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Tuesday
02Mar2010

I love print, but I love books more

I thought nothing of it at the time, but it seems strange now to say that I published an e-book long before I ever read an e-book. However, I've spent the last couple weeks remedying that situation, reading the Henry James novel Roderick Hudson (a coming of age tale about a young American sculptor in Rome) on my iPhone. It took my a bit of time to get into it -- the story and reading on my phone -- but now 84.12% into the book I can say I'm quite pleased with both.

Let me say from the start, that with a background in fine art printing, graphic design, and book publishing, there should be no doubt that I love print. However, I love books more. And with an e-book, the distance between me and the book I want to read is cheaper (sometimes even free) and faster (almost always instantaneous) than ever before.

Moving beyond the obvious cost and convenience benefits, there are some other essential benefits to reading on my phone (with the free Stanza reader app) that cannot be overlooked:

  • I can look-up the meaning of a word with the touch of a finger. Though I don't have to know the exact meaning of cortile (an open, internal courtyard) or jocose (abounding in jokes, merry, sportive, humorous) to enjoy the book, I easily can.
  • I can make notes and view them at a glance, as well as in situ.
  • I can search. No more flipping around scanning pages for the quote I think I remember, no more wondering who some certain character is or when they first appeared, or when it was exactly that that thing happened that I remember reading about somewhere back in Chapter 2.

And last, but not least:

  • I have my phone, and so my book, with me everywhere.

Now of course, there are drawbacks. Though I haven't really experienced the eyestrain I thought I would, reading on my phone (or any other e-reader) will mean spending almost all of my day looking at a screen, and this shiny, backlit worldview had got to have negative impacts on my psyche if not on my eyes.

There's also the nerd factor as my phone becomes even more of an extension of me than it already was. My wife in particular, who's future livelihood depends at least in some way on the success of Hol and of e-books, would I think at this point contemplate destitution as a viable option over having a husband who brings his phone to bed every night.

And though I'm not going to get sappy over the smell of paper or the feel of a book in hand, there are also some subtler things lost in e-books worth mentioning. I miss being able to flip ahead to see how much farther it is to the next chapter or section break, and I miss the satisfaction of putting a just-finished book up on the shelf with the others. There are also social aspects missing too, like the fascination of seeing -- on shelves or on the train --  what other people are reading, not to mention the social and cultural importance of the independent booksellers whose existence is built around printed books, but whose value far exceeds those bound pages.

In the end though, it's been a positive first e-book experience. And though e-books won't replace my paperbacks, they will give me the benefit of vast new options when it comes to how, where, and what I might read.

Tuesday
23Feb2010

Ruscha in LA

I'm just finishing reading Ed Ruscha's Los Angeles by Alexandra Schwartz (MIT Press, 2010). Schwartz edited an earlier book of Ruscha's writing, Leave Any Information at the Signal (also by MIT Press, 2002) and her new book is the closest thing to a biography of the artist yet published. Using accessible language and a generally compelling story-line, Schwartz's well-researched book does well in examining the artist's role in four areas of culture: Pop Art, film, architecture, and, what I think can best be called, machismo. All are framed within their relationship to Los Angeles as well, though it's not clear to me that the book couldn't have also been titled Los Angeles' Ed Ruscha. Did he shape LA, or did LA shape him? Perhaps, in the end, the reason the man and the city are so entwined in the popular imagination, and the reason Schwart'z clever framework comes off as merely scratching the surface of inquiry into the connections, is that they inform one another equally. A perfect marriage of art and place. And in this book and the one previous, maybe also of artist and art historian.

Wednesday
17Feb2010

Giving away books for free: Act of desperation or marketing genius?

Following two very slow and frankly, very frustrating days at the CAA book and trade fair, we decided to take matters into our own hands. So, on the third and final day we offered a free Hol paperback to anyone that wanted one. One free paperback, of their choice, absolutely free. The only thing I asked in return was that people also take my business card and email me to let me know what they thought about the book after they'd had a chance to read it.

By the end of the short, five and a half hour day, we'd given away 70 books and 70 business cards and sold an additional nine books to boot. The nine we sold were the hardcover "Documents of the 1913 Armory Show" and additional paperback copies to people who weren't satisfied with only the single free copy we gave them. Notably, we sold more this last day than we did the rest of the fair.

Giving away 70 books was, in the moment, undoubtedly an act of desperation. Though then again, participating in CAA as an exhibitor was never about individual book sales (or at least, not primarily about book sales) it was about exposure for our fledgling effort and networking with publishers and future potential authors and contributors. Establishing ourselves in the field as a source of great books on art.

