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!

January Issue of the Katherine Press Review

We have had a great response to the January Issue of the Katherine Press Review.  We have three talented writers who delivered three very different stories about complicated relationships. 

Julie Green shows how a mother can insert herself into her daughter's new marriage in The Honeymoon Conspiracy. 
Rachel S. Thomas-Medwid entertains us with roommates, a stalker, and a boyfriend in Right Hand Red. 
Grace Marcus skillfully weaves us through past and present as Annette tries to make sense of her abusive relationship in Trinity.

Katherine Press is proud to continue bringing quality stories to our readers.  Each issue of the review has a life of its own and it is inspiring to see how many gifted writers are out there.

Happy New Year!

It's been a pretty exciting 2011 for us here at Katherine Press.  And we've got big stuff coming up in the 2012: more issues of the Katherine Press Review, some great novels, and podcasts!  Thanks for being such great readers and thank you for all of your support.  Stay safe tonight, and we'll see you in 2012!

Season's Greetings

The holiday season is well under way and people seem to be scurrying around trying to fit as much as possible into each day.  One respite I find is turning on the lights on our tree at night and enjoying the peace that comes along with the quiet.  This becomes a time for reflection, a time for slowing down, a time for me. 

Katherine Press has many exciting things brewing for 2012, but as I reflect on this year I am very proud of the Katherine Press Review.  We have so many talented authors who have contributed and it is a joy to be able to share their work in our monthly review free of charge.  I have heard from readers who sneak in a story at work, read when their babies are napping, find the stories inspire creativity, or use the review during procrastination.  Regardless of how or when you read, we are grateful that you are taking the time to enjoy the stories we offer.

We, at Katherine Press, are wishing you a very happy holiday season with time for peace and reflection.

Emily Lahut

Publisher

Katherine Press

November/December Release of the Katherine Press Review

We are excited to release yet another issue of the Katherine Press Review.  There are three wonderful stories to delight in over the next several weeks.  We are also offering an excerpt from The Last Bridesmaid by our very own Inga Gardner.  Our website has had a bit of a makeover so be sure to check out our new page for books.

Emily Lahut
Publisher
Katherine Press

A Day Of Thanks

Here in the United States of America we gather for Thanksgiving.  This day traditionally celebrates the skills the Pilgrims acquired from the Native Americans in order to survive on the gifts of the land.  The Native Americans suffered greatly from European settlement however their giving nature is at the heart of this holiday.  We can look at the roots of this day to remind us the true spirit of giving and nurturing the survival of others.  We should honor the Native Americans by being thankful of the gifts in our own lives.  This is a time for us to acknowledge that we owe at least part of our survival to those around us.   We give thanks to the people who accompany us through life, giving us the skills or support to get through every day, every challenge.  These are the people who love us, the people who help us, and the people who nurture us.   To me this is the holiday that brings people together.  It is the holiday that reminds us we are not alone.  It is a time to celebrate humanity.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Emily Lahut

Publisher

Katherine Press

We are gearing up for our next issue of the Katherine Press Review and we can't wait to share more great stories with you.  Even though the next issue is called the November/December issue, we will not be skipping a month of the review.  As Inga stated in the last blog, we are just changing the name of the issues so when the review is released it will reflect the name of the upcoming month.
I continue to be impressed with the quality of submissions we have been receiving.  There are a lot of amazing writers out there.  Keep the submissions coming.  Remember we are looking for poetry, short fiction and personal essays for the Katherine Press Review (800 - 5,000 words) or for e-book publication (5,000 - 30,000 words), and novels.

Emily Lahut
Publisher
Katherine Press

Programming Note

We just have a couple, quick updates about some of the upcoming issues of the Katherine Press Review:

Each issue that we've published, we've titled the month it came out.  So, the issue published on September 20th was called the September issue and the issue published on October 18th was the October issue.  We've found that this has caused some confusion.  Monthly magazines traditionally publish the month's issue before the month begins (so, November's issue would come out at the end of October). 

To make things a little clearer going forward - and since we already publish at the end of the month anyway - we're going to follow suit.  The next issue, which will be published on November 29th will be called the November/December issue.  The issue after that, published December 27th, will be called the January issue and so on.  This change only affects what the issues are called and we will continue to have an issue every month with no breaks. 

The only other thing we wanted to mention is that we are going to be standardizing the publication dates of the review so that people know when to anticipate them. From now on, issues will be published on the last Tuesday of the month. 

As always, if you have any questions you can feel free to email us at KatherinePress@hotmail.com or by going to our website, KatherinePress.com, and filling out the Contact Us form.

Has reading aloud with friends become a thing of the past?

One of the many pleasures in my life is watching my friends and family read to their young children.  We put so much care into the choices of stories we read to these impressionable minds and the tone in which we present the stories.  They soak up the words, characters, and the plots asking us to read them over and over until they can “read” them back to us from memory.  As we get older we seem to gravitate to the television in order to share the experience of stories instead of reading them to each other.  But I believe there is immense value in reading to each other throughout our lives.  I have delightful memories of my parents loading us all up into a canoe so my mom could read us The Secret Garden while we leisurely paddled around a lake.  Later, when my sister and I moved into an apartment together, with no television, we entertained ourselves by reading books to each other.  Steinbeck was a favorite to read aloud.  A book I have read over and over with friends on traveling adventures is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole for its bizarre humor that you just can’t help but share with the people around you.  I have even earned a good scolding at a campground for laughing too loud while a good friend of mine read me excerpts from a David Sedaris book.  And what romantic hasn’t read poetry to their lovers?  I am getting warm fuzzy feelings recalling these times but it occurred to me that I have not shared a book or story with someone in this fashion in quite a while.   I wonder… has reading aloud with friends become a thing of the past? In this modern time when everything moves so fast and time seems so hard to come by, we should still be able to find the time to at least share short stories with each other.  If you don’t already do this, give it a try.  We would love to hear about your experiences.

