When Things Fall Apart: A Few Sad Announcements

You may wonder what kind of sad/bad news I’ve been alluding to over the past month. This news has put me in a bit of a tailspin, I’ll admit. I didn’t want to make the announcement too soon, or talk about things that weren’t my business, but the fact is that, for reasons beyond anyone’s control, my wonderful press, Kistune Books, is closing at the end of the year and so my second book She Returns to the Floating World is going out of print in December and my third book of fairy tale poetry and art, Unexplained Fevers, which was going to come out in 2013, is now orphaned, cancelled, all the terrible words. (And Yes, I am actively looking for presses who might welcome sassy fairy tale collections with ready-to-go art and slamming blurbs AND a press that will put my second book She Returns to the Floating World back into print…If you are interested, e-mail me Jeannine dot Gailey at live dot com and I promise I will work like crazy to make your adoptions successful ones!)
Anyway, this is what a lot of poets are facing these days. Tiny presses who rely on one main publisher/editor are always in danger, for the reason that these people – for health, financial, or other life reasons – aren’t invulnerable, and so these presses disappear. Even university presses – as I discussed in a recent post – aren’t protected. Even if you land a big press, your editor might quit, they might decide to quit publishing poetry for financial reasons….yes, I get it, universe, poets and their books are vulnerable. We are. We can be on top of the world one second and desperately searching around for a hero(ine) to ride in on a white horse the next. It’s a riches-to-rags fairy tale, in which all the things you hoped for suddenly come crashing around you. And it’s happened to better poets than me for less noble reasons (remember, for instance, the Zoo Press fiasco?) before in the last few years.
So it’s been hard for me to be rah-rah and chin-up about poetry. Even writing this post is making me tear up. I don't want to be one of those bloggers who pretends everything is always great; part of the journey of being a writer is the hard stuff, the stuff that knocks you back and makes you want to quit. And in the long run, things aren't so bad - I still have great opportunities ahead (she says optimistically.) I do wish I could wave a magic fairy wand and make the problems behind Kitsune Book's closure (a very sad situation on its own) go away. If only. But we can go only go forward and try to make the best of the situation.