Thanks for everyone that stopped by our booth at AWP in Tampa this year, we had a blast meeting new folks, seeing some old friends, dining in Ybor City, and selling a lot of Augury books!
Thanks also to everyone who brought soaps and other toiletries from their hotels to our booth, as we were able to drop off several donation bags at the Bonnie Center at Alpha House, which helps homeless pregnant woman and women with children. You can find photos over at the Brooklyn Artists Helping tumblr.
We are very proud to announce that Arisa White’s You’re The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened has been selected to appear on the 2018 Over the Rainbow Recommended Book List. This list of outstanding books is selected by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association. The Over the Rainbow committee has this to say about You’re The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened: “A gorgeous, intelligent poetry collection from Lambda Literary Award-nominated White. These poems burst with emotion, soaring to ecstatically loving highs and capturing the sorrows of longing and black lesbian life in a vicious world. A beautifully realized and joyful read that deserves a place in poetry collections and the canon of lesbian literature.”
Congratulations to Arisa White and our heartfelt thanks to the Over the Rainbow committee.
January 1-31, 2018
We will for the entire month of January accept submissions for full-length collections of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. There are no restrictions on length. We cannot accept anthologies or translations at this time, nor can we accept work from current and former students of editor Kate Angus, but anyone from anywhere in any stage of their career can send any manuscript they otherwise feel fits within these parameters.
To submit, click here to go to our Submittable page!
We are now an official imprint of Brooklyn Arts Press! We couldn’t be happier about this new collaboration and the innovative and beautiful books we look forward to bringing into the world as part of the Brooklyn Arts Press family.
As BAP’s imprint, Augury Books will continue to publish two new books each year under our name. In fall of 2018, we are excited to publish Fruit Geode by Alicia Jo Rabins, and we will open for submissions for our second book beginning January 1st. We’ll be looking at poetry, short story collections, and creative nonfiction so if you have a manuscript you’ve been polishing up, we’d love to read it.
Augury Books’ editorial board remains the same. You can continue to reach Founding Editor Kate Angus, Associate Editor Kimberly Steele, and Assistant Editor Nicolas Amara at augurybooks@gmail.com or through Augury’s social media accounts. Our back catalog books will continue to be available through Small Press Distribution (SPD), in bookstores, on Augury Books’ website, and on Amazon.
Taken from HocTok’s website.
Arisa White’s You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened recently received a review, as well as a featured poem, on HocTok. Based in DUMBO, Brooklyn, HocTok is structured as a round table group, where artists convene communally on a piece to discuss and record their findings. Of You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, it was noted that
Arisa White is a lover, a wordsmith, a connoisseur of real life in all its hues and shades, ups and downs, smiles and cries of joy and sadness. She does not promote herself as an authority on matters of perfection in finding love, being in love or holding on to love. But her poetry certainly gives a crispy clear picture of the immensely rich world the author embodies.
To read more of the feature, and to learn more about HocTok, you can visit their website.
Sara Schaff with her book, Say Something Nice About Me, at the CLMP Firecracker Awards Ceremony. Photo: Roberta Schine
Recently, our author Sara Schaff’s debut short fiction collection Say Something Nice About Me was included as a finalist for the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Firecracker Awards. The CLMP Firecracker Awards are divided by category into Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Magazines Best Debut, and Magazines General Excellence. At the third annual awards ceremony, the 2017 winners were announced: in Fiction, Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Deep Vellum); in Creative Nonfiction, Calamities by Renee Gladman (Wave Books); in Poetry, Buck Studies by Douglas Kearney (Fence Books); and Bennington Review and Prairie Schooner in Magazines Best Debut and General Excellence, respectively.
In addition to the Firecracker Awards, CLMP presented the first Lord Nose Award, in memory of Jargon Society publisher Jonathan Williams, to Bruce McPherson of McPherson and Co.
As a small press, we’re honored to have a title considered for the Firecracker Awards a second time (the first being Halina Duraj’s The Family Cannon), and incredibly proud of Sara Schaff for her accomplishment. Below are a few photos from the ceremony, held on June 7th at Poets House.
