

Small is beautiful
Independent presses make books the old-fashioned way
Thursday, June 26,2008 BY SARAH GOLIN Star-Ledger Staff
THE CONTENT is complex: suicide, war, love and illness.
The format, however, is simple: black ink on white paper.
In an era of streaming video, e-mailed images and audio downloads, this format -- the printed page -- may seem paltry. Across New Jersey, however, small presses are producing beautifully crafted books of poetry and prose, and in this corner of the world, words still matter. With original artwork gracing their covers, and quality paper and bindings, caring hands leave a mark on each volume.
"You are not doing it for the money, God knows. You aren't doing it for fame. You are doing it for reasons you can't explain," says Ed Foster, a poet and founding editor of the nonprofit Talisman House in Jersey City. "If you don't do it, the core of the culture rots. It is a very serious thing to do."
Talisman publishes avant-garde poets, as well as criticism and poetry in translation. Grants from foundations and donations from individuals help cover the costs of producing about 10 books a year.
Small-book distributors allow publishers like Talisman to bring their books to local stores and compete in an industry dominated by retail chains and publishing conglomerates. Sales are mostly through local bookshops and online retailers like amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com.
For a work of poetry, selling 2,000 copies is considered quite good in the U.S., says Foster, who is also a professor and administrator at Stevens Institute of Technology.
"It's like the Dark Ages," he says. "You just have to go through it."
Publisher Joan Handler saw her mission as twofold when she founded CavanKerry Press, based in Fort Lee, in 1999: to publish beautiful books with fine cover art on quality paper and to increase the audience for poetry.
"Poetry is probably the most intimate of the literary arts," says Handler. "It's like having a really good friend -- it speaks from the soul of the poet to the soul of the reader, and the process is healing."
Handler knows a bit about healing. She is a psychologist who went back to school in her 40s to earn an MFA in creative writing.
CavanKerry, a nonprofit organization funded by a family foundation and other grants, tries to increase the audience for literature by donating books to shelters, libraries, prisons and to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also sponsors readings in schools, nursing homes, prisons and other locations.
Handler isn't intimidated, however, by new media. CavanKerry Press has an extensive website that allows browsers to sample poems from each book and view biographies of each writer. Audio clips of authors reading from their works are planned.
Another mission at CavanKerry is to publish books by authors who have experienced illness or disability. Medical schools, including UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, use these books to train medical students. "To the Marrow," by Robert Sedler, chronicles the author's bone marrow transplant, while "Body of Diminishing Motion," by Joan Seliger Sidney, explores living with multiple sclerosis.
"Through writing, we make the experience of illness something more than the side effects and the list of symptoms," says Handler.
Roxanne Hoffman started her publishing venture not to mend a troubled world but to aid fellow poets.
As a spoken-word poet, Hoffman says her work is somewhat ephemeral. The audience experiences it, and then it is gone. She started her Hoboken-based press, Poets Wear Prada -- named after her signature poem -- to publish poetry chapbooks. These small, softcover books allow audiences to revisit the work of performance poets.
In 2006, the company produced three books, followed by 10 in 2007, and an expected 10 to 12 this year.
The press is incorporated as a small for-profit company, but is a break-even proposition.
Hoffman believes new media can extend her work as a performance poet and publisher.
"We actually did a podcast in April, basically in support of National Poetry Month, about poets and performing, and had one in May on mothers and motherhood. We are up on YouTube, and I think it's wonderful," she says.
Unlike large publishers, independent presses can't afford to give authors a big advance when they sign a book contract. Instead, they typically pay royalties when books are sold, with an occasional small advance. The smallest publishers with book runs of a few hundred copies, like Poets Wear Prada, pay in free or discounted books, which authors can resell for a profit.
Barbara Worton isn't concerned about books becoming passé. She recently launched Great Little Books in Glen Rock, which released its first title in the fall. Worton first worked in book publishing in the 1970s, and has been a writer and editor ever since. But her current business started as a kind of dream.
"I don't sleep very well. For 10 years, I have been doing three pages of writing at night before I go to sleep, as a way to write myself to sleep. I started calling the process 'sleep writing.'" Worton used this material for the company's first book, "Bedtime Stories, the Short, Long and Tall Tales of a Sleepwriter," released in October.
Great Little Books has two books coming out this fall, and three next year. The small for-profit company has been funded by Worton and her business partners and also through small business loans.
Worton sees her work as a writer, editor and publisher as part of the same continuum.
"Writing is like my DNA; it's just a part of me, and one thing feeds another. I've always done all of it. That's why I have a hard time sleeping."
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Fine print
A sampling of recent titles from some of New Jersey's small presses:
"Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry," edited by Zhang Er and Cheng Dongdong, from Talisman House, Jersey City. An overview of the current literary scene in China, this book includes 24 contemporary poets with about six to eight poems in both English and Chinese. ($25.95, available at barnesandnoble.com and bookshops).
"Bedtime Stories: The Short, Long and Tall Tales of a Sleepwriter," by Barbara Worton, from Great Little Books, Glen Rock. A series of stories, fanciful and serious, written as an aid to sleep. ($14.95, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and greatlittlebooksllc.com)
"Elegy for the Floater," by Teresa Carson of Jersey City, from CavanKerry Press, Fort Lee. Poems concerning a family in distress, including the book's most important character, the speaker's brother, who killed himself. ($16, available at barnesandnoble.com, University Press of New England at upne.com)
"Phased," by George Held from Poets Wear Prada, Hoboken. This poetry chapbook is a meditation on the moon and all its phases. ($10, available at poetswearpradanj.home.att.net/)
"The Spirit and The Word, a Theory of Spirituality in Africana Literary Criticism," by Georgene Bess Montgomery, from Africa World Press, Trenton. The author argues that while diasporic Africans have been cut off from their memories of an African past, there is a common recognition of certain images, symbols and ideas. ($29.95, available at amazon.com and africaworldpressbooks.com)
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