Editors Are Not Always Predators

As it is in nature, so it is in the hearts of human beings. Editors are not always Predators. As writers multiply and flourish in their desire to express themselves in the angst and tension of the modern world, to be creative and original, so also have their opportunities blossomed. What was once a closed door except for a lucky one in a hundred is now a gathering room with many open doors.

Industries shift according to needs.

Just because an author pays for publishing services, that does not imply that his/her words are not worthy of reading. (It is ego and vanity that assume the worth of words according to who publishes them.) It only implies that he/she doesn’t have the time or desire to wait for that one-in-a-hundred chance, or that his/her words are worthy of sharing regardless of others’ opinions or judgments.

Why not simply judge our own words firstly and act according to personal will? Let’s not focus on the dark clouds but on the silver-lined clouds that come by way of small publishers who aim to usher in the light of opportunity.


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(By the way, I’m a writer, too, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I publish my own words.)

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Rancho de Fortuna: A Bit of Nostalgia

A Middle Island Press recommendation for those who enjoy taking trips down Memory Lane: Rancho de Fortuna by Kallima Hamilton. This sprightly poetry collection is available at the Middle Island Press website as well as at Amazon.com.

 

There’s Nothing Quite Like a Chapbook.

The tech craze saddens me. Everyone wants to buy more, more, more; to upgrade more, more, more, even when it results in faulty communication of programs inserting the wrong words and making a mess of the sender’s thoughts and intentions. I hope to continue to get by without even a basic cellular phone. I also hope to continue to get by without a Kindle or any other reader of e-books. I’m just fine with paper. I don’t think Mother Earth takes quite the loss in paper production that she suffers with waves of technology bouncing all over her surface.

It is possible that Middle Island Press will offer e-book publishing up the timeline, but I just don’t see that yet. I enjoy specializing in chapbooks. There’s a certain sense of nostalgia in “sticking to the old ways” – ways that remain superior in many ways…

There’s nothing like actually holding a book and turning pages.
There’s little as personal as receiving a book as a gift.
There’s nothing like the look, smell, and feel of a library of books both old and new.

The only thing that I find missing in chapbooks is a sort of hollowness, an emptiness, a “lack of” that I can only imagine would be present in reading from an electronic pocket device of some sort. In that, I miss nothing and gain everything in my craft of setting words to paper, in publishing and printing actual books that don’t require frequent “recharges” to guarantee a good read.

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(Middle Island Press specializes in chapbook publishing. We make some of the finest chapbooks in America.)