KS: I am holding in my hands a copy of so she had the world, a collaboration between the poet Deborah Keenan and the artist Susan Solomon. I tracked down your booth at AWP-Minneapolis after hearing Deborah talk about the process of working with you and the visual artist.
The chapbook is small, just a handful. The paintings are startling saturated, some abstract landscapes. One page is edged by an impressionistic stained-glass window, with a kind of mottled sky making a background for the poem. Most poems are white-backgrounded with a juxtaposing painting. The book is hand sewn on beautiful paper. I am a bit haunted by the collection, the deft hand at work in the poems and the vivid images.
What kind of projects does Red Bird look for?
SH: It is such a beautiful collection and when you talk about the size of it, the vibrant colors, the way it is assembled, how it feels in your hands, you’re getting at the core goal we have for every chapbook we publish–we want every chapbook to be not only a collection of compelling writing, but also a work of art. By this I don’t mean to say that every collection we publish is illustrated in some way or that every collection is a collaboration between an author and artist or a work by an author/artist.
One of the core things that our editors look for when reading manuscripts is some sort of cohesion– an image, a theme, a thread, a building block. This is as important to us as language, syntax, style, subject matter because it underpins every phase from editing to design to publication. Ultimately these building blocks come to inform the physical size, the shape, layout, font choice, paper, use of images, the color and even the type of thread we use when binding a chapbook.
The majority of what we publish we receive through our open reading periods. Each of our editors reads all the manuscripts for his or her genre plus any mixed genre collections and selects up to three manuscripts to publish the following year. Looking back on recent years I’d say less than 20% of what we publish in a given year would be what we refer to as special project–meaning a project someone on our team decided to take on above and beyond their selected manuscripts.
I can’t say that we look for any one aesthetic or voice or school of writing. We’re open to author and artist collaborations, just as we’re open to authors working only in text as we’re open to authors working in both visual and written mediums. We’re equally open to emerging and established authors. We don’t mind if a collection crosses genre lines–we’re happy to look at hybrids, collections that defy categorization. We think everything has possibility and we start from that perspective when considering the work we receive.
KS: Why the chapbook? Is it more limiting or less limiting to have defined your press in this way?
SH: There are a few reasons we’ve chosen the chapbook as our main focus… The form is very accessible–even with today’s hectic pace, you can typically pick up a chapbook and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. I think its shorter length is less daunting for emerging writers when they sit down and think about putting together a first collection. And the length allows established writers to make brief explorations of a theme or idea. Chapbooks also lend themselves well to art books and author/artist collaborations. And, of course, it’s a form that can be produced affordably, allowing us to provide more of the sales proceeds to our authors.
Even though chapbooks are our primary focus, we don’t feel limited by it. As a form it really seems to be experiencing a resurgence in the broader literary community and we feel very fortunate to be part of that. We’re finding independent bookstores open to carrying chapbooks and online distribution has worked well for us–we get orders from all over the globe (and manuscripts, too).
If there’s one drawback to the chapbook, I think it’s the perception that chapbooks are a niche for poetry. I identify primarily as poet and I think chapbooks are great for poetry, but I think chapbooks work wonderfully for other forms, too. We don’t see as much fiction and nonfiction as we’d like–especially nonfiction. That’s something I’d like to see change–and it seems to be, slowly. We’ve certainly been working trying to promote the chapbook across genres. We even released our first children’s chapbook last year.
The shorter form allows us to release multiple titles in a year which, in turn, allows us to fulfill our mission of introducing more aspiring and inspiring writers and artists to a larger audience.
We’ve made broadsides and pamphlets in the past, and hope to work with those more in the future. We’ve done a star book and a map book. We’re considering micro-chapbooks and brainstorming some other ideas as well. Chapbooks may be our primary form, but our love of the book arts means we’re always thinking of and exploring new shapes and sizes, bindings, other forms.
KS: Tell us more about the children’s chapbook, and about a chapbook you worked on that you would like everyone to get for Christmas.
