press!

Once the covers were printed, the lovely folks at Red Sun Press in Jamaica Plain, Mass. printed the interiors and did the handwork to bind those interiors with our letterpress covers and very cool metallic midnight blue endsheets and create the finished chapbook!

The book itself is beautiful, but more importantly Tiff Holland's stories are amazing—contest judge Kim Chinquee writes of Betty Superman: “From beginning to end, Holland’s stories layer, offering colorful pictures that speak to one another, developing the angst and sympathy of the relationships between these family members into a complete whole. Each time I read this collection, I find more to love."

Buy your limited edition (only 300 in print) chapbook of Betty Superman now!

The Hipster Book Club...

2011-08-03T05:34:00.001-07:00

...reviews Betty Superman, and they have this to say:

Holland excels at writing around characters to fill them in. Rather than tell us that Betty, the mother in Betty Superman, listens to a certain kind of music, the narrator says, “I don’t remember what LP she had on the turntable. Knowing Betty, it could have been anything, Motown or some soundtrack, Barry Manilow or Barbra Streisand. I remember that year she had a thing for Streisand’s ‘Superman’ song.” This clearly states a few things: that it’s the 1970s, and that Betty clearly doesn’t listen to “anything,” but a certain style of music that’s soft and non-challenging and has its roots in 1950s and ‘60s pop. All of Betty Superman is like this—Holland makes sketches that slowly fill with detail.

Read the whole review here. Thanks to Monica Mundaca for the coverage!

New Pages has a new review of They Could No Longer Contain Themselves...

2011-08-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

...and in it, Gina Myers says:

In each of the authors’ cases, the worlds they are able to create in such little space, with so few words, is impressive. The characters, though we may catch just a glimpse of them, are rendered completely, are identifiable as people we know. These are five authors to look for. Further, the quality of work in this collection sets high expectations for future Rose Metal Press chapbooks.

You can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Gina!

Scott Garson reviews Betty Superman on Big Other...

2011-07-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

...and he says:

Though the shorts in the collection’s latter half are somewhat looser in their individual form, what Holland actually gives us contributes much to Betty Superman as a whole. Reading the collection, I found myself considering what some critics and scholars have dubbed the ”short-story cycle”: the book of linked stories, which is often seen in unfavorable comparison to the novel, as a sort of poor relation. Betty Superman is probably too short for readers to think to compare it to a novel. Such a comparison, though, might be interesting. Unlike many books of linked stories—which mimic, in their progression, the typical transformational arc of the novel—Betty Superman contains everything from the start. Between mother and daughter, there’s yearning, revulsion, intimacy, resentment, confession, secrecy, need. It’s all there, the whole rainbow, right from the first story. As we read on, different parts of it flicker.

Read the whole thing here. Thanks, Scott!

Things Roxane Gay has read recently...

2011-07-26T10:23:00.001-07:00

...are listed here at HTML GIANT, and they include They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, of which she says:

I read an article in the most recent issue of The New Yorker about tiny houses, and the writer talks about the article’s main subject, this guy named Shafer who designs tiny houses and the writer says, “What makes Shafer’s houses different from others is the classical elements of form and proportion and the graceful compression of his design.” I kept thinking about that line as I thought about the stories in They Could No Longer Contain Themselves. They each contain the classical elements of good fiction and the compression in each story is also graceful like a tiny house that holds everything you need to feel at home.

Thanks, Roxane.

Mel Bosworth has written the first review of Betty Superman...

2011-07-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

...by Tiff Holland, and it is excellent.

"Tiff Holland’s Betty Superman is about perseverance and loving the sometimes unlovable," he writes. "It’s about accepting what we have, what we’ve been given. It’s about the ability to know when the wisdom we’re receiving isn’t good, and having the heart and patience needed to carry us across that threshold of understanding."

Read the whole thing here.

Big-hearted and bullheaded...

2011-07-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

...are two of the adjectives that Jay Robinson uses in his lovely review of They Could No Longer Contain Themselves in the Barn Owl Review.

He calls each of the five chapbooks "magnetizing" and says that each one is "unique in their wit, observation, and tact." You can read the whole review here. Thanks, Jay!

Launched!

2011-06-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

Last night, these beautiful people--among others--came to the Beauty Bar for the Chicago launch party for They Could No Longer Contain Themselves ... ...where they heard Sean Lovelace... ...John Jodzio and special guest Davis Schneiderman (left)... ...and Tim Jones-Yelvington...
...read from their respective chapbooks in the collection of five. Elizabeth J. Colen and Mary Miller weren't able to be there, but a couple of their stories were read as well. Also? There was chest painting: Rose Metal Rules! And so do Elizabeth J. Colen, John Jodzio, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Sean Lovelace, and Mary Miller. Thanks to our authors for their amazing performances, to Martin Seay for manning the book table, and to everyone who came out on Father's Day to hear them!

