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Dead on arrival

Today’s mail brought copies of the Elkhorn, Wisconsin Popcorn Press anthology, The Hungry Dead, edited by Popcorn’s founder, Lester Smith. The delightfully disgusting cover was designed by Smith’s daughter, Katheryn. The collection is cool from several perspectives (aside from the fact that my poem “The Last Supper” is included). First, Lester solicited submissions during October via social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook, as well as a sharp website, and then announced the chosen selections on Halloween with a mockup of the book ready for printing. Planning, executing, and printing a book this quickly is a crazy challenge, but the proof is in the blood pudding, as they say. The Hungry Dead is a classy production: sixty-five works of poetry and fiction from eighteen authors, including several well-versed Wisconsinites familiar to us such as John Lehman, Sarah Busse, Michael Kriesel, and Dead editor Lester Smith. The Hungry Dead is available from Popcorn Press and Amazon (you can peek at the contents with Amazon’s Look Inside the Book feature).

Popcorn Press is scary hungry again!

Published October 6, 2010 Literature , Poetry Leave a Comment
Tags: Lester Smith, literary contest, Popcorn Press, The Hungry Dead, Vampyr Verse

Enterprising Wisconsin micropublisher Popcorn Press is once again sponsoring an ambitious October literary contest. Last year, press owner and editor Lester Smith accepted vampire-themed poetry and fiction submissions during the month for an anthology, Vampyr Verse, readied by Halloween and, within a matter of days, delivered to the public in a quality printed edition. This year’s theme is “the hungry dead,” which doesn’t preclude vampires, but widens the cemetery gate to include zombies, ghosts, and, in the words of the contest website, “other dead things that want to eat you.” Find all the details and contest rules, as well as an easy-to-use online submission page, at hungrydead.com.

Verse Wisconsin Publishers Lunch

Published March 20, 2010 Poetry 2 Comments
Tags: Arbor Vitae, B.J. Best, Centennial Press, Charles Nevsimal, Echoes, Edenfred, Erik Richardson, F.J. Bergmann, Fireweed Press, Jason A. Smith, Jeri McCormick, John Lehman, Lester Smith, Linda Aschbrenner, Linda Lenzke, Little Eagle Press, Mobius, Our Lives, Paula Anderson, Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, Popcorn Press, Ralph Murre, Rod Clark, Rosebud, Sarah Busse, Shoshauna Shy, Signs and Wonders, The Village Poet, Verse Wisconsin, Wendy Vardaman, Wisconsin People & Ideas

A terrific Saturday afternoon of good food and literary talk with small press publishers at Edenfred arts residency in Madison. The event was sponsored by Verse Wisconsin, a newly launched poetry magazine edited by Wendy Vardaman and Sarah Busse. The magazine is a reboot and redesign of Linda Aschbrenner’s much-admired Free Verse, which flourished for over ten years until Linda decided to pass the torch last year.

Wendy Vardaman and Sarah Busse were kind enough to spend a few minutes talking with Coffee Spew at Edenfred about their co-editorship of Verse Wisconsin:

Thanks is due Edenfred executive director David Wells for preparing a startlingly upscale gourmet lunch. See below for photos of the attendees:

Left to right: Jerry and Paula Anderson (Echoes), B.J. Best (Arbor Vitae), Sarah Busse (Verse Wisconsin), Rod Clark (Rosebud), John Lehman (The Village Poet).

Left to right: Linda Lenzke (Our Lives), Jeri McCormick (Fireweed Press), Ralph Murre (Little Eagle Press), Charles Nevsimal (Centennial Press), Erik Richardson (Signs and Wonders).