On a practical level, the manufacturing cost of the books we gave away totalled to less than $250 for the lot. Hol will pay back some royalties to the authors and publishing teams that will add to that cost, but still, when a single, crappy, polyester-wrapped display table at CAA can cost $200 just to rent, spending a similar amount to give away quite a lot of books seems almost level-headed.

For our investment, we got some extra attention at the fair, we got our books into the hands of people who will hopefully enjoy them and tell their friends about them, and we didn't have to shoulder the emotional or financial cost of shipping boxes of unsold books back to the warehouse.

Even now, days later, I think it was a good move. In fact, keeping in mind some lessons-learned, I'd even consider doing it again:

  • It worked to have multiple free titles for people to choose from. Were I only to offer one free title, people would feel compelled to take it even if they're weren't really interested in reading it. Perhaps, like LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, we could host free title giveaways from several publishers who aren't otherwise at the show.
  • I like the pressure-less atmosphere created by not even asking for their email in return (just letting them take mine). But were I to do it again, I'd probably reverse this and ask that they leave their email. I'd add them to our mailing list (with the understanding that they can unsubscribe anytime), and I'd follow-up with them once, 3-4 months after the fact if I hadn't already heard from them.
  • I'm not sure what I'll do with the emails anyone sends me. I really liked encouraging people to email me personally, but would be great to get them to consider also posting their thoughts to their blog, our site, Amazon, IndieBound, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads or wherever they might be active online. That's something I can do in reply to emails, but I might find some way to formalize it more from the outset in the future.
  • Promotion. Given that it was a last-minute decision, I only posted on Twitter about it, and made some signs for the booth to get the word out. Obvisouly worked just fine as far as giving the books away, but I'd want to capitalize on the promotion more by getting some buzz going even among those not taking free books.
Tuesday
16Feb2010

CAA book & trade fair: The costs of participation

For publishers and others who have never participated in a trade conference like CAA, or for those who have or are planning to but who aren't familiar with the nuts-and-bolts specifics of planning it, I wanted to share with you as detailed as possible a rundown of the costs.

For businesses participating in association conferences and meetings, it isn't cheap. Aside from what can of course be very significant travel and lodging costs, booth materials and all the necessary shipping can add up quickly as well.

First, in large conference hotels or convention centers, trade shows fall under the purview of a number of unions. While this eliminates the need for a lot of labor on the part of the exhibitor, it also obviously adds to the cost. At the larger scales of most major publishers, working with union labor to set up booths, move freight, and install electric service, etc. is an unavoidable, but also often beneficial part of the game. At smaller scales though (like for Hol) we don't need, nor can we afford a lot of union labor. While I've found that at our size we are mostly allowed to do as we can on our own, it still takes some care and some cleverness to follow the provided guidelines and not step over the line as far as what should really be handled by union labor.

Aside from this, the major costs of exhibiting are booth rental, furniture rental and site services, and shipping. Booth rental is money that goes directly to the association and presumably helps to cover their costs for the space, if not also adding to the bottom line as to the profitability of the conference. While being the most obvious cost, it's only really half or even less of what the final total will be. The other pieces are furniture rental, site services, and shipping, most of which is controlled (I would say monopolized) by the "official" conference vendor, in this case, Champion Exposition Services. Of course I'm sure there are all sorts of very valid reasons for an association to work with a single vendor like this for a trade show, but the bottom line for the the exhibitor is that you either have to rent booth furniture from Champion at exorbitant prices like $170 for a single table or $100 for an arm chair, or you have to bring in your own, which at $142/100lbs for freight handling (not shipping, just handling the freight at the show site) is anything but money saving.

So, at the CAA conference both this year and last, my strategy has been to rent as little as possible (if only on principle) and to focus on finding a balance of what I could ship in, and what I could carry. Last year, the conference being in Los Angeles and within driving distance of Tucson, I brought everything with me and only paid Champion for freight handling (getting the stuff I'd brought from my car to my booth) and to install an electric outlet in the booth to run my laptop and LCD monitor. This year, the conference being in Chicago, I rented a couple things from Champion, brought quite a bit with me on the plane (thanks to Southwest for not charging for baggage and to REI for selling amazing fold-up aluminum tables), and had a very small shipment of books sent from our warehouse.

Still though, even being extraordinarily careful and restrained, the costs of exhibiting add up. What follows is a breakdown of what we spent, as well as a list of the things we would have been happy to have given the chance.

