Littoral Books
In 1975, Littoral Books began as a project to publish more female authors. How does that mission still reflect in your work today?
Our mission was to publish only female authors because at the time women were excluded from many male-dominated publications. Thankfully, this situation has changed dramatically over the years, and so when we revived Littoral in 2018, the original mission changed, and we didn’t have publishing female writers as a goal. A glance at our list reveals that most of our writers still are women, and that may be because we began our new incarnation with books by women, especially Balancing Act 2: An Anthology of Poems by 50 Maine Women. However, our other poetry and short fiction anthologies include work by male as well as female poets and writers, and we have just published a book by Gary Lawless, How The Stones Came to Venice. Now, in 2022, we are more interested in the quality of the work than the gender of the writer, and are always looking for the best work we can find by Maine writers, whatever their gender may be.
As one of the founders of MWPA, how has the organization impacted your work as a Maine publisher?
I am very proud of being one of the founders of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance in1975. I think it is noteworthy that MWPA was not begun by writers but by a group of small press publishers. The idea was for publishers to join together in an alliance in order to apply collectively for grants and buy a printing press that we could all use. The printing press never materialized, but the alliance held and over the years has remained a hub of communication for publishers and writers throughout the state as well as a network of mutual support. Littoral Books has always relied on the excellent staff at MWPA for advice, assistance, and expertise, and for their good work in keeping us all in touch, publishers and writers alike. They provide us all with a strong and united organization and that same mutual aid we aimed for back in 1975. It’s an incredible achievement for Maine to have such an organization and we at Littoral are always grateful for its continued existence.
You recently published WAIT: POEMS FROM THE PANDEMIC. What was it like to work on a project that reflects on the pandemic while still dealing with the effects of the pandemic?
We felt a sense of urgency about putting WAIT together last year. It seemed a necessary project, a necessary book, not just for the poets and artists involved, but for all of us who were struggling with the pandemic, and feeling alone and isolated and frightened. Jeri Theriault came to us with the suggestion in December, 2020, and we said yes immediately. She sent out a letter of invitation to poets and artists in January, with a February 1st deadline for submissions. A very narrow window, but we wanted the raw poems, ones that spoke directly from the place where we were at that moment, a place of distress, loneliness, confusion, despair, or maybe hope. Jeri was stunned by the amount of work she received and how powerful it was, how intense and honest. She completed work on it during February, we sent it to our designer in early March– she also worked quickly on it – and we had copies in hand a few weeks later. It was the fastest book we ever made, three months from start to finish, and yet I think it is a strong book and an important one. During that time, during the lockdown, the quarantine, the horrible isolation we were all experiencing, the sheer terror of those days, we knew it was essential to create a book of poems and art that would be a means of sharing the feelings we all had and the fears we all had and to offer as well those slight moments of hope and joy. It is hard now, a year later, to recall how truly terrifying those pre-vaccine days were, but every time I pick up a copy of WAIT I remember and I am grateful again to Jeri and all the poets and artists who shared the experience of it with each other and with all of us.
You host a reading series called “Littorally Alive!” What’s it like to bring authors in front of an audience? How has the community responded?
Littorally Alive! was the idea of one of our writers, Robert Diamante, who felt that in lieu of live readings and events – made impossible because of the covid pandemic – Zoom technology would allow us to create a virtual space for writers to connect with each other and the literary community. So “Littorally Alive!” was born, and it was greeted enthusiastically. We created programs that offered poetry readings and fiction readings, interviews with writers, and conversations between writers and audience members, and these were all met with enthusiasm from those who participated and as well as those who attended. Best of all, they were lots of fun. During the worst of the pandemic, people looked forward to our monthly Zoom events which reached all parts of the state and even beyond the state’s borders. We recorded them and they can be seen on the Littorally Alive! page of our website, www.littoralbooks.com.
Is there an event, publication or any kind of change happening in the next year that you are particularly excited about and would like to share?
We’re looking forward to the Maine Lit Fest that MWPA is planning for the fall, and we’re excited about two novels we’re publishing this year, Monkey by Agnes Bushell and Soft Features by Gillian Burnes, and Claire Millikin’s poetry collection Elegacia. As a press, we’re reaching out beyond Maine’s borders by joining national organizations for small, independent presses. Our goal for the year is to bring Littoral’s books to the attention of a wider audience while still working hard to get them onto the shelves of Maine’s public libraries and bookstores.
Littoral Books
P.O. Box 4533
Portland, ME 04112