2015 NYC Chapbook Series
Friends, you are bad ass! To prepare for the NYC Poetry Festival (here's a Tavern write up regarding how the adventure fell together), we ran a Chapbook Contest to decide what publications we will debut in the big city. Not only did we have a successful debut, but we sold out the second print run within months of their release!
Inspired by Mark Cugini’s recent BEST PRIZE chapbook contest at Big Lucks, Christopher Morgan and Jeremiah Walton deposited hours in Facebook chat screens and 12 hr drives to plot the little bolt of lightening we wanted this contest to be. The flash submission call gates opened, and over 80 submissions hit our inbox within the two days. After much reading, we decided upon ten finalists, and finally, three winners.
Thank you for trusting + supporting us as we move forward in the publishing / lit community.
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PreSales/Debut
We want as many of you as possible to have access to incredible writing and gorgeous covers, no matter your financial situation. As such, we're using a "Pay What You Can + $5 Shipping" model for easy distribution. The same model is applied w/ our vending at the Festival.
Unsurprisingly, our store's interface wasn't too keen on "just enter whatever" for pricing, so we've gone and included a range of options for every chapbook. If for some reason the # you'd prefer to give isn't there, just contact us and we'll add it! Our recommended price is ~$5 per chapbook (or all three for $12), though we're fine with you selecting something else if needed. We certainly appreciate your generosity, as we'll be using all sales from this store to help contribute toward subsequent print runs and promotion. & after selling out this year's series, we've published all three chapbooks as free PDFs !! We hope you dig em ! Your support & love have pushed N! farther than we anticipated <3 |
Reviews
If you’re interested in providing reviews, please contact me (at nostroviachapbooks@gmail.com). Every person who gets their review posted will be thanked with a free print copy, which are being produced by Craig Mullins at Bottlecap Press. Craig has been wonderful to work with, as we’ve spent a ton of time adjusting printing specs to best showcase these winning chapbooks!
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Winners
Nostrovia! is thrilled to announce our three winners for our first NYC Chapbook Contest (!) :
BIRD LIZARD HORSE
"Welcome to my garden.
Yes I admit there is nothing growing here.
It is a conceptual garden.
The concept is that it’s empty."
Yes I admit there is nothing growing here.
It is a conceptual garden.
The concept is that it’s empty."
August Smith’s Bird Lizard Horse is a poetry collection with intelligence and depth, leading us to a mournful series from which the collection draws its name.
"Your poems are the shit."
-Waka Flacka Flame
“August Smith is a child telling the truth. Sometimes the truth is he has to listen to the voices of various creatures he’s killed speak to him reproachfully, and he shares that with us, because wouldn’t we all? Parties abound in this collection and reading it feels like being invited. You can tell Smith wants you there.”
–Matthew Rohrer, author of Hummock in the Malookas (National Poetry Series)
“Babyhood happened to everyone. People try to forget that long ago they were mere babies. Adults are always upset by babies. They forget what it means to be a baby: the confusion, the illogical situations, the things that adults simply deem “part of life”. Babies see right through that nonsense which is why they cry. Everywhere there are plenty of things that should drive people crazy: product placement, crass consumer sensibility, etc. Yes everyone can eat fresh but the question remains: should they? If Subway is eating fresh, if Quiznos is toasty, then what is the point of doing anything. What differentiates a slogan from a lie is repetition.”
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DIG AUGUST'S VIRTUAL RENDERING OF POEMS FROM THEIR N!P CHAP(!)
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MOON FACTS
THE MOON is a child's terrible drawing of an egg.
Bob Schofield’s Moon Facts is a wild sequence packed full of surreal imagery and unexpected moods to remind us of the unending complexity in everyone’s favorite lunar friend.
“After reading Moon Facts by Bob Schofield you will be terrified when THE MOON visits your garden or picnic or night. You’ve probably attended MOON festivals your entire life and never known any facts about THE MOON except the facts THE GOVERNMENT printed on your cereal boxes. Your government is lying to you about THE MOON. Bob Schofield is not a liar. He wants to help you understand THE MOON.”
–Chad Redden, creator of Dream Guides Podcast
"Bob Schofield knows the truth: facts are subjective, contradictory, fluid, incomprehensible, absurd. He sits us down one evening and gives us a lesson on reality. We learn that what we think of as the real world is a fable he half remembers from childhood. He tells us this fable in a binary code where each zero is a moon. When he's finished some time has passed. He removes his hat and a grey stone rises up from under it, floats towards us, and enters through the left ear."
–Jackson Nieuwland, editor of LEFT
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BOB READS TWO MOON FACTS(!)
JULIET II
The worst silent film keeps flashing against the back of your skull: monochrome footage of a skull cracking open on the ice, your skull on the concrete in the spring, your blood making rivers in the cracks on the street. You tried to stuff every orifice with flowers right before you died there on the concrete, your eyes rolling up into your head like dead planets. You opened your mouth and Juliet was the sound that escaped into the sky. You opened your mouth and said, ambulance, emergency, Mother.
-Prologue
Sarah Xerta’s Juliet II continues the powerful series of its title character as she reflects upon her life’s journey with unflinching, lyrical sincerity.
“...This powerful continuation to 2014’s JULIET (I) is written in second person since “you don’t know who that girl is. You call her Juliet because she is dead,” & this has the effect of both exposing the profound disembodiment that accompanies trauma and sublimating the autobiographical to clear a space in which Juliet becomes a sort of everywoman, or everyperson, of survival. Stunning, unforgettable, and nauseatingly real, Sarah Xerta’s words make the kind of poems you’d gather up in your arms to hold, if physical intimacy were still an option.”
–Sonya Vatomsky, author of MY HEART IN ASPIC (Pork Belly Press)
"Reading Juliet (II) is like getting set on fire. It's burning and painful, savage and beautiful, and the words singe themselves white hot into your brain. Sarah Xerta is a poet who clearly writes with the purest of motivations--because she has to, because there's simply no other way to make sense of what it means to be alive in this world."
-Juliet Escoria, author of Black Cloud (Civil Coping Mechanisms)
"This book will fucking pull your teeth from their roots and make your skin feel like it’s on fire and you’ll fall into every page and need help getting out, but Xerta’s got you, and they’ve got you every step of the way. This is a writer who knows how to make you feel the way you need to feel without just ruining your life and abandoning you as soon as you run out of pages."
-The Fem, Best of 2015/16
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DIG SARAH'S PERFORMANCE EXCERPT(!)
Bundle Deal
Finalists
- Dalton Day – To Breathe I’m Too Thin
- Meg Eden – I am Linwood Eden or Current Resident
- Logan Ellis – City of Broken Analogies
- Leah Mueller – Allergic to Everything
- Bob Schofield – Moon Facts
- Beach Sloth – March 23rd, 2015
- August Smith – Bird Lizard Horse
- Adam Tedesco – Psycho Genetic Trans Fur
- Barrett Warner – Twin Speech
- Sarah Xerta – Juliet (II)
Lightening that strikes the same place twice has manifested, as we'll be running this contest again next year for debuts at the 2016 NYC Poetry Festival. As with this year, we will not be announcing submission dates until the flood gates open.