The Contemporary Small Press: Making Publishing Visible addresses the contemporary literary small press in the US and UK from the perspective of a range of disciplines. Covering numerous aspects of small press publishing—poetry and fiction, children’s publishing, the importance of ethical commitments, the relation to the mainstream, the attitudes of those working for presses, the role of the state in supporting presses—scholars from literary criticism, the sociology of literature and publishing studies demonstrate how a variety of approaches and methods are needed to fully understand the contemporary small press and its significance for literary studies and for broader literary culture.

Little magazines have often showcased the best new writing in America. Historically, these idiosyncratic, small-circulation outlets have served the dual functions of representing the avant-garde of literary expression while also helping many emerging writers become established authors. Although changing technology and the increasingly harsh financial realities of publishing over the past three decades would seem to have pushed little magazines to the brink of extinction, their story is far more complicated. In this collection, Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz gather the reflections of twenty-three prominent editors whose little magazines have flourished over the past thirty-five years. Highlighting the creativity and innovation driving this diverse and still vital medium, contributors offer insights into how their publications sometimes succeeded, sometimes reluctantly folded, but mostly how they evolved and persevered. Other topics discussed include the role of little magazines in promoting the work and concerns of minority and women writers, the place of universities in supporting and shaping little magazines, and the online and offline future of these publications. Selected contributors Betsy Sussler, BOMB; Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction; Bruce Andrews, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E; Dave Eggers, McSweeney’s; Keith Gessen, n+1; Don Share, Poetry; Jane Friedman, VQR; Amy Hoffman, Women’s Review of Books; and more.

Introduction to Contemporary Print Culture examines the role of the book in the modern world. It considers the book’s deeply intertwined relationships with other media through ownership structures, copyright and adaptation, the constantly shifting roles of authors, publishers and readers in the digital ecosystem and the merging of print and digital technologies in contemporary understandings of the book object. Divided into three parts, the book first introduces students to various theories and methods for understanding print culture, demonstrating how the study of the book has grown out of longstanding academic disciplines. The second part surveys key sectors of the contemporary book world – from independent and alternative publishers to editors, booksellers, readers and libraries – focusing on topical debates. In the final part, digital technologies take centre stage as eBook regimes and mass-digitisation projects are examined for what they reveal about information power and access in the twenty-first century. This book provides a fascinating and informative introduction for students of all levels in publishing studies, book history, literature and English, media, communication and cultural studies, cultural sociology, librarianship and archival studies and digital humanities.

In this manifestly practical book, Richard Hendel has invited book and journal designers he admires to describe how they approach and practice the craft of book design. Designers with interesting and varied careers in the field, who work with contemporary technology in today’s publishing environment, describe their methods of managing the challenges presented by specific types of books, presented side by side with numerous images from those books. Not an instruction manual but a unique, on-the-job, title page–to–index guide to the ways that professional British and American designers think about design, Aspects of Contemporary Book Design continues the conversation that began with Hendel’s 1998 classic, On Book Design. Contributing designers who focus on solving problems posed by nonfiction, fiction, cookbooks, plays, poetry, illustrated books, and journals include Cherie Westmoreland, Amy Ruth Buchanan, Mindy Basinger Hill, Nola Burger, Ron Costley, Kristina Kachele, Barbara Wiedemann, and Sue Hall, as well as a host of other designers, typesetters, editors, and even an author. Abbey Gaterud attempts to define the conundrum that the e-book presents to designers; Kent Lew describes the evolution of his Whitman typeface family; Charles Ellertson reflects upon the vital relationship between the typesetter and the designer; and Sean Magee writes about the uneasy alliance between designers and editors. In an extended essay that is as frank and funny as it is illuminating, Andrew Barker takes the reader deep into the morass—excavating the fine, finer, and finest details of working through a series design. At the heart of this copiously illustrated book is the enduring need for design that clarifies the way for the reader, whether on the printed page or on the computer screen. Blending his roles as designer, author, interviewer, and editor, Hendel reaches across both sides of the drafting table—both real and virtual—to create a book that will appeal to aspiring and seasoned book designers as well as writers, editors, and readers who want to know more about the visual presentation of the written word.

For generations, southern novelists and critics have grappled with a concept that is widely seen as a trademark of their literature: a strong attachment to geography, or a "sense of place." In the 1930s, the Agrarians accorded special meaning to rural life, particularly the farm, in their definitions of southern identity. For them, the South seemed an organic and rooted region in contrast to the North, where real estate development and urban sprawl evoked a faceless, raw capitalism. By the end of the twentieth century, however, economic and social forces had converged to create a modernized South. How have writers responded to this phenomenon? Is there still a sense of place in the South, or perhaps a distinctly postsouthern sense of place? Martyn Bone innovatively draws upon postmodern thinking to consider the various perspectives that southern writers have brought to the concept of "place" and to look at its fate in a national and global context. He begins with a revisionist assessment of the Agrarians, who failed in their attempts to turn their proprietary ideal of the small farm into actual policy but whose broader rural aesthetic lived on in the work of neo-Agrarian writers, including William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. By the 1950s, adherence to this aesthetic was causing southern writers and critics to lose sight of the social reality of a changing South. Bone turns to more recent works that do respond to the impact of capitalist spatial development on the South -- and on the nation generally -- including that self-declared "international city" Atlanta. Close readings of novels by Robert Penn Warren, Walker Percy, Richard Ford, Anne Rivers Siddons, Tom Wolfe, and Toni Cade Bambara illuminate evolving ideas about capital, land, labor, and class while introducing southern literary studies into wider debates around social, cultural, and literary geography. Bone concludes his remarkably rich book by considering works of Harry Crews and Barbara Kingsolver that suggest the southern sense of place may be not only post-Agrarian or postsouthern but also transnational.

A Pop Up Book featuring 3-D Versions of Comic, Pop & Street Art from 6 Acclaimed Artists

A riveting debut--a black Afghanistan veteran in search of his lost brother amid the chaos of Hurricane Katrina.