AWP Seattle Recap

This year's AWP Conference took place in Seattle from February 27-March 1, and as ever, we had a table at the fantastic book fair, and for the first time ever, we had RMP temporary tattoos in two different styles:

It was a terrific and eventful AWP for RMP. We debuted our newest release, All Movies Love the Moon: Prose Poems on Silent Film, by Gregory Robinson, with pre-launch copies for sale, a book signing, and a reading. We got to see and meet with so many of our authors, truly one of the best parts of AWP each year. With an awesome crew of table workers, we sold books, promoted our contest, talked about hybrid genres, gave out buttons and bookmarks, and RMP tattooed any available and willing hands, forearms, wrist, and foreheads.

We had five author signings at the table, including Kim Henderson, Dinty W. Moore, and Kelcey Parker, below:

Kim Henderson, author of The Kind of Girl

Dinty W. Moore, editor of The RMP Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

Kelcey Parker, author of Liliane's Balcony: A Novella of Fallingwater

Rose Metal Press authors also participated in two off-site readings. On Friday night Kelcey Parker, Aaron Teel, and Sierra Nelson read at an off-site reading in conjunction with Cortland Review and Toadlilly Press:

Kelcey Parker reading from Liliane's Balcony: A Novella of Fallingwater

Aaron Teel reading from Shampoo Horns

Sierra Nelson reading and showing the artwork from I Take Back the Sponge Cake

On Saturday night, Gregory Robinson and Kim Henderson participated in an off-site reading held in conjunction with Anomalous Press, Boston Review, Gold Line Press, and Ricochet Editions:

A number of our authors also participated in AWP panels, including on Saturday afternoon when Kelcey Parker spoke about her novella-in-flash, Liliane's Balcony, at a panel called "Please Mind the Gap: Innovative Approaches to Writing Historical Figures" with RMP co-founder Kathleen Rooney and fellow authors Cathy Day, Caitlin Horrocks, and Gretchen Henderson:

Thanks to everyone who stopped by our table, picked up a book at a signing, attended a panel, came to an off-site reading, and/or wore a RMP tattoo or button; thanks to our authors for participating in all of those events; thanks to all the other presses and journals who hosted events with us; and thanks to everyone who helped at our table!

We can hardly wait to see you all next year in the Twin Cities!

Book Trailer for Shampoo Horns

There's a book trailer for Shampoo Horns! And it's full of fireworks and trailer parks and Aaron Teel reading and awesomeness! We hope it makes you so excited about this hotter-than-Texas chapbook that you preorder it here! Shampoo Horns launches on August 15.

Huge thanks to Mitchell Rathberger for creating this trailer!

Letterpressing Shampoo Horns Covers

Here at Rose Metal Press we love the summer. Summer is flash fiction chapbook time, when we leave our computers behind for a few days and get our hands dirty letterpressing each and every one of the 350 limited edition covers of our latest chapbook contest winner.

This year's winner is the amazing Shampoo Horns, by Aaron Teel, a book that also revels in summer—one particular hot, dirty, electric summer in Texas, revealed in 19 short short stories.

On June 11th and 13th, we headed out to the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. with our head designer (and letterpress extraordinaire) Rebecca Saraceno to print the 2-color covers on a Vandercook letterpress. Letterpress is amazing: noisy, imperfect, perfect, precise, imprecise, beautiful, and worth every bit of the work!

Here are some photos and videos of the process.    

We used these 3 inks to mix the orange and red colors we printed on the covers

This firecracker magnesium die cut was created from an illustration by Liane Behrens

The orange ink and die cut on press

The covers going through the press for first round of ink—the orange!

The text type in the lock-up waiting for the red ink!

A finished cover coming off the press with red inked type

Rebecca printing a finished cover

Finished Shampoo Horns covers drying—each one printed by hand

Shampoo Horns launches on August 15 and is now available for preorder! We only print 350 limited edition chapbooks, so it's a good idea to reserve early! Order here.