And . . . we’re back!
There’s really no excuse for how long it took to get to this point in announcing the Open Reading chapbook selections. We were just slow in getting through the manuscripts initially, slow to notify finalists (though we did hit our targeted deadline), really slow to revisit all the finalists’ manuscripts, and then slow to make final decisions and notifications.
From the initial pool of submissions, we picked a handful of finalists. I felt the ideal (manageable) number of chapbooks would be three, which we’re gonna try to schedule into the Summer. So . . .
First up, this Spring, will be GBP veteran and horror-poetry-queen Juliet Cook, followed by Jessica Purdy and Karen Kilcup. We’ll have more details on release dates next month. We may also experiment with having chapbooks printed professionally which, of course, has an upside and downside. They’ll look better (and potentially have more capacity to be longer), but they’ll like cost more. Before we pull the trigger on such a change, we’ll need to do a cost-analysis.
We’ll also be evaluating our plans for future open readings. Look, I think I’m almost at the point of going to a solicitation-only model for getting new chapbooks and/or only publishing authors we’ve worked with already. Most of the GBP veterans are great poets and great people, and I’d happily publish every manuscript they send. A lot of the submissions we get through open readings are from people who don’t know the press, and it’s hard to find manuscripts that capture the magic I’ve seen under our banner. That said . . . there have been some surprises, so I’m hesitant to stop doing open readings all together.
Thanks, everyone, for your patience. And thanks to everyone who sent us work.