revisiting the summer of revision: 20 years later

As I've been submitting individual poems more regularly the past two months, I've been thinking a lot about the summer, 20 years ago exactly, when I was rather feverishly looking for a publisher for my first book, It was actually a feat which would happen that very year, but later, in the fall, when the editors at Ghost Road got me on the phone and offered a contract. After, I later arrived at work late, because even authors have to pay the bills, but full of giddy excitement.. There are still times that I am amazed that it happened at all, though there would be more books and more contracts and more editors who took an interest in my work. Enough to issue it through their presses and talk it up and basically help birth my earlier books into the world. 

I spent that whole summer, however, revising the fever almanac into the manuscript it became. It was actually picked up in a more traditional way than most debut poets experience. I queried a press I was interested in and they asked to see the book in early fall. Even then, this seemed unheard of in the poetry realm. I knew the challenges. I later managed to make it happen again nevertheless in all sorts of ways--by submitting to editors I already had a publishing relationship with, to others that had yearly open reading periods and somehow they chose my manuscript. Later, as I grew more confident in my work, I felt comfortable issuing books myself. But I still know how hard it is to get that first "yes," something which has likely even gotten more difficult in the years since as publishers shutter and shrink in funding,  and not nearly enough are growing in to take their place. Even the authors I know who were fortunate and amazing enough to win contests still struggle with later books. 

The summer of 2005, I was thick in the mire of book fever. I was 31, and determined to make a much bigger life in poetry--or maybe even any life at all. This made me creatively restless and sort of scratchy. I had started publishing individual poems in the years before. Giving readings at features and open-mics and even winning some local contests. I had a chapbook acceptances from a small local feminist press that would come later that year. I had started my own tiny feminist press and issued a couple small run chaps to have things to sell at readings as test runs for other people's books. I carried stacks of them in my tote bag after work around the city and did my first signing of copies at a Poetry Center of Chicago reading in the swanky SAIC ballroom.  In many ways, it felt like I had arrived. In others it felt like I was barely starting. All the scratchiness made me kind of bitchy when discussions of publishing came up. I remember running my hands along the spines of books in Borders and wandering when it would be my turn.  

That summer, my sister stayed with me for awhile, crashing on my couch while working applying for jobs in the city. Because I was easily distracted and prone to watching fun movies and Buffy DVDs with her when at home, I would stop for a couple hours to work on the manuscript before heading back to the north side. This did two things actually, allowing me to avoid the rush hour LSD commute on the bus that could easily take twice as long, and a chance to work on editing and mostly re-ordering the book in the cafe at the Barnes and Noble on State & Jackson. In the afternoons, it would be pretty empty and tomb-like, with a few people filtering through the line for coffee or a sandwich, but even then, the traffic in your average chain bookstore was waning.  

Daily, I would be there with a red pen and a stack of pages, trying to make what was initially a sheaf of random poems written between 2001 and 2004 into something like a book. Later I would get better at this.  Or maybe you never really get better, but my later poems lended, and continue to lend themselves to a more orderly line up than book #1. Initially, at the beginning of the sunmer, what would become the fever almanac was spliced with what would become part of my second book. I eventually cleaved these--they felt too different in style and scope. By 2005, my style was shifting away, though some would say it shifted back a little by book #3.  For the manuscript that was left, I looked at each poem, doing much less revising than noting themes and how they tied with other pieces. What sections made sense and which didn't. 

I surely did other things that summer, including meeting another author at that same B&N periodically  to help her with her suggestions for the book that she was self-issuing and binding by hand. Other summer things surely happened, both according to this blog and between the cracks of it., Trips to Rockford, movie outings in the city, lots of summertime readings. The interesting highlight of those entries? Long self-discussions on how I should self-publish and worries about how other people would view that. Other noted frustrations with contests and submissions and how difficult it all was. The summer ended with a couple weeks at my parent's house, finally cementing the order and getting it ready to submit again. This version did fairly well in a couple of contests and was the one that was finally accepted.  At the time, it felt so close and yet so far away. 

These days I leave my projects to self-publishing for many reasons--the uphill task of submitting full-lengths, knowing how many good books are out there competing, the control of timelines and financial incentives to release your own work. Also simply having some control over keeping the book in print and. the joy of bringing a book into the world from the first draft to the bound copy. It occurred to me as I published WILD(ISH) this spring that I have now self-published as many books as I traditionally published, so it will likely just get easier as I go. 

That fledgling author in 2005 would be so shocked, but also a little delighted that ultimately she would get to try both traditional publishing and self-publishing down the line. 

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