The Authors in They Could No Longer Contain Themselves...

2011-06-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

..."know what they're doing." So says Jonathan Messinger in his micro-review of the book in TimeOut Chicago.

You can read the whole thing here. Thanks, Jonathan!

And don't forget, if you're in/near Chicago this Sunday, June 19, come to the Beauty Bar for the TCNLCT book release party at 7:00 pm at the Beauty Bar!

Chamber Four...

2011-06-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

...wants you to "read more books." And one of the ones they want you to read is They Could No Longer Contain Themselves. Charles Rammelkamp has this to say about the collection: "in sum, these stories are all over the place in terms of emotional perspective, characters and situations, but like all good flash fiction they jab you with moments of recognition, insight and surprise. They entertain and intrigue."

And you can read the whole review here. Thanks, Charles!

RMP in the New England Book Show!

2011-06-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

For the fourth year in a row, one of our book designs has won a place of honor in the Bookbuilders of Boston New England Book Show. This year's winner, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry, was rated Best of Category in the Professional, Non-illustrated category. Check out all of the results here! Congratulations to Rose Metal Press head designer Rebecca Saraceno, who designed the Field Guide and all three of our previous winners!

Past RMP winners in the New England Book Show are three of our chapbooks with letterpressed covers and specialty endpapers: The Sky Is a Well, In the Land of the Free, and How Some People Like Their Eggs. The Sky Is a Well and How Some People Like Their Eggs are sold out, but you can buy these chapbooks as part of A Pe culiar Feeling of Restlessness and They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, respectively.

All three of our 2010 books were on display at the NE Book Show in Boston (The Field Guide to Prose Poetry and We Know What We Are, designed by Rebecca Saraceno, and Color Plates, designed by Melissa Gruntkosky) and both designers were able to attend. Photos below. Congrats and thanks to all of our designers for their amazing work! We couldn't do it without you!

At the New England Book Show: Melissa Gruntkosky with Color Plates, and Rebecca Saraceno with The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry and We Know What We Are.

And the Winner! Rebecca Saraceno with the Best of Category winning Field Guide to Prose Poetry, featuring cover artwork by Pamela Callahan.

Mel Bosworth reviews They Could No Longer Contain Themselves...

2011-06-12T05:57:00.001-07:00

...at the Outsider Writers Collective and he really likes it.

"To me, being good at brevity in literature is like being good at reducing fractions in math. At least to a point. I don’t want that to come off as being too reductive (ha ha) because I know, from a literary standpoint, it takes more than just practice and patience to excel at short fiction; it takes natural talent as well, and there’s an abundance of talent throughout this book," he says. You can read the whole review here.

Thanks, Mel! Order your copy of TCNLCT here.

Double the good news for They Could No Longer Contain Themselves

2011-05-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

First things first, the collection of Five Flash Fiction Chapbooks was number three on Small Press Distribution's best-seller list last week.

Next things next, the first review is in, courtesy of Amy Kates on Flashfiction.net, and it's stellar.

"The overall wonder of this plump little gem is that there is no jockeying for space, no jostling of elbows, no stepping on toes. Yes, five authors have colored these pages with volumes of desire, longing, humor, loneliness, heartache, wit and desperation; and yes, the stories are often larger than the page, larger than the space allotted in our chests to breathe them in, but. Each individual voice is heard. Each story is a concrete, complete thing that connects with the others in the most honest and organic way. There is no point where the smoke of one story shapes itself lazily into the haze of another. These five voices are distinct, definitive, and each story smarts with such pin-prick execution you’ll be surprised not to find blood on the page," she says. Thanks, Amy!

They Could No Longer Contain Themselves: A Collection of Five Flash Chapbooks...

2011-05-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

...is now available on our website and out in the world!

This book includes chapbooks of flash fiction from up-and-coming fiction writers Elizabeth J. Colen, John Jodzio, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Sean Lovelace, and Mary Miller.

Sherrie Flick says "Rose Metal Press has done it again. A wonderful range of voices comes at you from this collection of flash fictions with stories that haunt, that tell of grit and love and loss and longing with the kind of detail and patience that makes your teeth ache."

Click here to order your copy!

New Pages has a new review...

2011-05-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

....of Color Plates by Adam Golaski. Alex Myers says: "This is a collection certain to delight those who delight in short form fiction and those who delight in the visual." Thanks, Alex! Read the whole review here.

Front Porch Journal...

2011-04-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

...reviews We Know What We Are by Mary Hamilton and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry edited by Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rzicznek in its latest issue.