What we spent:

$1250 Rental of standard 8' x 10' booth through College Art Association
$124 Rental of two standard grey side chairs through the conference vendor, Champion Exposition Services
$191 Rental of 4' x 8' tack board, also through Champion
$105 Purchase of two 30" x 30" aluminum roll-up tables from REI.
$164 Printing of 500 2" x 7" promotional bookmarks at greenpostcards.com
$81 Printing of 9' x 1' "What's your favorite art book?" sign at FedEx Office
$37 Printing of 150 business cards
$23 Cost to ship 50lbs of Hol books from our New Jersey warehouse
$75 Cost Champion Expo charges to receive those same boxes and bring them to our booth
$100 Purchase of markers, pushpins, tablecloths and other supplies
$2150 TOTAL

 

What we might have spent:

$208 Extra it would have cost in receiving charges from Champion Expo to ship all of our books, rather than carrying 1/3 of them on the plane
$174 To have an electric outlet in the booth to run the laptop and LCD monitor from last year
$170 Rental of an 8' skirted table in place of the two folding tables I brought in
$156 Rental of different drapery for the back of the book to get rid of the rather unfortunate purple/white/grey combination CAA had chosen as the default
$118 Rental of a 30" round skirted table to put the chairs around and hold meetings and eat lunch
$180 Printing of a 36" x 48" banner and stand from FedEx Office, with the Hol logo prominently displayed
$975 High-speed internet at the booth, for one computer, for three days (if you can believe it, there was no other source of connection in the book and trade fair at all)
$1981 ADDITIONAL

 

Monday
15Feb2010

Your Favorite Books on Art

Congratulations to Auna from Cincinnati for winning our "What's your favorite book on art?" drawing for a $100 indie bookstore gift card!

In the end, we collected about 70 entries. The bulk came in-person at the conference, six more by email, and one lonely (but no less loved) entry showed up on Twitter. Taking out duplicates, illegibly written titles, and a few books too far outside Hol's normal scope of "writing about art", we were left with about 35 individual titles representing your favorite books on art.

While there are plenty of familiar faces -- Ways of Seeing, Art and Illusion, and Accidental Masterpieces -- there are also plenty you may not have considered before, or may not have even heard of. I've compiled them in the widget below and in our LibraryThing collection. (Or, you can download a spreadsheet of the complete list.) I'd love to continue adding titles. So, contest or not, if you think of a favorite book on art that should be on the list, please let us know!

Saturday
13Feb2010

Dear Diary: A Day at the CAA Book & Trade Fair

I kept a diary of the day's events at the Book and Trade Fair yesterday. Frankly, it was a hard day for us. Foot traffic in the area we're in was extremely light. And for reasons I haven't yet pinned down, I didn't feel like we (our books, the contest, or me) were effectively engaging the attendees that did come by. Not to say it was all bad, I'll elaborate more positively on our experience here in a future post. For now though, here's the blow by blow account, unedited, and with nothing left out save a lot of small talk with my booth neighbors and occasional visits from friends:

10:40 almost two hours into second day. Have only sold one book, Museum Legs, talked to one person, and gotten two contest entries ... slow.

10:55 met Frances Pohl, author of Framing America: A Social History of American Art (Thames & Hudson), one more contest entry.

11:04 one query on book price, Museum Legs.

11:55 a brisker hour. Three more entries, one longtime enthusiastic supporter, one introduction, one free book given: Thoughts on Landscape.

12:00 one word of encouragement.

12:11 two more entries.

Surprised by how many people ask us where we're based. Answer: Tucson.

12:15 met someone who'd ordered and received a free desk copy of Museum Legs, but hadn't read it yet.

12:27 two more entries. Trickling in.

12:32 suddenly deserted, must be lunch time.

12:40 a rep stopped by from a previously recommended mid-west independent sales group.

12:45 two more entries.

12:58 day took a surreal turn. Was just interviewed by Columbia College student for the CAA blog.

12:59 one more entry.

Has anyone written a book on the psychology of the art conference/trade show attendee?

1:10 small talk with fellow exhibitors.

1:52 eating lunch in the booth

1:53 one contest entry and a promise to checkout our website.

2:11 ready for, hoping for, the afternoon rush.

2:20 sold four books to our generous booth neighbor from the great state of Oklahoma. 20% professional discount and free shipping thrown in of course.

2:35-2:36 straightened booth.

