It was over a year ago that we started Katherine Press, and over six months ago that we began publishing the free Katherine Press Review.  We have had a wonderful time reading all the excellent writing writers submitted and we hoped to be able to bring our readers even more great stories, poems and novels in the coming months.

Unfortunately, as so often happens, life gets in the way.  With both of us working more than one job in addition to Katherine Press, we have not been able to give this company the attention it needs to thrive.  With both of our personal lives becoming fuller and more complicated in the last few months, it does not appear that we are going to have more time in the coming months.  We have made the painful and disappointing decision to suspend Katherine Press operations for the foreseeable future.  Hopefully, we will be able to resume operations at some point in the future, but as of today that remains just a hope.

We would like to thank all the people who supported us and Katherine Press, all of our readers, and all of the exciting writers we published.  Without you, we would not have made it as far as we did.  We still believe that this is a transformational moment in the publishing industry and that there are a number of small publishing companies poised to make a big impression.  We look forward to seeing what the industry does in the next few years, but we do not see ourselves being a part of it.

We hope that you continue reading and supporting the work that comes out of small presses, and we thank you for your support and understanding.

Sincerely,

Emily Lahut, publisher

Inga Gardner, editor

Other People's Thoughts

Katherine Press would like to welcome Andrea Rouda as a guest Blogger this week.  Enjoy!

Other People's Thoughts

Back when my son was a teenager, his gang of friends came by most days after school to raid our refrigerator and decompress. One of them was a bright boy named Sam who I liked quite a bit, and who I found to be smarter than some of the others. Unlike my own son, who studiously avoided me in front of his peers so as not to be labeled a “Momma’s Boy,” Sam and I often had interesting conversations over the microwave on what was being taught in school that particular day or week. Our favorite topic was literature, and as a freelance writer I especially liked keeping up with the current curriculum, although it seemed that no matter what year it was, it was always Shakespeare’s plays, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Huckleberry Finn.”

One afternoon, while waiting for his pepperoni pizza Hot Pocket to reach perfection, Sam declared he was no longer interested in reading fiction. I was stunned. Naturally I asked why. “Books are all about someone else’s thoughts and ideas,” he said. “I already have my own, and until I run out of things to think about, I’m going to concentrate on those.”

That was seven or eight years ago, and at the time I dismissed Sam’s comments as childish at best and foolish at worst. In the interim I have written many articles, published a few pieces of fiction and produced a daily blog, of course counting on perfect strangers to be interested in my thoughts. At the same time, I’ve always been an avid reader of fiction -- the occasional biography does slip in, usually after someone famous dies and I suddenly want to know all about their life. But lately Sam’s assessment of books has come back to haunt me, usually in the middle of reading one that isn’t all that great. It’s then that I remember—hey, these are somebody else’s thoughts--I have my own! At that point I usually put the book down, never to return.

This is the quandary of being a writer. When you’re reading, you wonder why you’re not writing. If you’re reading a great book, it inspires you to work on that story you started and to try this or that, so you stop and go do that. If you’re reading something less than great, it’s suddenly a waste of valuable time when you could be working on your novel or finishing up that article or pitching a story to someone, somewhere. It’s a bit like eating bad food in a restaurant when you’re a good cook: what am I doing here?

Of course, exceptions must be made. We all have favorite books that we go back to for the sheer pleasure of reading words we already know so well, but each time finding some nuance for the first time. In my case, it’s Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome.” Lucky for me it’s only about 90 pages, so I can take it on without feeling guilty about abandoning my own thoughts for too long.

I ran into Sam again; he’s 24 now, out of college and back to reading. “It was just a phase,” he said when I reminded him of his high-school declaration. I may be in that phase myself; hopefully it will pass.

Andrea J. Rouda is a seasoned artist and writer. Her illustrations and articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the Deseret News, The New Yorker, Yankee and Communicator magazines, and on many websites. The screenplay adaptation of her comic novel, “Shrink Rapt,” is currently in the pipeline for production. A serial employee, Rouda has held 46 jobs. She currently freelances from her home in coastal Maine, where she and her husband live with the three cats who run the place.  Read her daily humor blog, ROTO-ROUDA, at:

http://arouda.blogspot.com/

April Katherine Press Review!

It is officially spring!  We can't speak for the rest of you, but the fact that, here in New England, the snow is gone, the sun is out, the trees have buds on them has put us in a great mood.  It's almost time for sundresses and sandals, barbeques and sangria, lazy walks after dinner in the fading orange sunlight, not to mention trips to the beach and swimming in friends' pools.  There's so much to look forward to!

Here at The Katherine Press Review, we have a couple of great new pieces to ring in the new season.  Pamela Lewis reminisces about her first experiences with Barbie in "Barbie on My Mind...Again".  Brittanie Bradley frets poetically over a lover in "Anxiety".  Lastly, Carol E. Ayer serves up some pretty classic chick lit with the humerous and charming "What's Cookin'".

As always, if you missed any of last month's great pieces (or if you just want to read them again), they're available on our homepage.  We hope that wherever you are, you're enjoying as great weather as we are.  Happy spring and happy reading from us at Katherine Press!

Is "Silence Golden"?

Katherine Press would like to welcome Sarah Jones as our first guest Blogger.

Is “Silence Golden”?  With the price of gold at an all time high, has the commodity of silence increased in value too?  Is it such a rarity that we have to seek it out?  The world continues to flash, beep, and scream around me.  Each place I go seems to provide the environment necessary to fill the air with the cacophony of busyness.  I was in the Mecca of developing minds today, Toys ‘R Us.  The attack on my senses was overwhelming-flashing lights, dancing stuffed animals, animated voices singing classic children’s tunes in their electronic cadence.  All these amusements cued up by small impulsive hands and then left, sadly, seconds later when the hands seek a new distraction.  I find myself in fight or flight mode standing bewildered in the aisles of this microcosm of the future.  I decide to leave the store lest my mind transitions to “fight” mode and I become the YouTube sensation of a woman losing it in Toys ‘R Us.  No doubt, a ten year old would whip out his/her phone to record my meltdown and post it with a link in the margins for a cat attacking the same toy I had taken my wrath out against.  It is a challenge and an oddity to be in silence.  I encourage everyone to take 10 minutes and sit without television, radio, computers, or conversation blaring in the background.  The feeling is disarming, yet precious, like gold.  You may find that the value of your time has just gone up. 

Sarah Jones

DOJ antitrust suit against Apple

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that it may bring an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and several of the largest book publishers over possible price-fixing.  If you're not familiar with the case, the details get a little bit into the nitty-gritty of the way that the publishing industry has traditionally operated.  From the linked article:

"Apple is said to have helped push book publishers away from their traditional pricing model — publishers would typically charge distributors about half the cover price for an eBook — and into an “agency model,” which would let publishers set the end-user price of an eBook and Apple would take a 30% commission on each sale. This new model is said to have made it difficult for booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble to compete, because they would regularly discount the prices of new books and trim margins in an effort to promote sales."

I will admit that, on the one hand, a DOJ lawsuit that brings ebooks back down to impulse-buy territory would be welcome for me as a reader (if you're a Kindle or Nook user, you've probably noticed that the $9.99 ebooks that were like crack when you first got your reader have now crept up to $12 or even $15). 

But on the other hand, we at Katherine Press have always seen the rising cost of ebooks from major publishers as an opportunity.  The biggest reason that publishers have been able to command steep premiums on their books is that they were guarantors of quality: you can be reasonably certain that your Simon & Schuster book will not only be free of typos, but will also be edited to read smoothly and professionally.  The same, sadly, cannot be said for many self-published books.  What the industry needs, then, is some cheaper institutions that could vouch for the quality of ebooks.  At Katherine Press, we've always seen that as being a role we wanted to take on.  Readers should be able to trust that, even with lower price points, you will get a well written and worthwhile book when you buy a Katherine Press publication. 

Whether or not this DOJ lawsuit happens, what we're watching is an industry in the process of metamorphosis.  Those left standing and financially strong will be the ones who didn't try to preserve the old ways of doing business but embraced the changes.  Books aren't going anywhere--they're just changing.  And if the industry can't accept that, well, that's not our problem.  That's our opportunity.

The March Issue is up!

Greetings from Katherine Press!

Spring has almost sprung!  Although, in much of the country, it feels like winter never totally arrived.  Nonetheless, we're definitely looking forward to warmer weather and chances to spend lazy summer afternoons enjoying some great chick lit!

In the meantime, we've got the March issue of the Katherine Press Review to keep you going through the last the winter has to throw at us.  Many of you probably remember Isadora Gruye's haunting, funny, and sexy "3C".  It's a lovely story, and one that we got a lot of feed back about, so it should probably come as no surprise that Ms. Gruye's poems are equally beautiful.  This month, we have "Text Message #4", "Sailor's Girl", and "Letter to My Mother's Neurosurgeon" for you to enjoy.  Even if you don't generaly like poetry, we think you'll find these clever, charming, sad and amusing poems enjoyable.

In addition, we have Staci Backauskas' "Life & Death".  Widowed Melba Burbank tries not to feel sorry for herself after the sudden death of her son; it's not easy, though, when she's had to move away from her beloved house and live much more frugally.  The last straw seems to be when her car just suddenly quits on her.  But the kindness of a stranger reminds her why suffering can sometimes be a blessing and why she still has more than enough to live for.

And last--but certainly not least--we have "Dinner" by Brandi Derr.  Mo has agreed to pretend to be nothing more than C's friend at C's family's monthly dinners.  But with the family getting suspicious that there is more going on than the women will admit and with Mo feeling pushed to the side in her lover's life, it may not be just the pasta that boils over.

We've also got exciting things coming up in the next couple of months including our first novel, The Last Bridesmaid by Inga Gardner, and the first in the PMS Investigators series by Amber Gillet, A Family Affair.  We always love hearing from you, our readers, too, so make sure to visit our Facebook page or our website to let us know what you think of our stories and what you'd like to see more of.  If you missed any of the stories in our February edition or if you just want to read one of our stories again, you've still got time!  A list of February's contents can be found on our homepage.

We hope you all have had a great winter and that your spring is just as great!

Sincerely,

Emily Lahut
Publisher

February Issue!

Emily is taking a much deserved vacation in warmer climes, but that doesn't mean that we're not putting out our February issue! 

To combat the winter doldrums of February, we've got some great pieces for your enjoyment.  Kitty Martin details her misadventures in online dating in Incompatible.com.  Loving a military man sometimes brings unexpected challenges in Jessica Critcher's Of Beds and Bugs.  Kathleen Bowman tells us about falling in love with her new baby in If We Are Lucky.  And to cap it off, we have Gawaine Caldwater Ross's lovely poem, No Messages.

Enjoy!