About the former, Josh Collins writes: "Interestingly, the titles of several of the stories in We know what we are refer to two once-popular television sitcoms: The Cosby Show and Night Court. The Theodore of Hamilton’s single-sentence titles is Theo of The Cosby Show. And Bull Shannon, you may remember, is the bald, gentle-giant bailiff of Night Court, and a few of the stories are titled as “odes” to Bull Shannon. While these characters don’t always figure into the action of the stories, Hamilton evokes them to add another layer of sympathetic difference—of outsiderness—to the vibe of the collection."

About the latter, Caitlin McCrory writes: "While this collection of thirty-four brief essays and sixty-six prose poems ranges from the sarcastic and light-hearted to the socially conscious and serious, it is clear that each featured author has taken the care to demonstrate his or her passion for the form and to extend to each reader an invitation into the world of prose poems." Thanks, Front Porch!

Berea College in Berea, Kentucky...

2011-03-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

...held their first ever annual publishing conference this past weekend, and they invited Rose Metal Press to be their first presenter, and Affrilachian poet Bianca Spriggs to be their featured reader:
We spent the better part of the morning presenting on publishing in general, and on Rose Metal Press in particular...
...as well as on how our experiences getting our own work published by large and small presses and publishing houses have influenced our practice as writers and our outlook as editors...
Last but not least, we spent the afternoon hearing pitches for people's various novels, poetry collections and hybrid works:
Major thanks to Vicky Hayes and Loreal Bell of the Learning Center for inviting us to such a great event!

J.A. Tyler reviews COLOR PLATES in the Rumpus...

2011-03-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

...and says that "As with all good books, Color Plates has layers, a surface underneath a surface underneath a surface, but there is more at play in Golaski’s book, more refnement than simple addition, more complicated existence than just putting one on top of another – Color Plates sheds skin in each passage, reveals a depth beneath a depth, and unpacks words in a venturous way."

Thanks, J.A. You can read the whole review here.

C. Hope Clark...

2011-02-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

...the founder of FundsforWriters.com has reviewed The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Flash Fiction, edited by Tara L. Masih. "This book is worthy of a collegiate classroom, my friend," she says, and we could not agree more. Read the whole review here. Thanks, C. Hope!

Our 2011 Open Reading Period...

2011-02-18T05:04:00.000-08:00

...is on. Details are below, and here.

From February 15 through March 30, 2011, we will be actively seeking full-length hybrid and cross-genre manuscripts for consideration for publication in 2012. We are particularly interested in short short, flash, and micro-fiction; prose poetry, novels-in-verse or book-length linked narrative poems; flash nonfiction or book-length memoirs in shorts; and other literary works that move beyond traditional genres to find new forms of expression. The best way to see what we mean by hybrid is to take a look at our catalog. We welcome submissions in all styles and on all subjects, and encourage a broad and expansive interpretation of hybridity.

Please email your manuscript of 48 pages or more—double-spaced for prose, single-spaced for poetry (or both, if it’s mixed)—between February 15 and March 30 with a $10 reading fee paid via our website (the payment button will appear when the reading period opens). Please also include an acknowledgments page of where individual pieces have been published, if applicable, as well as a brief author biography. We welcome submissions from outside of the U.S. and Canada, and ask that interested submitters from outside the U.S. and Canada simply use the “Donate” button on the Support RMP page to pay their fee. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to email us.

The Rejectionist interviews Rose Metal Press author Carol Guess...

2011-02-18T05:03:00.001-08:00

...who has a lot of fascinating things to say about her body of work and the indie publishing community in general. Read it all here.

AWP 2011!

2011-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

Happened! And Rose Metal Press was there, complete with author signings by Adam Golaski and Mary Hamilton (and almost by Carol Guess, who--to our chagrin--ended up thwarted in her flight plans by the horrible weather in Chicago)...

...and plenty of books...

...and flyers. Among them was one announcing our Call for Submissions for our Open Reading Period taking place from February 15th through March 30th. Check our site for more details, and then send us your best hybrid work.

decomP magazinE likes Color Plates!

