Publishing woes
As a follow up to the post about the writers Anthony Carelli and Maaza Mengiste, I thought it would be interesting to post about book publishing. Both writers had odd starts in their literary careers since neither of them were published in the ordinary way. During the discussion portion after their readings, Carelli and Mengiste both mentioned that although both of them did send their writing out to many different sources that isn’t how they got published. Carelli sent his poems to an editor of the New Yorker, who not only published a few of his poems in that prestigious literary source but also asked for a manuscript of Carelli’s poems, which were published for him. Mengiste approached an agent of a fellow writer during a book talk, offered over her manuscript and voila.
These may be rare occurrences, but it may give us some hope for the future.
Signed,
Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.
But what about this sleeveless, rickety LP
at the bottom of my father’s dusty stacks?
—Alessandro Moreschi, The Last Castrato,
The Complete Vatican Recordings.
What takes me at this tender age of twenty-eight,
what spirits me and drags me to the attic,
unearths the turntable, restarts the record,
what dials down the volume knob to 1?
Ave Maria. Just imagine: this voice,
the last of its kind, so the only of its kind—
limitless pitch, limitless in time. Hallelujah.
And meanwhile, outside, a century later,
my father finishes mowing the lawn.
Faith by Anthony Carelli
Literary Abandon
Trinity played host to two amazing writers last week, Anthony Carelli and Maaza Mengiste.
Anthony Carelli is a poet who grew up in Poynette, Wisconsin. His first book was published earlier this years as part of the prestigious Princeton Series in Contemporary Poetry.
Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, but now lives in Brooklyn New York. Her first novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze was set in Addis Ababa in 1974 on the eve of the revolution and was published in 2010 to great critical acclaim.
Both authors read excerpts from their books, which were incredible. For an idea of what I mean, see the following posts.
Signed,
Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.
