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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.

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.  

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.  

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!

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).