2011-01-31T05:38:00.001-08:00

And we like Spencer Dew's thoughtful review, especially his analysis of how Adam Golaski writes about female characters:

Golaski is concerned, as the paintings he studies are concerned, with color, with wonder, with the awe-struck perception and imaginary flights of childhood. And—to return to those steaming moist panties flung against the glass—with the erotics of looking, the sheer sensuality, whether of the human body glimpsed in an intimate moment or the objects of our world seen in their ineluctable physicality. “All the objects in the studio shine: glass, porcelain, metal, oysters, glass, the oily surface of a lemon, pale blue china, lead, and velvet,” Golaski writes, introducing one so-called “still life,” which, while technically static on the canvas still “speaks movement.” What’s true for a tray of fresh-baked pizza nuggets or paper ballerinas arranged inside a shadowbox is true, too, for a row of whores hefting their skirts for medical inspection. Not that women, in Golaski’s gaze, become objects, but, in his terms, they become a “source” (not a “muse”), thus, Toulouse-Latrec’s “Woman Fixing Her Stocking” segues into a revelry on a girl changing out of her high school uniform; an image is caressingly described, the contemplated. An epiphany is gestured toward in words. As another narrative voice declares, “My beloved husband is a voyeur. A marriage vow: I must become a voyeur also.” “This isn’t ogling,” what Golaski does, but an ecstasy of the visual.

Read the whole thing here. Thanks, Spencer!

Adam Golaski at the ABA Winter Institute!

2011-01-25T21:24:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, Rose Metal author Adam Golaski and I mingled with over 500 independent booksellers at the ABA Winter Institute. The Institute was in Washington, DC, this year, and Adam was chosen by our distributor, Small Press Distribution, to represent them as the featured SPD author.

The show was amazing! The booksellers were super nice and energetic, and very enthusiastic about Color Plates and Rose Metal Press. We got to meet the book buyers and events coordinators from many of the stores where our authors have read, so that was neat, too.

On Friday night, SPD had a signing table at the closing reception for the Institute, which featured authors from small presses like Seven Stories, Soho, and us. Meg Tayler, our SPD rep, did an amazing job pitching the book at the breakfast for booksellers that morning, and there was a line at our table during the whole reception to talk to Adam about Color Plates and get a signed copy. The only line that was longer was for Ralph Nader, who was signing his new book of fiction, pubbed by Seven Stories, at the next table over!

A big thanks to SPD, ABA, and all the great independent booksellers we met!

The results of our Fifth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest

2011-01-15T08:18:00.001-08:00

Contest judge Kim Chinquee has selected BETTY SUPERMAN by Tiff Holland of Round Rock, TX, as the winner of our fifth annual short short chapbook competition. We will be publishing this chapbook in July 2011, so keep an eye out for its release on our website! You can sign up to receive a copy of the winning chapbook as soon as it releases by becoming a supporter.

Our five other finalists include first runner-up Hello Friends and Neighbors by Kate Hill Cantrill of New York, NY; second runner-up The Children's Magical Garden by Amy Bergen of Brooklyn, NY; The Family Dogs by Christopher Bower of Chicago, IL; Extended Play in the Bottomless Pit by Andrew Farkas of Chicago, IL; and Migratory by Jessica Hollander of Northport, AL. Our four semi-finalists include Americans, Guests, or Us by Caren Beilin of Missoula, MT; Arktoi by Caroline Picard of Chicago , IL; Alienation and Winter Sports by Anji Reyner of Missoula, MT; and Unloading the Elephants by M Thompson of Seattle, WA. Congratulations to all of them!

We had our biggest submission year ever with 117 submissions. We are grateful to everyone who entered, and we enjoyed reading your work.

Adam Golaski will be reading off-site...

2011-01-12T19:06:00.001-08:00

...at the AWP Conference in Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 2 at 6:00 pm at Poets and Busboys.

More details here; see you there!

Nin Andrews interviewed us...

2011-01-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

...about Rose Metal Press for the Best American Poetry blog. You can read all the Q's and A's here. Thanks, Nin!

Small Press Distribution has chosen Adam Golaski...

2011-01-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

...to be their featured author at the 2011 American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Washington DC from January 19th through the 21st.

Adam will be signing copies of Color Plates on the afternoon of Thursday, January 21st at 5:45 pm at the Crystal City Marriott. Thanks, SPD!

B. Lynn Goodwin interviews Tara L. Masih...

2011-01-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

...about her short story collection Where the Dog Star Never Glows, as well as The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction over at Writer Advice. Read the whole thing here!

In The Short Review...

2010-12-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

...Angela Readman writes of Mary Hamilton's short short chapbook We Know What We Are:

"I opened We Know What We Are with no knowledge of Mary Hamilton or the press. I closed it knowing it will never really remain closed. Some books aren’t meant to be. These stories are not open and shut. They are something caught from the corner of your eye, a line, a moment that stays with you."

Thanks, Angela!

Gay Degani...

2010-12-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

...includes The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction on her Writers Christmas List over at the Flash Fiction Chronicles. Thanks, Gay!

Kristina Marie Darling reviews Tinderbox Lawn...

2010-12-08T10:38:00.001-08:00

...in the latest issue of Galatea Ressurects.