2:48 first e-book fan, and only second person to comment on e-books at all. Says she'll buy from us particularly because they're drm-free.

2:56 hear the din of chatter from other aisles, see champagne flutes going by.

3:05 met a liberal arts college librarian/professor who already subscribed to our emails; sold a book, For & Against, to someone else.

3:06 there are only three people in our aisle not affiliated with a vendor.

3:07 make that two.

3:24 report from established press in one of the main aisles: "insanely busy".

3:50 sold one book, Whistler As I Knew Him, after convincing the buyer to pay full price ($9) to support a startup, independent publisher. She also entered contest.

4:18 still here

4:19 just got word there will be wine in the University of Chicago Press booth at 4:30.

4:30 wine's not until 5:15.

4:47 encouraged a Sargent fan to read Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting (MFA Publications), one more entry.

5:05 wine, early.

5:17 brief conversation with CAA official. She was surprised it was slow for us, says attendance is up from last year. Translation: it's not CAA's fault.

5:28 one more entry, no book sale.

5:29 implemented new display strategy, marked prices on books very prominently, starting at only $9! Very reasonable.

5:55 someone thanked me for letting them sit down and rest for a moment.

6:00 and that's all she wrote.

Thursday
11Feb2010

Win $100 Gift Card: What's your favorite book on art?

We want to know what your favorite book on art is. Tell us and you could win a $100 gift card good at any one of hundreds of independent bookstores across the country!

To enter, simply send the book's title and author by one of 4 ways:

We'll share some of our favorite entries while we're here at the College Art Association conference through Saturday, and will randomly draw one lucky winner to be announced Monday, February 15, 2010. One entry per person please.

Wednesday
10Feb2010

Proposed pairing at the Art Institute of Chicago

 

 

 

Top: Lawrence Weiner, TAKEN FROM HERE TO WHERE IT CAME FROM AND TAKEN TO A PLACE AND USED IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT CAN ONLY REMAIN AS A REPRESENTAION OF WHAT IT WAS WHERE IT CAME FROM, 1980. © Lawrence Weiner.

Bottom: Charles Ray, Hinoki, 2007. © 2007 Charles Ray. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Wednesday
10Feb2010

Welcome (back) to CAA

We've just arrived in Chicago for the annual College Art Association Conference. This is Hol's second year as an exhibitor in the Book and Trade Fair (our 2009 CAA posts) and we're thrilled to be back. Heck, we're thrilled to still be a company a year after our first public foray. Not that there's any real danger of us disappearing anytime soon, but these are eggshell times for everyone -- startup publishing company or not -- and it does feel like a bit of a milestone to be back. We don't take it for granted.

Setting up the Hol Art Books booth

Although today was a setup day for the exhibitors, and only a percentage of them are yet on-hand, it's nice to already be seeing some familiar faces. (Folks from CAA itself, from Penn State University Press, and Brepols, not to mention some familiar booths like Actar D and my booth neighbors from last year, the Henry Moore Institute.) Though admittedly, when I first walked into the hotel lobby where the conference is being held, my first reaction was "Ack, art historians!" They're a distinguished group. My lovely wife included.

My other exclamation of the day came when I found out that there is no internet or cellular service in trade fair hall and, I believe, in the rest of the conference as well. In fact, it seems the closest opportunity might be three floors, and multiple escalators up to the hotel lobby. So while the Art History Newsletter's point that this would be the first extensively tweeted CAA conference was a good one, it may not hold in the face of a baffling lack of network connection. Never fear technophobes, in the Hyatt Regency Chicago it's still 1998.

Of course all this means for us, besides almost assured base-level Internet-withdraw symptoms for the next three days, is that our conference reporting will more often take the form of interspersed dispatches rather than live, on-the-scene reportage. Nonetheless, we hope you'll stay tuned to us here, on Twitter and Facebook for the next several days. Should be fun!

And if that isn't enough to entice you, we're giving away $100 indie bookstore gift card at the end of the conference, and you don't even have to be attending to enter to win. Details tomorrow ...

Friday
05Feb2010

A terrific little book on a fascinating figure

Originally published as a series of essays in The New Yorker in 1951, Duveen, by S. N. Behrman is a terrific little book. The fascinating and often controversial Joseph Duveen (1869-1939) remains one of the art world's most important figures. Along with its wit and eminent readability however, Behrman's work on him is distinguished in that it's as much a portrait of the beginnings of the United States' most distinguished art collections and museums (the Frick, the Morgan, the National Gallery of Art), as it is about the singular dealer who made them all happen. Last reprinted in 2003, copies of the book abound and are well worth picking up.

