ASP Author's Gift Guide for Book-Lovers Part 3: The Scholar, The Teacher, and The Godfather A Sampling of Music, Mythology, and Books that Touch the Heart Reuben Jackson Poet Reuben Jackson is also an acclaimed jazz scholar, and an expert in all things musical. We asked him to list 5 great books for music lovers. His new collection, scattered clouds, is out from ASP in 2019. Debussy: A Painter in Sound, by Stephen Walsh, Alfred A. Knopf My only quibble with this biography of the great French composer is that the inclusion of technical music jargon … [Read more...]
Hear Mark A. Pritchard Read from "Billy Christmas" Pritchard’s debut novel is a magical treat in the grand tradition of children’s Christmas tales – he’s a natural storyteller, whose characters will engage and delight even the most hard-hearted scrooge. — Kate Whiting, Worcester Book Reviews “We have things to discuss” the Christmas tree says to Billy in the dark of the living room after bemoaning its fairy light binds. Billy’s mother is sick in bed, his father is missing, and the pine tree he was given by the charitable proprietor of his local stand is about to thrust him into a magical … [Read more...]
ASP Author's Gift Guide for Book Lovers Part 2: The Explorer, The Poet, and The Cosmopolite This week, it’s travel books, mysteries, and books related to Northern California. Linda Watanabe McFerrin Linda Watanabe McFerrin's ASP Legacy Series poetry and prose collection, Crossing the Divide, is forthcoming in 2019. Co-founder of the Wanderland Writers Anthology series, Linda has traversed the globe more times than we can count. Here are her picks for the travel lovers on your list: West with the Night, by Beryl Markham, North Point Press. Beautifully written … [Read more...]
ASP's Gift Guide for Book Lovers Part 1: The Historian, The Dramatist, and The Laureate Well, it’s that time of year again, when holiday gift lists are popping up all over. Here at ASP HQ, we’re particularly interested, of course, in gifts for book-lovers, and we’ve noticed a curious fact: No matter how diverse the sources of these lists, a few titles pop up again and again. Usually these are recently published, widely reviewed best-sellers. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, gift-givers might find themselves putting one more copy of the current hot mystery, or … [Read more...]
Read Elizabeth Hazen's "Burial at Shanidar" from her collection Chaos Theories Christmas is the traditional European winter celebration of life. It endows a grace to flurries in the pines, bringing celestial comparisons to moon and star light, it celebrates the beauty, for Christians, of the messianic birth, and it pierces what are the darkest days of the year with hung and twinkling ornaments and fairy lights strewn, and smiles and cheer. In a lot of ways this solstitial celebration is a reaction to and transformation of death. It reminds us that there is a spirit in all things which does … [Read more...]
Hear Mark A. Pritchard the first few pages of Billy Christmas It's that time of year again, as I'm sure you know. That time of year to rediscover all those things one loves and yet stores in boxes during the sunnier months--ornaments, heirlooms, wax statues, wreaths, and the classics. And although one should not consider Billy Christmas a novel pigeon-holed by its festive nature, for it is good any day of the year, (as are the classics!) we are so happy the holiday season is here to give us an opportunity to promote Mark A. Pritchard's incredible young adult novel. Hear Mark A. Pritchard … [Read more...]
Grace Cavalieri's November 2018 Exemplars of Poetry Every month for the Washington Independent Review of Books, the amazing Maryland Poet, Grace Cavalieri, author of Other Voices, Other Lives, does a round-up style review of the best recently released independent books of poetry and books about poetry. This is November 2018's and you can find her full review HERE on the WIRoB site And don't forget to support your indies! Here is an excerpt, a review of The Book of Sharks by Rob Carney from Black Lawrence Press (What an awesome job they did with the cover art on this one. Wow!) The … [Read more...]
ASP Autumn 2019 Lineup As ASP has taken 2018 to prepare for a huge 2019 season, let's take a look at what's coming up! Linda Watanabe McFerrin: Writer, poet, journalist, world-traveler. Linda Watanabe McFerrin has had a truly extraordinary career and a major impact on us at ASP. From her early poetry collection The Impossibility of Redemption is Something We Hadn’t Figured On, to her wonderful short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, and to her latest, a Zombie tale about identity titled Dead Love, Linda has always striven for something new, resonant, and universal. Which is why we are … [Read more...]
Rose Solari Speaks to Delphi Quarterly's Ramola D An Interview with Rose Solari Today is day 2 of Small Press Week 2018! The theme for Monday is #SPWpast. In honor of #SPWeek2018 and #ASP, we are publishing an article where Co-Founder and award-winning poet, Rose Solari, tells out story. Happy Small Press Week! An excerpt on the conception of Alan Squire Publishing: Rd: That sounds like such a great approach. Did something in particular inspire you both to move forward from running a sports magazine to starting a literary press? Were other writers involved? RS: We’d been talking … [Read more...]
Hear James J Patterson read "The Lovesick Lake" "Lovers of the personal essay should be rejoicing in the streets at word of this collection. For readers and acquaintances of Jimmy Patterson, it is long overdue, but the author was born in Washington, D.C., where the machinery of progress is congenitally slow. So this book, in many important ways - is what all satisfying collections of autobiographical essays should be - a mirror of place." Rick Walter Armistice Day, known in the US as Veteran's Day, is now a work week past, but for James J Patterson it is a memory and idea that … [Read more...]
