Announcing new book from Wessex Collective
If you’re a literate person (which I assume you are since you’re here with us now) and you haven’t met the Wessex Collective yet, please allow me the honor of introducing these talented writers to you. They are a writing collective in the old sense of the word. They live all over the US but they have one aim — to publish high quality literature that would otherwise never find a publishing home. This following missive wes sent to me from Sandy Schwayder Sanchez who manages the Wessex Collective. She’s also the author of two very moving books, Stillbird and The Nun.
Dear all,
The following forward is part of an email one of our authors has sent out to his list of friends about his novel The Marble Orchard which Wessex Collective is publishing this coming summer. Paul’s first novel Killing The Blues was published by St. Martins in 1984 and received very favorable reviews in The New York Times Review of Books. His second novel Operation Remission was published by a smaller publisher ten years later but received even more enthusiastic praise in NYTRB. Paul is/has been a political activist, editor of an alternative magazine and carpenter as well as a novelist. We are very excited to have Paul join the collective.This is a book that is going to appeal most to baby boomers but I’m sending this out (after deleting the personal update) to all of you including the youngsters among you with the request that you forward it on.
Also please do check out our website(undergoing some gradual changes so eventually we should have a more modern look). We now have a distributor to market and sell our books to stores but of course whenever possible we prefer to make direct sales (that would be me: “order fulfillment” is my title). We have three new titles: Peter Burnham’s second novel set in the same small town in Maine as Envious Shadows, The Angry Dust by William Davey (posthumously published for the first time in this country) and Little Bluestem, a collection of short stories set in the rural heartland where the author, Brian Backstrand, got to know his characters well serving them as pastor, hospice chaplain and teacher since the sixties. Brian’s stories remind me of the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. I hope some of you will consider giving one or all of these new books a chance (and we still have plenty of copies of Envious Shadows, The Gift and Stillbird available). Thanks folks, Happy New Year. Sandy
Subject: New Mexico Update 1/4/05From: Paul Johnson
Meanwhile I’ve been having a glorious time by email with Sandy Sanchez & Peter Burnham of the Wessex Collective, discussing all the issues like type face & size, paper, & the cover (right now it looks like Franny’s going to take a crack at designing it), for my novel, THE MARBLE ORCHARD. As most of you know, authors don’t usually get to put their oars into those waters, but Wessex is not your usual sort of publisher, it really is a collective. With my novel, they–or rather, we– are going to try something that until the late 19th C. was the commonest manner of getting a book into print: subscription, it was called, & all it meant was that the writer & his friends would find enough people to buy enough copies in advance to cover the original print bill. That’s how Poe & Melville & everybody else went about it, & it worked pretty well until books became big business. Some books, of course, still are big business, & always will be, & big businessmen continue to publish them; but thanks to all sorts of technological breakthroughs, small-scale publication can allow good books that aren’t bestseller material to find their publics & pay their modest way.
I haven’t seen the galleys yet, but we have a price already. In fact, we have 2 prices: buy it now, & THE MARBLE ORCHARD will only cost you $15.95 per copy. After May 1, 2006 it will go up 3 dollars, still a bargain. Here’s what Laurel Speer has to say on the subject: “I’m one of the early readers of this book in ms. I’ve pledged to start by buying 10 copies. It’s a book you’ll want to give to all your discriminating friends.”
I certainly don’t expect you all to do that–but think about it: you must know a few folks beside yourself who’d appreciate what Peter Burnham called “a really great read,” & Nancy Cardozo says is “…a deep, sweet story of accidental enlightenment. Paul Johnson captures the physical, emotional,and personal landscape of upstate New York so perfectly, you feel as though you’ve lived there yourself. Pay particular attention to the speech of the characters; you’ve met them, you know them, and there’s more to them than you ever suspected. MARBLE ORCHARD is an optimistic coming-of-middle-age novel that will resonate loud and strong with those of us struggling to stay hopeful as we deal with aging, loss, and regrets.”
Check out the website at http://us.f813.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=sss@wessexcollective.com, & send your checks to The Wessex Collective
PO Box 1088
Nederland, Co. 80466-1088
Love to all, Paul
Sounds like something to read to take us through the next few months of this dismal winter!
Joy