Friday
29Jan2010

The decade's great books on art

When I first started thinking about the past decade in books on art, I had grand visions of coming up with a top ten or top fifteen books of the decade. The master list. The list to end lists. What I ended up with was a longer, looser, more personal collection of great books on art. Nonetheless, it's a nice group. It was a nice decade. One worth sharing and remembering even as we find ourselves knee-deep in the next....

IN PAIRS

BIG BIOGRAPHY

ARTISTS WRITINGS

SINGULAR ACHIEVEMENTS

Friday
08Jan2010

"a fascinating look into a creative process"

From a nice review of Frank Gohlke's new book, Thoughts on Landscape, in the latest issue of the digital Englewood Review of Books:

"Thoughts on Landscape is drawn exclusively from essays originally written for other publications, interviews, or transcribed lectures ... [and so] it is possible to trace Gohlke’s own understanding of his art, which is a fascinating look into a creative process, as similar turns of speech, phrases, or ideas that stick will evolve and turn up in different forms over the course of the book, as ideas are crystallized or new perspectives added to the mix."

Read the complete review ...

Wednesday
06Jan2010

"sometimes love is a more powerful motivator than money"

Stacy Boyd, an editor at the peerless, and quite progressive, romance publisher Harlequin, posts about our team publishing model and Museum Legs. I love hearing these stories of discovery, first stumbling into us at the Brooklyn Book Fair, and then later reading about our model online, and eventually being led to delve deeper into both the book and the model and even to consider working on a book project with us down the road. This kind of intense, random, curiosity-driven individual exploration is both the reason and the reward for us.

And though Stacy mentions looking for a book project on museums, I'll point out that yes, there are indeed art romances out there, and yes, we'd love the chance to publish one.

Tuesday
05Jan2010

Airplane reading: "The Modigliani Scandal"

On the plane to San Francisco for New Year's, I finished reading Ken Follett's 1976 art caper, The Modigliani Scandal. Art quests, art forgery, sex and drugs, blue-chip gallerists, this book has it all. It's pretty fun and totally silly if also definitely the early work of a now more accomplished writer. But as Follett himself says in the intro to the 1985 edition of the book I was reading:

"The critics praised [the book] as sprightly, ebullient, light, bright, cheery, light (again), and fizzy. I was disappointed that they had not noted my serious intentions. Now I no longer look on the book as a failure. It is fizzy, and none the worse for that."

Friday
11Dec2009

Thomas Hoving (1931-2009), as in the art world so too in art literature

Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the author of numerous books on art, has died.

As art critic Michael Kimmelman once wrote and as was repeated in The New York Times' obituary for Hoving today, "In his establishment-rattling mission to make the art museum a more populist institution, Mr. Hoving was 'probably the most influential and innovative museum official of the postwar period.'" Following his tenure at the museum, Hoving became a prolific author and, not surprisingly, his approach to his books, in their style and in their content, was much like his approach to the museum -- populist, single-minded, unflinching and often, a bit raucous.

 

His titles include Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, American Gothic: The Biography of Grant Wood's American Masterpiece, Art for Dummies and my personal favorite, King of the Confessors.

One of his earlier works, King of the Confessors is the story of a pretentious young Hoving's semi-illicit acquisition of the Medieval ivory cross of Bury St. Edmunds -- "a remarkable tale of international espionage, art history and museum one-upmanship". Though the cross is now considered one of the great treasures of the Met's Cloisters, the museum's gift shop originally rejected Hoving's book because they said it gave ''a misleading impression of the museum's acquisitions policies." (I can't say if the store's policy has officially changed since, but perhaps to their relief the book is now out of print so they need not worry about it. Then again, in a twist I think Hoving must have particularly appreciated, the shop now sells a cast marble reproduction of the cross for $400.) You might not think a book on Medieval ivory would be much of a page-turner, but like he did with many aspects of the often staid art world, Hoving makes it so. A second, updated edition is currently available as an ebook, but I still think a paperback reprint would make a fantastic Hol project.

Most recently, Hoving published his memoir as a serialization at artnet.com. Artful Tom, a Memoir ran in 35 installments from April to June of this year. From a publisher's and reader's standpoint, I think this was an ill-conceived experiment on artnet's behalf (one they'd previously tried and failed with Peter Plagens' art novel, The Art Critic) but for the chance to work with Hoving as an author and to give him the outlet for the work, I cannot fault them. A singular, and sometimes polarizing figure in what was once a rather quiet world of museums and art literature, Hoving has undoubtedly left his mark on both.

