A Panel Presentation and Book Fair
ALL LEVELS
For writers with a finished manuscript, deciding how to publish, and where to send it, can be daunting. What are your chances of getting it published at a large press? What will the experience of working with an editor/publisher be? What cut will you get from the profits, if any? And with so many presses to choose from, how do you decide the best avenue for publishing? Meet three small Northeastern press publishers who are working hard to get the best work out there.
In this panel, the 4 panelists—Agnes Bushell of Littoral Books, Maya Stein of Toad Hall Editions, Buzz Poole of Sandorf Passage, and Spencer Smith of Seapoint Books— will discuss how they started their presses, how to write a successful letter of inquiry, whether writers sending to small presses need an agent, what you can expect from a small press vs. a larger one (benefits as well as drawbacks), what they look for when deciding what to publish and what to expect out of the process of publishing a book with a small press. The panel will conclude with a Q&A session and a book fair!
+ PLEASE NOTE This presentation and book fair will take place In-PERSON at USM Portland Campus’s USM Osher Map Library, Cohen Center Classroom, Glickman 103.
Agnes Bushell is one of the founders of Littoral Books and is currently its co-director. She is a novelist and Professor Emerita in Liberal Arts at Maine College of Art. Littoral Books is a small press based in Portland, Maine. It was founded in 1975 by members of the Portland Women’s Group for the express purpose of publishing the work of women writers. Littoral Books was one of the founding presses of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and several of its members served on MWPA’s first board of directors. The press went into hibernation in 1976, but forty-three years later, in 2018, it renewed publication. Littoral Books is now committed to publishing quality books in a variety of genres by writers of all genders from Maine and New England.
Buzz Poole is the co-founder and publisher of the South Portland-based nonprofit Sandorf Passage, which released its first title in March 2021. Over the past twenty years, he has edited dozens of critically acclaimed books. He is the author of Workingman's Dead, which was published by Bloomsbury as part of the "33 1/3" series, and he has written about books, music, art, and culture for numerous media outlets, including The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, Pitchfork, Print, and Literary Hub.
Spencer Smith is publisher of Seapoint Books + Media, a multi award-winning publisher in Brooklin, Maine. Seapoint Books publishes mostly nonfiction books, many of them are oversize four-color books. Seapoint is distributed by National Book Network and our books are available through every bookstore in the US and Canada and all internet sites like Amazon. They are available in the UK and western Europe. He has been an editor at Fodors Travel Guides, an editor and subsidiary rights director at David MacKay Company, a club director at Book-of-the-Month Club, President of Upstart Publishing Company, and president and publisher of Northeast Flavor magazine. Seapoint Books looks for manuscripts and authors who want to be involved in the process of publishing and marketing their books. Seapoint authors want their books to compete in very way with the finest books published. Seapoint also produces custom books for clubs and organizations.
Maya Stein of Toad Hall Editions is a Ninja poet, writing guide, and creative adventuress. She has published several collections of poetry, a quartet of writing prompt booklets, and most recently, served as editor of Grief Becomes You, a collection of writing focusing on loss, with more than 60 contributors. Her most recent book is The Poser: 38 Portraits Reimagined, a series of contemporary portrait re-enactments, interviews with artists, and personal essays. Maya has kept a longstanding short-form poetry practice—"10-Line Tuesday"—since June of 2005, sending a weekly 10-line poem to more than 1,800 subscribers each week. She lives in the mid-coast region in a house named Toad Hall, and is current Poet Laureate of Belfast Maine,
REGISTRATION
This talk is free for MWPA members and $10 for nonmembers. When you register below, you will receive an automatic email confirming your registration immediately, as well as an email with the link to join the talk on Saturday, January 14.
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