back from portland

and i got a little sick on my last day there and have been hung in bed since got back. ugh, i did all my reading and an essay for class tomorrow but i will probably not go.

portland was wonderful…i got to meet some amazing folks: Jules Boykoff, Kaia Sand, Lisa Kanae, Deborah Meadows, Lissa Wolsack, Susana Gardner (yeah she was there all the way from switzerland), Tiare Picard, Gaye Chan, Lian Litvin, Rodney Koeneke, Maryrose Larkin, and Susan Schultz (who was the only person i had met before). i read in front of more than 100 people sitting on the floor, around the podium…crazy. here’s 2 pics of the audience right before i read…i was super nervous, but i tried my best:

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and yo, the new achiote books have been printed and they are awesome! dont forget to come to our big event on TUESDAY at INTERSECTION. info below or click this link. please come and support us if you can. the fall chapbooks will be released at the event, and then will be on public sale after thanksgiving:

Independent Press Spotlight:
Small Desk Press & Achiote Press

Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 7:30pm
$5-$15/sliding scale, general admission

Intersection’s ongoing Independent Press Spotlight series highlights the innovative, exciting work being done by local independent presses and publishing houses – both large and small. Intersection brings together presses and publishing houses whose missions and author rosters complement each other, providing a number of new opportunities to present the broad range of work published in our own backyard to our community. In addition to featuring writers who have been published by these presses and publishing houses, we also feature the Publishers and Editors themselves, who come on stage to talk about the history and mission of the work they do. Working in conjunction with our award-winning resident theatre company Campo Santo, we also present dramatic, staged readings of works from the catalogs of these presses and publishing houses. Some of the over thirty presses and publishing houses who have been featured in our Independent Press Spotlight series since early 2004 include Aunt Lute Books, Heyday Books, McSweeney’s, AK Press, Kitchen Sink, Last Gasp Press, ZYZZYVA, Apogee Press, City Lights, and Zoetrope: All-Story.

This evening features two presses established just recently. Small Desk Press (est. 2006) publishes writing by emerging artists and seeks to support writing that challenges the conventional divisions of experimental, narrative, poetry and/or prose. Small Desk Press seeks to present an eclectic aesthetic that gives primacy to no one school or style of writing, and features readings by Dustin Heron & Ali Lawrence.

Achiote Press (est. 2006) publishes two chapbooks each season: a single-author chapbook and a chap-journal featuring poetry, prose, essay, or translation by authors from diverse cultural and aesthetic backgrounds. Named after the Achiote plant, which represents the unrepresentable, transnational, migratory, and adaptive, Achiote Press features readings by Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero & Truong Tran

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