"Guess often pairs novelistic techniques with poetic ones, creating a narrative structure that proves as subversive as the book's subject matter.This graceful matching of form and content proves to be one of the great strengths of the collection," she says. See her entire thoughtful take on the book here. Thanks, Kristina!

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry...

2010-12-07T07:54:00.001-08:00

...is among the top 10 poetry bestsellers for November 2010 from Small Press Distribution! See?

Free Book Friday!

2010-12-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

Rose Metal Press is the featured press over at Lit Drift for this Friday's Free Book Friday feature. Check it out--and maybe score some of said free books--here.

Tara McDaniel of Gently Read Literature...

2010-12-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

calls The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction "the best of its kind." She says lots of other glowing things about the book here.

Thanks, Tara!

Right now at Creative Writing Now...

2010-11-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

...there is an interview with us. See?

Thanks to Nancy for asking us the questions.

The Concord Festival of Authors...

2010-10-27T05:41:00.000-07:00

...featured several authors from Rose Metal Press, including Rusty Barnes, Stace Budzko, Tara L. Masih, and Pamela Painter. Read all about their flash fiction panel here.

Sample question: How is flash fiction different from prose poetry?

Answer: Flash fiction is about stories; prose poetry is founded in language. But "I don't care what people call it as long as they publish it," said Barnes. Well put.

decomP magazinE likes We Know What We Are

2010-10-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Spencer Dew says that "all of these pieces are like glass shards glued down onto a mosaic, and the pleasure of We know what we are is that this mosaic is never visible as a whole. We see an arch, patches of color, a pickup truck loaded into a pickup truck, but something–like the visions of a fever dream–remains always just out of reach." Read the whole review here. Thanks, Spencer!

The Ithaca Post...

2010-10-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

...thinks that Color Plates is "magical" and also "beautifully made." They also say that the museum of stories have "the feeling of being handcrafted, put together piece by piece by a master craftsman in tune with what is really important, lasting, and worthy of examination in each of these paintings and in the narratives they inspire."

We agree. See the whole review here. Thanks, Ithaca Post!

Color Plates sizzles.

2010-10-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

So says Sean Lovelace over at HTML GIANT. Check out the whole review here. Thanks, Sean!

John Cotter...

2010-10-18T06:22:00.001-07:00

...aka Adam Golaski's trusty tour mate is interviewed in The Cornell Daily Sun.

Read the whole thing here, and--if you live in/near Ithaca--be sure to check their reading out on Saturday, October 23 at Buffalo Street Books.

Love from Connecticut...

2010-10-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

...specifically from the UConn Co-op Bookstore,specifically for Adam Golaski's Color Plates.

Kim Halpin wrote yesterday's in-store reading and signing up in the Daily Campus. "He explained the lack of the original artwork to accompany his narratives and even discussed his major use of light and colors throughout the stories as products of his education," she says. Read the whole story here. Thanks, Kim!

Martin Macaulay likes We Know What We Are...

2010-10-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

...by Mary Hamilton, and he say so on the PANK blog. "These are stories that sing to you. Loudly. Proper shoulders back, wide mouthed, deep-sea breathing bursting to the surface in a wow-what-the-fuck-was-that kind of way," he says. Read the whole review here.

More love from Iowa....

2010-10-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

...this time, in the form of a story about Color Plates author Adam Golaski and his tour mate John Cotter in the Daily Iowan.

According to Samantha Gentry: "It turns out that the two are not only talented writers, they are also very down-to-earth." Indeed. Thanks, Samantha!

Redivider...

2010-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

...the graduate student-run literary magazine of Emerson College, is having a fiction contest, and perhaps you might like to submit to it.

If so, the details are that submissions must be 8,000 words or less (much, much less, if flash is your thing), and the fee per entry is $15 and includes a one year subscription to Redivider. More information is available here. Good luck!

Love from Iowa City...

2010-10-11T14:51:00.001-07:00

...for Adam Golaski's Color Plates. The Iowa City Press-Citizen says that while "many readers might be tempted to read through "Color Plates" while sitting in front of their computers searching for images of Édouard Manet's "White Lilacs and Roses," Edgar Degas's "Café Concert: The Song of the Dog," Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "La Visite: Rue des Moulins" or Mary Cassatt's "Lydia Leaning on Her Arm, Seated in a Loge" [...]such an anachronistic blend of 19th-century art and 21st-century technology isn't really necessary. Golaski isn't trying to gloss or to dramatize the paintings. He's more focused on describing the memories and fantasies that the paintings inspire."

Thanks to Jeff Charis-Carlson for the thoughtful words.

Open Letters Monthly...

