As an independent bookseller, I’m really disappointed about this. Indies need all the help they can get these days, and to have a community like Goodreads fall into the corporate hands of a small-business-crusher like Amazon…
We’re losing allies by the day. I can only hope that loyal readers will vote with their dollars to keep local bookstores in business.(I also posted this on Goodreads. It’s likely to be my final post there, as news of the sale has made me want to jump ship.)
Live it.
This.
Come to the Small Press Book Expo tomorrow at Richard Hugo House, party with us tonight at The Stranger’s Verse/Chapter/Verse, featuring Sherman Alexie!
Saw this edition of The Hobbit at Target last night. Reminded me of The Avian Gospels (cause, you know, no one before us had thought to design a book like a Bible).
Who doesn’t like a book with gold-gilded pages?
Adam Novy, author of The Avian Gospels, reads tonight with fellow Hobart author, Dylan Nice, author of Other Kinds. They’ll be joined by Cameron Pierce, author of Lost in Cat Brain Land, and Richard Chiem, author of You Private Person.
See them at Naked City Brewery in Greenwood at 6.
(Source: g-andotherletters)
Our new friend Rosie, a masters student at Australian National University and intern at McSweeney’s, made us a stop on her very busy tour of the independent publishing scene in the Pacific Northwest. Cheers for cross-continental collaboration!
“I don’t mind being out front telling people, ‘Hey, if you care about having a bookstore in your community, guess what? You have to buy books there. It helps the tax base, it creates jobs. We’re not just a showroom for Amazon.’ ”
Ann Patchett quoted by John Wilkens, San Diego Union-Tribune (San Diego, California, USA), May 8, 2012.
Obviously, we love this. Some of our favorite local indies are Elliott Bay Book Company, Spine & Crown, Third Place Books, and Wessel and Lieberman.
Also, did you know we’re fundraising outside of Kickstarter this year so we didn’t have to give a share to Amazon?
(via wordpainting)
Two story library in circa 1908 house. I am in love. Anyone want to spot me the million buckaroonies to purchase the house that goes with it?
New APRIL headquarters?
Today in Stuff #1
Welcome to the first edition of Today in Stuff, our mostly literary-themed roundup of things that caught our eye.
First off, congrats to a boatload of super-talented Portland writers. The 2012 Oregon Book Awards Finalists were released today, and some of our favorite writers (and people) made the cut. Among the cream of the crop are
- Aidan Koch (in the Pacific Northwest College of Art Graphic Literature Award) for her beautiful The Whale (Gaze Books);
- Matthew Stadler (in the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction) for Chloe Jarren’s La Cucaracha (Publication Studios) [and yes, I am aware that his ‘website’ is a sorta overwhelming internet text experiment essentially saying that, no, Matthew Stadler is not on the internet; you should go there anyway]
- Emily Kendall Frey (in the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry) for The Grief Performance (Cleveland State University Press)
- Carl Adamshick (in the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry) for Curses and Wishes (Louisiana State University Press) [Carl Adamshick also runs the excellent Tavern Books]
- Lidia Yuknavitch (in the Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction) for The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books)
- Sarahlee Lawrence (in the Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction) for River House (Tin House)
There are plenty of other great finalists; check them all out here.
A little bit of stop-motion video love for you as well, to soothe the passing of a Monday. Try not to think about much work this took.
(Via GalleyCat and Goodreads)
The Pilot
Hey there, and thanks for stopping by. This is the blog for Authors, Publishers and Readers of Independent Literature, or APRIL for short. APRIL is a week-long festival in Seattle dedicated entirely to independent and small press literature. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting our schedule of events, launching a Kickstarter campaign and creating an official, big-boy (or girl) website. This blog will keep you updated on the day-to-day stuff in APRIL, and will generally be a place for us to bullshit about independent literature, among other things.
To wit:
“Because he’s MY butler.”
A bit of history: APRIL’s first form (let’s call it pupal) emerged at Pilot Books in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, where Summer Robinson arranged to have more than 30 readings in the store over the course of a single month. She called it Small Press Bookfest 2010, a nod to Northwest BookFest.
The next year, she brought Tara Atkinson and Willie Fitzgerald on board for the next step: taking books out of Pilot and into the city at large. We changed the name to Small Press Festival (SPF) and held readings, parties, zine-making workshops and our Independent Press Book Expo, a video of which you can check out here.
Shortly after SPF 2011 wrapped up, Pilot Books had to close its doors. Then we realized there was another SPF: the venerable Solo Performance Festival at the Theatre Off Jackson (sorry about that guys!). It was, as you could imagine, a tough month for all involved.
We dusted ourselves off, though, and we’re looking for APRIL to pick up where Pilot Books left off: bringing fabulous independent literature—fiction, poetry, essays; the good stuff—to you, the lovely and talented reader. Summer has stepped down as director (she’s got an awesome new full-time job) and we’ve taken on the gregarious and charming Kellen Braddock to the leadership team. Different lineup, same bookish behavior.
So yes, this is the pilot episode of APRIL. But we’ve been around the block a few times.
Check back in soon for updates, reviews, interviews, indie press news and more. Until then, here’s some sound advice:
