The little manuscript that could, aka instabilities, the project that wasn’t going to be a full-length project then was, has amazingly found a home, and ohsoquickly at Dusie Press. I am beside my self with bubbliness.
I’d been going back and forth with it over the summer, since some of the poems were already very happy in their various loosely interrelated chapbook projects (but at least one out of print). This is the whole science, birds, and victoriana mass of poems, some of which were part of errata, some from the forthcoming feign chap. They were once my thesis manuscript, until girl show took off and demanded more attention. In the spring, I was convinced they needed to have some more cohesiveness, and after adding the phobia poems, which sort of served as glue, things were looking a lot more promising, so I figured I’d try it at a couple of places that might be interested. Susana at Dusie graciously accepted it a couple days ago, and I’m psyched to be part of such a great little new press, one which recently published Elizabeth Treadwell’s Cornstarch Figurine, and has books coming from Robyn Art, Logan Ryan Smith, Jen Hofer, and others. Plus a whole DIY vibe I can totally get behind.
There were also a couple poems that were bouncing back and forth between manuscripts, one of which was “in the bird museum,” which wound up in the version I sent and which she thinks makes a better title. After I thought about it a bit, I’m agreeing (especially since I was thinking in the spring that the poem “instabilities” itself wasn’t weighty enough to carry the book, but I hadn’t thought of anything better) Now that I’d moved the other poem into the mss (plus a couple others), it makes perfect sense and is a little more catchy I think…and it ties into the themes excellently.
So it should appear late next year or abouts. I'm so happy to have found presses where my manuscript totally seems to just "fit" with, first Ghost Road and now Dusie, each book being totally different from the other. I'm also extremely grateful I didn't have to start the contest game again, which seems like such
a long shot, not one or two editors deciding they like your work and want to publish it, but a whole system of screeners and judges having to agree. I hardly stand a chance.