Monday
07Dec2009

"... the answer is collaboration."

We're thrilled to share a feature article on Hol that appeared today in the publishing industry newsletter, Publishing Perspectives ("Daily International News and Opinion in Publishing"). I really enjoyed speaking to the writer, Edward Nawotka, in the weeks prior, and think his take on our model, our niche, and our progress so far, is a good one. I was glad too that he elaborated on the Museum Legs and Nostalgia's Thread teams—some talented people, who do great work, and who took a major leap of faith in embarking on their book projects with Hol—as well on some of our nascent translation efforts.

Click through to read the whole article, "Art Book Entrepreneur Tests 'Team Publishing' Model", and also don't miss the connected bonus material: "Niche vs. Trade Publishing, Which Has a Brighter Future?"

Sunday
06Dec2009

Art fiction in the New York Times Notable Books selection

No art history or artist biographies made the New York Times annual Notable Books selection this year, but there were four novels that made the cut in which art is a central theme, or an artist a central character. Below are the listings from the Times' selection, along with links to the original reviews.

The Art Student’s War, by Brad Leithauser (Knopf, $28.95)
In midcentury Detroit, a young woman searches for authenticity and passion in art and in love. Review 11/29/09



Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, by Geoff Dyer (Pantheon, $24)
This haunting novel is like a rough guide to transformation: moving from scenes of erotic decadence to scenes of squalor, the death it describes is that of craving, of intention, even of self. [The protagonist is an art critic, and the first half of the book takes place at the Venice Biennale.] Review 04/19/09

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kinsolver (HarperCollins, $26.99)
This novel, about a boy’s memorable bonds with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky, is a call to conscience and connection. Review 11/08/09


The Sky Below, by Stacey D'Erasmo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)
It’s hard not to be seduced by D’Erasmo’s selfish hero, an artist whose hunger for expression, for a father and for a home embodies a sense of entrapment that could make anyone behave badly. Review 01/11/09

Thursday
03Dec2009

Legs

Author-extraordinaire Amy Whitaker is on the final leg of her national book tour for Museum Legs. For those of you in Pittsburgh or anywhere near it, Amy will be giving a lecture and book signing at the Warhol tomorrow night at 7pm. Amy's spent the better part of two and a half months driving an enormous loop around the country, and though the trip itself is almost over you can catch up and follow along on her blog, where it's still joyfully only early October and she's only in Arkansas.

As much as about museums, Museum Legs is also Amy's exploration of, and paean to, creativity in everyday life. Her tour was no different. Much more than a standard issue slog from bookstore to bookstore, Amy also visited schools, museums, foundations, and corporate headquarters (including Google) and spoke as much about her unique vision of the creative, art-full world as she did about the specifics of the words on the page. I wish I could have been there throughout, but as a publisher and of course one of Amy's biggest fans, it's a joy even to watch (or at least read) from afar.

Wednesday
02Dec2009

Writing renewed

Congratulations to this year's winners of the Warhol arts writers grants. They include 5 writers working on articles, 9 on books, 1 on "New and Alternative Media", 3 on blogs and 8 for the slightly enigmatically titled, "Short Form Writing". $710,000 in all.

The grant program, originally funded for just three years, was renewed earlier this year for another 5 years. And despite my previous complaints about the program, I think they're vitally important and are making strides in becoming more inclusive and participatory. In particular, I was thrilled to see the inauguration of an Art Writing Workshop program in conjunction with the grants and the International Art Critics Association (AICA). The workshop pairs 11 budding arts writers with senior critics from the AICA to work with them in reviewing their writing and developing their craft. Participants are selected from the field of Warhol grant applicants who were not selected for the final phase. This is a great first step in encouraging and training a new generation of arts writers, and begins to take the grants beyond the simple funding of already-established luminaries in the field.

Thursday
12Nov2009

"Introduced to poets, thinkers and others who I might not have otherwise encountered"

Margaret Kimball, the talented cover designer of our newest release, "Nostaglia's Thread: Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell Paintings", has posted a nice round-up of the book and Hol's team publishing process on her blog.

This is a really interesting way of collaborating and of making the process of publishing accessible to virtually anyone with access to the internet. Through Hol, I was introduced to poets, thinkers and others who I might not have otherwise encountered and asked to think in new ways, which is always appreciated.

Read the rest ...