Barry Gifford has become a special friend of the press. Initially, he was kind enough to support Steve Fisher’s book with a back cover blurb. Mr. Gifford’s first chap book with the press, The Strangest One of All, is a short narrative about a visit he took to the Bunker — a one-time residence for […]
Remember Joe Maynard’s Beet magazine? It was a small gem, published out of Brooklyn, New York, and I think I found a copy one day at Tower Records. Joe did a great job with Beet, and I wish it were still around. I first stumbled on to Tsaurah Litzsky and her “blessing poems” in Beet. […]
I’m not sure how or when I came across Joe Maynard. I’m positive I knew Beet before I knew Joe, and I’m thinking I got a hold of him after reading some of Tsaurah’s Blessing Poems in his little mag. We started a bit of correspondence not long after, and we kept it up for […]
In 1997 the synaesthesia press published Bad, mad and dying — a limited edition chap book featuring three writers: Alan Catlin, Errol Miller, and Jack Micheline. There were three different editions: 26 copies were lettered and had a cover with an original painting by Micheline; 1 – 50 numbered copies were signed by all three […]
From the Barry Miles book The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963, published by Grove: “…for a brief period — from just after the publication of Howl in 1957 until the building was sold in 1963 — it was home to Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, Peter Orlovsky, Harold Norse, and […]
Enemies and Friends by Tim O’Brien — two short stories published in a single volume and constructed in the dos รก dos format. A chap book printed in a dos a dos format, 6″ by 7″, 6 pages per side. Each story originally appeared in The Things They Carried. This is their first separate publication. […]
I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since Chris Offutt’s A Dog & His Boy was published. Mr. Offutt’s story was published in a very small run of fifty copies; I don’t think we need to say it was over-sold upon publication. There were also six author copies that weren’t mentioned on the colophon, and […]
It would be tough to accurately describe Charles Plymell’s importance to the Beat Generation, as well as to little magazines and small press publishing. He lived with Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in San Francisco in the early 1960s. It’s not enough to say he admired and was influenced by the Beats — his best […]
Robert Peters said of Roxie Powell’s first chapbook, Dreams of Straw, “anyone anxious for an original experience in poetry will love Dreams of Straw“. Non-workshop, non-Iowa, non-NY city-clever, non-anything. It’s rumored Allen Ginsberg carried one with him for years, and this is fact: Ginsberg paid for a second printing of the book. Roxie has published […]
There’s lots to say — and as much to keep quiet — about Jim Pritchard. His story, The Neighbors, ended up being published as the very first synaesthesia press chapbook. As a publisher, I was heavily influenced by the beat chapbooks from the mimeo era, and that was the initial idea for everything the press […]
