December 2022 News Update

We’re slowly making our way through the submissions from the open reading.  I’d love to say that we’re being super-diligent, laser-focused, but I get distracted at the Holidays, just like anyone.  I still feel like we have a good chance of notifying “finalists” by Christmas, though (in true GBP fashion) it could be the week between Christmas and the New Year.  Let’s see how focused we can be this weekend!  A reminder: I’ll be sending updates directly to “finalists” and then posting here that those notifications have gone out; if you don’t receive an email from me by January 1, 2023, it’s very, very likely that your manuscript is no longer under consideration.  As always, feel free to contact me if you have a question.

(Speaking of, I’m really behind on replying to emails.  Something else I need to catch up on this weekend.)

We had a really great Zoom reading a couple weeks ago.  As you would definitely expect, GBP doesn’t have a paid Zoom account, so we were limited to just 30 or 40 minutes which, honestly, is a really good length for two readers.  Sarah Nichols and Chelsea Bodnar were (and are) great, and I hope to do more of these as chapbooks emerge.  Tell your friends!

If I don’t see you before then, Happy Holidays!

Android Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

In the past few years, the press has become a haven for chapbooks of found-poetry and/or focused on T.V. shows/series.  That is one reason that we delayed the acceptance of this collection from Sarah Nichols; we needed to put some distance between her meditation on HBO’s Westworld and Chelsea Bodnar’s exploration of . . . Miami Vice.

I knew that I wanted to accept These Violent Delights as soon as I read it.  The poems capture the existential yearning of Westworld’s androids as they brush against humanity.  What does it mean to be alive, to have agency beyond programming and artifice?  Some of the poems also blend in found language from J.B. Ballard’s Crash.  In her blurb for the chapbook, Jan Bottiglieri says, “Each page crackles with energy, an electrical current created through ekphrastic connection.  Nichols doesn’t merely describe her source material; she creates a rhythm of interrogation and discovery.”

From “Bernard Speaks of Delores”:

“Her voice
in my hands,

remote, all

instrument, all
injuries,

her death-paint
immaculate.

Her body, that

metal

Armageddon.”

 

Just in time of the Holidays!  Available now on the Titles page.

Also, we’re going to make a second attempt at a reading featuring Sarah and Chelsea on Dec. 2 at 7:00 PM (EDT).  Email greybookpress (at) gmail (dot) com if you’re interested in an invite.  

Open Reading Guidelines (November 2022)

The 2022 open reading period starts at midnight October 31 and runs through 11:59 PM November 14.  That’s the “standard” two weeks.  Here are the guidelines:

      • One entry per person.  No reading fee.
      • Manuscripts will be read as “blindly” as possible, so please take your name off the title page.
      • Manuscripts should have between 16 and 24 pages of poems.
      • Email submissions to greybookpress (at) gmail (dot) com.  Subject line: “SUBMISSIONS – [LAST NAME] – [TITLE]”
      • There are no limitations this year for authors who have had a chapbook published by GBP.  
      • The goal is to choose at least two manuscripts for publication with a maximum of five.  Runs will either be open-ended with 25 author copies or limited editions of 50 (in which case, 15 author copies). 
      • The goal is to notify all finalists by sometime in December, hopefully before Christmas.  We likely will not notify you if you are not a finalist, but feel free to check with us in January if you haven’t heard anything.  Updates will be posted here.

In selecting chapbooks for publication, we usually aim for “range” in across accepted manuscripts.  For instance, we may choose a favorite, or “winner,” that would be the best/most resonant manuscript, and other selected manuscript(s) would be “different” from that one in some way.  If several are chosen, ideally, they’d be different from one another.

If you have any questions not answered/addressed here, let us know at the email listed above.

Good luck!

 

October 2022 News Update

We’ll be posting the guidelines for the open reading this weekend.  The window opens at midnight of Halloween (that’s 12:00 A.M., November 1) and will remain open for two weeks.

Very soon after the open reading window closes (later that same week, actually), we’ll have our next chapbook from Sarah Nichols (These Violent Delights).  We’ll also be having a reading on Zoom with Sarah and Miami Vice poetry enthusiast, Chelsea Bodnar.  Look for more details in early November.  

September News Update

This is, technically, our “off-season” after the release of our second-ever book and a few chapbooks.  (Do yourself a favor and check the Titles page.  They’re wonderful.)  I’m such a horrible procrastinator, but I think we’re finally caught up on orders and emails. 

Most of the emails were questions about our next open reading period, which was reported to be this Summer.  (Ooops.)  Turns out, we’ll be returning to our “traditional” kickoff of midnight on Halloween.  It’ll still be open just two weeks.  The Submissions page has been updated, and stay tuned for updates and guidelines.

