As we wake up to our five-year anniversary, I want to thank you for helping us celebrate. We have a lot to be grateful for from the last year and many exciting projects coming up.
After last year’s anniversary, we published Donald Quist’s For Other Ghosts, which was met with critical acclaim. We couldn't agree more with the reviewers who described Donald's collection as, "varied in tone from poignant to painful," and, "thought-provoking, funny, and even wise."
2019 has been a year of preparation. Though we didn't release a title this year, we've been busy paving the way for things to come. We ran our first Book Prize this year and discovered a stunning wealth of talented authors. We're in the process of selecting finalists and can't wait to see what our guest judge, T Kira Madden, has to say about the winning manuscripts. We have also signed new authors for long-term projects, which we will announce as their projects develop. We've been lucky to add a new team member this year, Michaela Hanna Cutter, who is helping us reach more readers by getting our books into libraries across the country.
We have also been preparing for the release of our next book, Erin Pringle’s Hezada! I Miss You. We'll be releasing the beautiful cover designed by our Art Director, LK James, next month. Keep an eye out for presales around the same time! Our multi-talented in-house publicist, Phoebe Waldron, has created two trailers for the book which will also be coming out. Erin's will be our first book of 2020 (February) and if you miss presales you'll be able to get a copy at AWP San Antonio in March. Come see us at booth #1422 with Deep Vellum—another amazing Texas publisher.
In our constant quest to elevate the stories of the underrepresented, we’ve turned our focus this year to a particularly invisible group—the incarcerated—both their personal stories and how they are able to express themselves. Next week, we will be launching our annual essay series curated by Tulsa, OK English teacher, Karen Workun. She pulled these insightful essays from her work with Poetic Justice, which is an Oklahoma-based non-profit that offers restorative writing workshops to incarcerated women.
After volunteering with the Inside Books Project, we realized there are a number of restrictions on how incarcerated individuals can get notebooks. In an effort to make writing materials accessible to those in prison we have produced a creative writing guide which will be made available for free to inmates through groups such as the Inside Book Project. We will be launching a fundraiser this fall to help us cover printing costs so we can make this resource readily available.
If you're local to Austin, come see us at Texas Book Festival in October! We'll be tabling during the day and hosting a Lit Crawl event at the the side bar (602 E 7th St, Saturday, October 26, 7:30 pm) and would love to see you there.
Our continued success is a direct result of your continued support, and we're honored each year to hit this milestone with the amazing network of writers and readers who value what we do.
With sincere gratitude,
Wendy M. Walker & Tatiana Ryckman