2010-10-01T05:54:00.001-07:00

...interviews Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rziczinek, the editors of the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Flash Fiction here.

ForeWord Reviews...

2010-10-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

...will run a review of Color Plates by Adam Golaski in their November/December issue. A sneak preview of what they will say:

"The tales in Color Plates are like this—snapshots of sorts, and each one takes on a life of its own. But together they form a pastiche, a kaleidoscope of worlds fused into a beautiful whole. A narrator says in the epilogue, “The book is a story, but hidden inside that story are other stories, and these are the stories that matter to her, stories unworried about why the gold gears of their clockwork mesh. Let them mesh lovely, she thinks.” And in this shimmering collection, mesh lovely they do."

Thanks to Jessica Henkle for the review!

Last night, in Chicago...

2010-09-20T06:16:00.000-07:00

...Adam Golaski read in the Orange Alert Reading Series. Afterwards, he signed newly minted copies of Color Plates:
If you missed the reading, though, do not despair. He may be coming to a town near you--see the list of tour dates and places here.

The Lambda Literary blog...

2010-09-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

..reviews Tinderbox Lawn by Carol Guess. Or rather, Michele Spring-Moore does.

Check it out here. Thanks, Michele.

Last night at StoryStudio Chicago...

2010-09-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

...Mary Hamilton read at We Know What We Are Book Party Part II... ...and the audience listened attentively... ...to both her and Second Annual Chapbook Contest Winner Geoffrey Forsyth: Additionally, there were cupcakes.... A good time was had by all. Thanks to StoryStudio for hosting, and extra special thanks to Allyson Kendall for all her supportive promotional interviews!

Nik Korpon of the Outsider Writers Collective...

2010-09-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

...has an enthusiastic review of Mary Hamilton's We Know What We Are up right here.

"There is such an immutable specificity to each adjective used, to each scene drawn; yet, at the same time, each is equally as dexterous, folding the connotation of the vignette numerous times until it is no longer a piece of tiny fiction, but a small paper lighthouse with 274 steps," he says. Thanks, Nik!

The Psychology Today blog....

2010-09-08T07:23:00.001-07:00

...mentions The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction in a post called "Fiction in a Flash!" See?

Publishers Weekly reviews Color Plates...

2010-09-07T12:19:00.001-07:00

...by Adam Golaski. And they like it. See?

Special guest Carol Guess...

2010-08-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

...guest posts over at FlashFiction.net. Check out her 13 Ways of Looking at a Manuscript here and get her book Tinderbox Lawn here.

Mary Hamilton recommends some reading...

2010-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

...over at the Recommended Reading blog. See?

Ben Tanzer interviews Mary Hamilton...

2010-08-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

...for the Orange Alert blog, where they talk about freaks, the cuteness of Theo Huxtable, the sublime appeal of thunder and lightning, and the tragic life and death of Egon Schiele, among other things. Read the whole interview here. Thanks, Ben!

The Rumpus says that We Know What We Are...

2010-08-16T15:09:00.001-07:00

...by Mary Hamilton is "vivid, surreal, experimental, funny, and emotionally devastating." Also, that "The author gets more done in those few pages than many writers could in a trilogy of novels. Hamilton’s work is genuinely, refreshingly experimental; it forgoes a polished sheen of innovation in order to take actual stylistic, structural, and cognitive risks." Agreed.

Thanks to Brian Beglin for the review, which you can read all of here.

Last night at the Whistler...

2010-08-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

...We Know What We Are by Mary Hamilton was officially released. Mary did original, short short introductions for her talented fellow readers... ...including Caroline Picard... ...Natalie Edwards... ...and Jill Summers... Then Lindsay Hunter did a short short introduction of Mary herself: Afterwards, Mary signed many a copy of her chapbook for many an admiring fan: Special thanks to Martin Seay for helping to man the book sales table... ...and to Jason Behrends and the Orange Alert Reading Series for hosting the release party! Stay tuned for Release Party Part II on Saturday, September 11 at StoryStudio.

Mary Hamilton's writing is densely tactile and nonlinear...

2010-08-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

...says Melissa Albert in this week's issue of TimeOut Chicago. Check out the whole wonderful profile here! Thanks Melissa!

And if you're in or near Chicago this weekend, be sure to come check out the launch party for Mary's chapbook We Know What We Are in the Orange Alert Reading Series at the Whistler on Sunday, August 15 at 6:00 pm.

RMP is "definitely a press you want to keep track of..."

2010-08-10T06:31:00.001-07:00

...says Dan Wickett over at the Emerging Writers Network where he gives a lovely write-up of We Know What We Are by Mary Hamilton. Thanks, Dan!

Dan and Gary got jointly interviewed...

