Hazel & Wren at the Twin Cities Book Festival
The Twin Cities Book Festival is tomorrow. If you didn’t know this, you might a.) live under a rock, or b.) not be from Minnesota. Shame. Why? Because WE are going to BE THERE!
We’ll be giving away the sassiest letterpress bookmarks you’ve ever seen (see above) while supplies last, so make our table one of your first stops before these run out. We’ll also have two brand spankin’ new limited edition letterpress prints (sneak peek of Speak Softly below) for sale, in addition to our previous prints At Night and A Smithy. We’ll have a TC Book Festival special discount on the prints, so grab one for cheap(er) before they become available to the rest of the world next week.
As if all that letterpress fun wasn’t enough for ya, we’ll also have contests, giveaways, and general literary mischief.
(If you’re not able to make this fair, don’t shed too many tears. Rumor has it we’ll be at AWP in Chicago this spring, too. )
Speak Softly, 8″x10″ limited-edition letterpress print
What We’re Reading: Literary Magazines
These three literary magazines are ones that I either subscribe to, or visit often. They vary in subject matter, so browse around – my hope is you find one that sticks with you.
Believer
This is my go-to in the lit world. Full of witty banter, honest essays, interviews, and provocative insight, my literary-o-meter goes sky-high after reading each issue. It’s also a great deal – 9 issues for $45, which is largely unheard of in the print literary magazine world. A great monthly column is by Nick Hornby (of About A Boy and High Fidelity fame) – and his book to read this month is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which is also the Books and Bars selection of this month (Mar 29)! Check out our calendar for more info.
Versal
I discovered this literary magazine at AWP in Denver last year, skimming the tabletops at the book fair for anything intriguing. Versal’s covers immediately drew my eye. I later attended a panel about starting your own literary magazine, in which the founder of Versal was a panelist – and a very insightful one at that. While I paid more attention to her trade pointers at the time, I quickly fell in love with the journal itself. Pleasing design, startling beautiful art, and starkly strong poetry (although they’re branching out to other genres now, too) – through and through, this is a solid investment. Or do what I did: put it on your birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah list. Makes an excellent gift to yourself.
Alice Blue Review
I’ve recently been gorging myself on prose poetry, in efforts to write the form better myself (I’m a firm believer that the more you read, the more prepared you are to write). This online journal is where I go for prose poetry. The website is simple, perhaps too simple for some, but the poems stand for themselves. Also take a look the poets’ bios – they are teeming with wonderful presses to check out.