The World of Yesterday (Armistice Day, 2018) An Essay by James J Patterson From the forthcoming collection Junk Shop Window My father always said that his first memory was of standing on the couch in his parent’s living room, small hands on the back cushion, peering out a picture widow at a neighborhood street in Bend, Oregon. There is a slow-moving line of cars and horse-drawn carriages inching its way down the lane. The line of cars is there every day, and every day he stands there and watches. His street is a long one and at the end of it is the cemetery. He is not allowed … [Read more...]
Linda Watanabe McFerrin Interviewed for Author Mathew Felix's Video Podcast Author and poet Linda Watanabe McFerrin sat down with Mathew Felix, himself an author of some renown, for Mathew's video podcast this last weekend. What follows is an in-depth, thoughtful, and often irreverent look at writing, life, travel, and zombies. And more, the listener may become privy to many of those juicy and illusive details surrounding Linda's new Legacy Book due out from ASP in Autumn 2019. Check out the interview below. Linda starts to talk about ASP and her Legacy Book ~50 minutes in. and don't … [Read more...]
Fact or Fiction By Joanna Biggar As a fiction writer, it is not uncommon to be asked: “Is that real, or did you make it up?” This was certainly true for my first novel, That Paris Year, based on my own experiences as a young woman attending the Sorbonne in the 1960s. It was assumed that the narrator, whose name, J.J., includes the same initials as my name, are one and the same person. And if that is true, the thinking goes, everything else in the book must be “real,” too. One French reader even wanted to know how my French grandmother was getting along and was shocked to learn that I … [Read more...]
Featured Poetry: "Bluebirds" by Grace Cavalieri Grace Cavalieri is the epitome of cool. She's been a publishing poet for over 40 years and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, even now she grows and develops, her style reforms, and, like Donald Hall, she's forgone looking back entirely and instead looks within. This idea is very well suited to the goals and organization of ASP's Legacy books. It is so in Grace's Legacy Book, Other Voices, Other Lives, which is a testament not just to a broad range, but to an adaptive, keen, and wonderfully empathic heart. Grace Cavalieri is goals. On a … [Read more...]
Hear Rose Solari Read "Letter from Sligo Creek" from her Award-Winning Collection, Difficult Weather "Like the cover photo, the poems in Difficult Weather are timeless and—unlike the poems in many first books—extraordinarily mature. Although the narrative voice is generally that of a young woman in her late twenties and early thirties whose subject matter sometimes ranges back to early childhood, these are poems of adulthood: the discovery and endlessly painful rediscovery of human frailty, sexual and emotional betrayal, bad love in all its familial and romantic varieties, memory, and … [Read more...]
Listen to Grace Cavalieri Interview Robert Pinsky Grace Cavalieri is known widely for her stirring and empathic poetry, collected in her Legacy work Other Voices, Other Lives, but did you know that she is also an impressive interviewer? On her NPR show, The Poet and The Poem, she interviews significant poets from the US and around the world, with an aim of interpreting their lives through their poetry. In her tenure on the program, she has interviewed 9 US Poets Laureate (you can find a list with these archived interviews HERE), including the incomparable Robert Pinsky. You can find the … [Read more...]
Featured Poetry: "Toytown" by Grace Cavalieri The name of Grace Cavalieri's legacy book, Other Voices, Other Lives, is not only a poetic turn, but a statement of intent. In her Legacy Book there are several sections in 3rd person omnipotent which aim to breathe the same air as famous women who have suffered adversity. Tragic figure Anna Nicole Smith, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Cora from William Carlos William's Kora in Hell. All in all they are an admix of Grace Cavalieri's poetic life, brought together in one beautiful volume; so, perhaps, we might figure that Anna Nicole Smith … [Read more...]
Rose Solari talks with Acclaimed Poet David Gewanter “I am not seeking to articulate a political position. To make poems I seek paradox and contradiction: the opposite of an ideology.” — David Gewanter This Sunday, October 21, at 8 p.m., ASP’s Rose Solari is reading with acclaimed poet, essayist, editor, and professor David Gewanter in a new poetry reading series at Second Story Books, 2000 P Street NW, Washington DC. In preparation for their reading, Rose talked with David about his work, particularly his most recent collection, Fort Necessity. Here is a part of their … [Read more...]
Rose Solari reads "Margaret in Oxford" from her debut novel A Secret Woman Event Notification: Rose Solari and David Gewanter at Second Story Books in DC this Weekend! "[In A Secret Woman,] Rose Solari explores the eternal literary theme of self — who we are, who are the ones we love, and how we invent and reinvent these people, trying always to paint ourselves into the vast canvas of life and history. A very promising fiction debut." Robert Olen Butler Robert Olen Butler loves Rose Solari's debut work of fiction for its sense of the eternity. This is one of the many reasons all of Rose … [Read more...]
"On the Road, Columbia, South Carolina, Spring 1959" A Poem by Reuben Jackson "There's much said in what's not said in Reuben Jackson's poetry. His cleverly sparse style often convincingly veils the complexities of which he writes, just until the poet sharply corrects our deception." Linda Stiles Those deceptions Ms. Stiles refers to above often come from Reuben's use of the child's point of view. As a child, the narrator, and reader by proxy, is looking up at the absurdity of adult interests and actions with a renewed curiosity. The narrator misses the cut of the barber's words when asked … [Read more...]