2010-08-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

...by Linwood Rumney of Redivider, and the results are up on the Redivider blog right here. Thanks, Linwood.

The Outsider Writers' Collective...

2010-08-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

...says that The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry "is an ambitious and remarkably well-executed concept." You can read the rest of David Blaine's extensive and thoughtful review here. Thanks, David! And thanks to the Outside Writers' Collective for their committed support of "The independent and micro-presses, the bloggers, and the scribblers united by the source of their motivations: passion."

Jim Harrington asked us Six Questions...

2010-08-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

...and Abby & I provided Six Answers over on the Six Questions For... blog. See? Thanks, Jim, for inviting us to provide some As to your Qs!

Jason Behrends...

2010-07-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

...delivers an admiring mini-review of Mary Hamilton's We Know What We are over on the Chicago Subtext blog at the Chicago Now. See? Thanks, Jason, for the review, and for running the Orange Alert Reading Series where Mary will have her Official Chapbook Launch Party on Sunday, August 15th at the Whistler. Be there.

Claudia Smith...

2010-07-30T13:05:00.001-07:00

...who, yes, is a Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest winner (the very first, in fact), reviewed The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction in the May/June 2010 issue of the American Book Review. See? Since ABR is not online, all we can see of the review for now (we're tracking down a hard copy) is that little blurb that comes up on ProjectMUSE, but it seems like a good start. Thanks to Claudia for the review, and ABR for the coverage!

Last night at Open Books in Chicago...

2010-07-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

...Open Books Marketing Director Becca Keaty...
...welcomed the audience...
...and apologized for the lack of air conditioning in the store. But that was okay. And it certainly didn't faze Dan Brady...
...of Barrelhouse as he introduced James Tadd Adcox, whose purple mohawk (a product of the Artifice subscription drive) was also unfazed...
Next, I introduced Mary Hamilton. I was so excited about her chapbook coming out this week that my arm got blurry...
Then Mary Hamilton and her sequinned rib shirt read two fantastic stories from We Know What We Are...
...and then Simone Muench and Philip Jenks read from their collaborative work... ...and last but not least, a feathery Tim Jones-Yelvington read one story from his forthcoming chapbook, Evan's House and the Other Boys Who Live There, sans props...
...and his second story with slime!

Thanks to Open Books for hosting us, and thanks to our lovely audience... ...for sweating it out for the sake of independent literature!

The Examiner...

2010-07-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

...says of us and Barrelhouse that "Of all the specialty presses and quirky lit mags, these two are top on the list of quality." See? Thanks, Robert Duffer!

On Wednesday, July 28th at Open Books in Chicago...

2010-07-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

...Rose Metal Press and Barrelhouse will be joining forces for an evening of literary fabulousness. See? Hope to see you there!

Third Face....

2010-07-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

...gives We Know What We Are by Mary Hamilton some face time over here. Thanks, Barry Graham!

Time Out Chicago...

2010-07-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

...calls The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry "interesting beyond an audience typically interested in poetry." See? And why is that the case? Because it's "surprising and engaging" and "rather than asking the authors to write critically about the form, McDowell and Rzicznek asked each to explain what brought them to prose poetry." Thanks to Jonathan Messinger for the thoughtful consideration!

Spotlight on Rose Metal Press!

2010-07-21T12:59:00.001-07:00

Really. The Small Press Spotlight, over at the Lit Witch. See? Thanks to Jennifer Palombi for the thoughtful questions and the invitation to participate.

And while we're at it, check out the "Checking In with Rose Metal Press" feature on the Fictionaut blog. Many thanks to Nicolle Elizabeth for the opportunity to provide Qs to her As.

Harriet: a blog from the Poetry Foundation...

2010-07-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

...mentions The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry. See?

Bookslut likes the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry

2010-07-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Anya Groner reviews it here.

"The joy of this tome comes from the lively debates that emerge between writers in love with the form and, more importantly, from the poetry itself which spans from comical to dark, elliptical to narrative," she says. Thanks, Anya!

Adam Golaski's book of little stories...

2010-06-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

...known as Color Plates will be out in September. In the meantime, he has a blog called "Little Stories."

See?

Publish Chicago is glad we published the Prose Poetry Field Guide

2010-06-24T06:26:00.000-07:00

"Normally, when I read a book about poetry, rather than a book of poems, it’s bad. It’s always way too teachy, too middle-school-humanities class, too–dare I say it–boring. I’ve always loved poetry, but I’ve rarely even liked reading books about poetry. Thankfully, Chicago publisher Rose Metal Press’ new book Field Guide to Prose Poetry is unlike most other books in this vein in that it’s good, very good," they say. Indeed.