Emily Lahut

Publisher

Katherine Press

Seeking longer submissions

We are always looking for submissions of all kinds from talented writers, but what we haven't received much of is medium lenth pieces.  We've gotten a ton of short stories (which have been so much fun to read through - thanks, guys!), and we've gotten several full length novels.  However, we've gotten almost no 10,000 to 40,000 word pieces.

I'm beginning to think that maybe people just don't write novellas anymore.  And I understand why: up until now there simply hasn't been a market for them.  However, e-books mean that we don't have to print in larger volumes, and can sell pieces that are going to retail for $2.50 a piece.  Considering how busy we all are, it would be nice to have some pieces that can be read in the span of a few hours or a day or two.  Nothing against full length novels - goodness knows I love them.  But it would be great to see some medium length pieces as well. 

If you've got a piece like this kicking around your hard drive, go ahead and send it along to us at KatherinePress@Hotmail.com!  We can't wait to read them.

Inga Gardner
Editor

October Issue of the Katherine Press Review is up!

The October issue of the Katherine Press Review is now up and, if we do say so ourselves, it's a really good one!  Here's the letter from the editor that accompanies the issue:

Welcome back to the Katherine Press Review!

By far one of the greatest and most unexpected pleasures of editing the Katherine Press Review has been the sheer amount and quality of the writing talent that is just... out there.  It's not even hiding; it's just waiting to be noticed.  This issue is a perfect example of some of the wonderful writing that only had to be discovered.

Take Isadora Gruye's 3C.  By the end of the story, I was literally in tears.  And yet there were moments when I laughed out loud.  Stories that can do that to a reader and not feel remotely manipulative are a rare and wonderful treat (on a related note, Ms. Gruye has completed a novel and I would be lying if I said I wasn't kind of dying to read it).

On the other hand, I wasn't sure how I felt about If You Knew Mary, Rehka Ambardar's story of expats in Sri Lanka.  I knew I liked the setting and I knew I liked the idea of the story, but as I was reading it, I wasn't sure whether I liked the story itself.  In the following days, though, I found myself thinking about the titular character, thinking about her as though she was someone that I, well, knew.  A story that stays with you for days after you've read it is a story worth returning to.

And of course, there is Shelley Burbank's unspeakably delightful I Was Never That Fond of Kafka.  It should surprise exactly no one to learn that I am a bit of a literature geek.  Mashing Kafka-esque themes with chick lit was truly inspired and I can only say that I wish I had thought of it first.  And if you're not a literature geek and have never read Kafka, don't be put off: the story is funny and charming and weird and absolutely wonderful.

I would love to say that my editing had anything to do with the strength of this issue of the Katherine Press Review, but all Emily and I have done here is recognize that these were talented writers and give them a forum.  I will be very surprised if these writers don't turn up again in settings much more prestigious than ours.  Honestly, though, and I think I speak for Emily here as well, we're just thrilled to be a part of these exciting writers' careers.

Happy reading! 

Inga Gardner
Editor-in-Chief

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Also, if you were unlucky enough to miss the September issue, don't worry: you've still got time to read it before it disappears into the internet ether.  Click here to check out our previous issue.

*cough* *cough* *achoo*

On a note completely unrelated to anything, it's cold and flu season again so (at the risk of sounding like your mom) make sure to wash your hands and take your vitamins.  Emily was laid low by a nasty respiratory infection and I got gut punched by a bit of stomach flu unpleasantness.  We're both either mended or mending, but damn this is not an auspicious start to the season. 

Okay, carry on.

Inga Gardner
Editor

New Amazon Kindles!

I'm not going to bother pretending that Amazon's announcement of a whole line of Kindles today is not super exciting.  There's a $79 Kindle.  Granted it has ads, but still!  There's a Kindle Touch!  And, most knee-quakingly exciting of all, there's the Kindle Fire.  Even the name is exciting.  And it's $199.  I was pretty much resigned to not getting an iPad until the price came down and everyone else already had one (you know, like it was with the iPod).  But $199--that's, like, affordable.  And it uses Cloud computing, which the nerd in me absolutely loves.

But more than that, this is a step in the right direction: toward getting everyone reading on e-book.  Yes, I know, there will always be the paper snobs who go on about the feel of books and the smell of books.  And that's fine.  But the Kindle (or the Nook, or the Sony eReader or whatever) is light and convenient, it's easy to read and it makes books accessible anywhere and everywhere.  What's not to love about that? 

More than that, I was out walking one of my dogs the other day and a neighbor was coming back from the bus stop with her third grade daughter.  "Feel this," my neighbor said, holding up her daughter's book bag.  It was so heavy.  I'm a grown woman and I wouldn't want to carry that bag every day.  I can't imagine allowing my third grader to carry that.  $79 is a step in the direction of children using e-readers instead of text books.  And saving a few third grade backs (not to mention a few million trees) sounds like a really, really good thing.

Inga Gardner
Editor

What do you think?

In the coming months, Katherine Press has got some great stories and essays lined up for publication.  Emily and I really can't wait to share them with you, and we think that you're going to find them interesting and thought provoking.  So, at the outset, I wanted to invite you to share your thoughts on the writing we publish.  If you have a strong reaction to any of our stories -- positive or negative -- we want to hear them.  You can leave them in the comments section below, leave them on the comment page of our website, or email them to KatherinePress@hotmail.com.  Any really interesting or thought provoking letters, we'll publish here on the blog. 

Thanks and happy reading!

Inga Gardner
Editor
Katherine Press