Last but not least, we have an “off-cycle” chapbook coming out in November (exact date TBD) from Sarah Nichols.  These Violent Delights was from last year’s open reading period and I’d wanted to accept it with the others but it was over my self-imposed manuscript limit (I knew my limitations with Jessie’s book coming out), but I’m really happy it was still available.

We may have more announcements/surprises this Fall.  I mean, it’s possible.  

Good Time Summer Time

Next up for the long, hot Summer is another chapbook from Howie Good, The Horses Were Beautiful.  It’s appropriately oppressive-sun-colored orange.  (Side note: Up to now, our covers aren’t “professionally” printed, though we do a lot of full-color printing on white.  For this one, we got to go old school, with black on cover stock.)

As with the previous GBP chapbook from Howie, this one is full of poetry narratives.  Not exactly sunny and optimistic, the pieces often reflect the world that is (and was) in language at once humorous . . . and grim.  Sort-of stark and engaging snapshot-stories. 

From “Re: Vision”:  “‘I’ll lick stamps,’ I told the gargoyle from HR during the job interview. ‘I’ll lick whatever you want.’  He shook his big, ugly head no.  And as quick as that, I found myself back on the street.”

Pick up a copy now on the Titles page.  You can also get Howie’s previous chapbook, What It Is and How to Use It.

August News Update

Our next chapbook, The Horses Were Beautiful by Howie Good, is set for its release this coming Monday (three days from now).  We’re ahead of the game on its production (this time), but late letting you all know.  But now you know.  

Hoping to have more to announce in September.  Things are in motion.  The wheels are turning.  And the open reading period is still set for just after Halloween.  

 

Vice

Our next chapbook is Snow Boat to Nowhere by Chelsea Bodnar.  A couple years ago, in her chapbook Our Home Can Be a Dangerous Place, she took us on a journey of the world of the videogame BioShock.  This time, Chelsea invites us to explore Miami Vice in all its gritty, pastel-and-gunpowder glory.  The Eighties were wild; I can tell you first-hand.  Miami Vice was geared to kids my age (and their parents), though I didn’t really watch much of it.  But I recognize the “heroes” on the show (Crockett and Tubbs), and of that time, are more typical of antiheroes today.  Chelsea’s poems here are wrecked with them, along with all the beautiful beaches and shootouts and crime that you could pack into an hour with commercial breaks.

“spine snapped / from car chase // death just means / there’s no / interrogation // I read once / that wind speed / can turn feathers / into knives // cast styrofoam / to bullet // so in a way / it’s natural / what happened”

This one’s now available on the Titles page.  You don’t even need a gun or a speedboat or a pile of blow.  

June/July News Update

It took a little while, but we eventually managed to send out all of the orders for Jessie Janeshek’s No Place for Dames.  Thanks to everyone who ordered a copy and/or attended Jessie’s Zoom reading following the release.  Each order included a limited edition guitar pick, and we only have a few of those left.  Revisiting the book-making process was an adventure, but now we’re shifting back to our bread-and-butter (chapbooks).

The next chapbook is Chelsea Bodnar’s Snow Boat to Nowhere, which was promised by the end of the month.  However, as things were coming together, it seemed like we’d be launching right before the Fourth of July weekend, so I thought we’d hold off until July 5.  Plus, I wanted to make sure Chelsea had a chance to get her copies before the launch.  And then in about a month (targeting “early August”) will be another chapbook from Howie Good.  

I have one or two potential additions to the schedule that could be announced before our next “open reading,” which will be back to it’s “standard” Halloween kickoff.  

See you after the weekend . . . for our trip back to the Eighties!

Model Nostalgia

I talked about the story of this book’s inception in my post last month, but now we’re here at the launch date.  I’m really excited that No Place for Dames is finally coming out.  For the “official” listing (out in the “world”), Jessie wrote a synopsis that I could definitely not improve upon, so I present it here:

“From the 1920s to the 2020s, from Hollywood to West Virginia hollers, these poems bind your hands in the alley behind the drug store, shove you underneath the sheets of a sweaty canopy bed, and hand you the Ouija board.  But your absurdist best friend is cheating; she’s moving the planchette.  It’s all dead deer, sequins, stiff drinks, bad sex, and sunglasses and Dames probes what it means to be anything besides a straight white man in a straight white man’s world.  Just in time.” 

From “Bitters + Soda”:
“I live like it’s fine to pop pills all day
my chapped hands gold
foggy glasses and cold sex at the whammy bar.
I cough into frankincense
as I walk through empty pharmacies
ask which cheap lipstick pairs
best with my astrological sign.”

You can purchase a copy on the Titles page.  They’ve been on sale since last week, and orders have been coming in steadily.  We have a limited number of guitar picks Jessie designed for the launch that will ship with copies until we run out.  Copies will ship as soon as we receive our initial batch in a few days (following a last-minute fix and production delay).