Check out the whole thing here. Thanks to Julie Hunt for the thoughtful review.

Go for the Bronze.

2010-05-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

ForeWord Magazine announced today that The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction won the Bronze Medal in the Writing Category for their Book of the Year Awards. See? We're the best! Or the third-best anyway. Thank you and congrats to all the contributing Field Guide authors and a special thanks and congratulations to editor Tara L. Masih.

Carol Guess and Andrew Michael Roberts...

2010-05-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

...launched The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon on Sunday, May 23rd. Here is Carol:
And here is Andrew (and David Bowie, lower right):
Thanks to them both for reading, and to everyone for coming to hear them and to talk about prose poetry, line breaks, and BP.

The readers of the Believer believe in Eggs...

2010-05-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

...so much so that it is an honorable mention in their Reader Survey. See? Thanks, Believer readers!

How to Cure the Insomnia in your Attic

2010-04-24T10:35:00.001-07:00

Kristen Hoggatt recommends Peter Jay Shippy's How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic as a potentially epic cure for insomnia.

"Peter Jay Shippy’s How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic [...] is so wild that I can’t precisely say what it’s about (it opens with the narrator masturbating to his favorite comic book when a cow crashes through the roof). I love it," she says.

Read the whole recommendation here.

How the Bookbuilders of Boston Like their Eggs

2010-04-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

Rose Metal Press' entry, How Some People Like Their Eggs by Sean Lovelace, was selected as a winner in the Bookbuilders of Boston 53rd Annual New England Book Show! If you're in Boston on Thursday, May 6th, be sure to check out the whole show, details here. Major congratulations to RMP designer Rebecca Saraceno for her beautiful work.

RMP at AWP post-mortem

2010-04-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Rose Metal Press had a table at this year's AWP Book Fair in Denver:
We also had a panel on our latest book, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry, which was just released:
The panel included Kathleen McGookey, Brigitte Byrd, co-editor Gary L. McDowell, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, John Bradley and David Shumate, and helped us sell out of all the copies of the PPFG that we'd brought with us to Colorado. But don't despair; you can still buy the book with the AWP deal (a $28 pairing with The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction) here. We also had a panel on the flash Field Guide, featuring Robert Shapard, Lex Williford, and RMP co-editor Abby Beckel... ...as well as Kim Chinquee, Sherrie Flick, and Randall Brown:
And courtesy of Todd B. Stevens, you can catch a full re-cap on the Caleb J. Ross blog here. Thanks, Todd, for your swift and comprehensive commitment to documentation and archiving! And thanks to everyone for coming to our panels and stopping by our table. We already can't wait to see you in DC next year.

The Field Guide to Prose Poetry...

2010-03-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

...is ready for pre-order!
Edited by Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rzicznek, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice will officially launch at the AWP Conference in Denver, but in the meantime, you can pre-order it here. And if you haven't already got a copy of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, you can buy both field guides together here for just $28.00. Add to cart!

Pat Healy of the Kansas Authors Club...

2010-02-22T18:14:00.000-08:00

...reviews The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction in the club's February/March newsletter. Thanks, Pat!

Rose Metal Press is thrilled to announce that WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE by Mary Hamilton…

2010-01-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

…has just been selected by Dinty W. Moore as the winner of our Fourth Annual Short Short Chapbook contest! We will be publishing Mary’s manuscript as a limited edition chapbook this coming summer. In the meantime, you can read more about her over here on her blog.

We would also like to recognize the following contest finalists:

Elizabeth Colen for Dear Mother Monster, Dear Daughter Mistake
John Jodzio for Do Not Touch Me Not Now Not Ever
Tim Jones-Yelvington for Evan's House and the Other Boys who Live There
Mary Miller for Paper and Tassels

And semi-finalists:

James Tadd Adcox for A Miracle of Some Sort
Spencer Dew for Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
Roxane Gay for Things to Know about Career Girls
Tiff Holland for Wrapping Kevin
Thisbe Nissen for Etiquette
Cami Park for The Sun Has Packed So Many Suitcases

We are extremely grateful to everyone who submitted. Thank you, as always, for letting us read your manuscripts, and for reminding us how much fantastic short short prose is being written out there.

Jess Bouchard reads Tinderbox Lawn with care...

2010-01-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

...and reviews it all over at Flash Fiction.Net.

"There isn’t a story that deserves a one-time read or a lazy glance. Her lyrical sentences and provocative imagery explore life with an intensity that leaves the reader just as vulnerable and exposed. Themes of identity, sexuality, and gender pulse on each page—her words breathe. In this book, you’ll be pulled deeply into yourself and wanting to say in this place," she writes. Be sure to check the whole review out here. Thanks, Jess.