It seems terribly hard to believe it is the beginning of June. Even harder to believe we've come round to a new open reading period for dgp. It's been a very light year in terms of releases, mostly since I was dealing with covid-related ennui/paralysis and a lot of back orders for things from earlier in the year. After the last submission cycle close, I allowed myself some time to work through these before getting back to the books that had been delayed and it made a big difference. Since January, I've been working on the the tardy 2020 books and the first of the 2021 series at the same time, which makes things a bit more complicated, but I am finally feeling up for it. It's a case of not knowing how bad things really were in my head until you're on the other side. Even something as simple as designing a cover was impossible at points--even focusing long enough to re-read manuscripts and brainstorm ideas in survival mode is tough. Let alone the detail work of proofing and editing. There are still a lot of loose ends to tie up and lingering details to pin down, but on the whole, I am excited to see what this year will bring.
There were moments last spring where I lost my commitment to sparkle motion and considered shuttering the press temporarily. Not only the press but all my creative pursuits. I was feeling unstable and precarious financially. If academia took too many hits and I found myself jobless, what did I have? What had devoting my life to poetry given me besides student loans and stress? How could people care about poems and art in a world where so many (maybe even possibly me) were dying? What had poetry done for the world? I was also coming off a crazy previous year where I had gotten really behind on things and was close to getting evicted because of financial overstretching that had been plaguing me for years. Then also, the chaos and upheaval of a move and setting up everything again. As summer progressed I felt better as I went back to work and felt more like I had some semblance of normal schedules and routines back, but it was still a little overwhelming and felt like an uphill battle. What had been this great rewarding thing sometimes felt, by my own orchestrations, to be something I dreaded and feared. Mostly because I didn't have proper boundaries and frameworks to keep it from being, at times, untenable.
Luckily, demand for books was lower (both orders and author copies) , authors not in the headspace for releases themselves, and everything sort of in flux as 2020 closed out. Slowly, the paralysis and ennui abated. It was still hard reading & selecting manuscripts at a time when I didn't have the focus to read anything besides the horror of the news. Still I managed to choose a few favorites and hoped I'd be in better mental shape when they were ready to be released. As the spring unrolled, I was, and am feeling closer to myself these days with vaccinations and general feelings of normality. The slow-burn trauma I've felt for a year is going away and a few weeks ago, I realized I was finally back in the creative flow of things. I also am feeling, given the past year, that perhaps independent publishing, in a time when the world caters to false news, anti-intellectualism, and the lowest common denominator, it's more important than ever.
So we go on...I can't wait to see what turns up in my submission queue..especially since i am in a much better place to enjoy it..