Bridget Hughes announcing the Magazines category winners. Photo: Nicolas Amara
Laura Swearingen-Steadwell announcing. Photo: Sara Schaff
Jeffrey Lependorf, CLMP Executive Director, giving closing remarks. Photo: Nicolas Amara
A selection of finalists displayed at the ceremony. Photo: Sara Schaff
Patricia Spears-Jones announcing the winner of the Poetry category. Photo: Nicolas Amara
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs accepting the Poetry award on behalf of Douglas Kearney. Photo: Nicolas Amara
Pia Padrone announcing the Fiction winner. Photo: Sara Schaff
We extend our congratulations to all of this year’s Firecracker winners!
We are incredibly proud to acknowledge that Randall Horton’s Hook has won the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for 2017 in the category of creative nonfiction. Other titles earning the GLCA New Writers Award this year include Nate Marshall’s Wild Hundreds in the category of poetry, and Charles Boyer’s History’s Child in the category of fiction.
As a small press, we consider this recognition a great honor, extending our congratulations to Randall and our gracious thanks to the Great Lakes College Association.
Photograph by Nicolas Amara
We’d like to take a moment to thank Pen & Brush for hosting our dual book launch this past Friday for You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White, and Say Something Nice About Me by Sara Schaff. Arisa’s book is now available online through Small Press Distribution. Say Something Nice About Me will be available to the public through SPD come November 1st.
Many thanks, as well, to our wonderful designers, Mike Miller and Isabella Giancarlo, whose time and effort ensured these books printed just as beautifully as they read.
We’re very grateful to all who have followed us through the launch of our two newest titles. Please keep an eye on our (and our authors’) social media channels for upcoming material!
Despite a long radio silence, we here at Augury Books have been hard at work preparing two new books for a late 2016 release. While covers have previously been posted by authors via social media, we would like to formally introduce cover art (by the wonderful Mike Miller) for both You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, by Arisa White, and Say Something Nice About Me, by Sara Schaff.
You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White. Cover design: Mike Miller
Say Something Nice About Me by Sara Schaff. Cover design: Mike Miller
We are incredibly grateful to those of you that have continued to follow us through 2016. Please see Arisa’s and Sara’s respective author pages for more information about each title. We look forward to bringing these books into the world, and will post updates about launch parties in the coming months.
Next Wednesday, June 1, from 7:00-8:30pm, Pen and Brush will host its most recent reading from their curated series “Pen and Brush Presents…” with Augury’s Carey McHugh representing Augury Books. Other readers will include Laura Sims (Ugly Ducking Presse) and Jennifer L. Knox (Bloof Books). Admission is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served, and copies of books will be available for purchase and signing. We hope to see you there!
For more information, please see the Facebook event.
Jennifer L. Knox is reading on behalf of Bloof Books. The New York Times Book Review wrote that her new book, Days of Shame and Failure, “hits, with deceptive ease, all the poetic marks a reader could want: intellectual curiosity, emotional impact, beautiful language, surprising revelation and arresting imagery.” Jennifer is the author of four books of poems; her work has appeared four times in the Best American Poetry series as well as The New York Times, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, McSweeney’s, and Bomb. She teaches at Iowa State University.
Carey McHugh‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, and Tin House. Her chapbook Original Instructions for the Perfect Preservation of Birds &c. was selected by Ray Armantrout for the Poetry Society of America’s 2008 New York Chapbook Fellowship. She lives and works in Manhattan. She is reading on behalf of Augury Books.
Laura Sims is the author of Staying Alive (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016). Her first book, Practice, Restraint, was the winner of the 2005 Fence Books Alberta Prize, and in 2006 she was awarded a US-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship. In 2014 she edited Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson, a book of her correspondence with the celebrated experimental novelist. Her poems have recently appeared in Black Clock, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Eleven Eleven and Gulf Coast. Sims has been a featured writer for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, and a co-editor of Instance Press since 2009. She teaches literature and creative writing at NYU-SPS. Laura is reading on behalf of Ugly Duckling Presse.
This reading series is curated by Kate Angus for Pen and Brush (www.penandbrush.org). For over 122 years, Pen and Brush has been the only international nonprofit organization offering an outlet for women in both the literary and visual arts in the city of New York.
