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

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.
Virginia Woolf

Our first issue is live!

The September issue of the Katherine Press Review is now up at KatherinePress.com!  And don't think that just because you already read the sneak peek that you've seen it all--oh ho ho, you haven't seen anything yet!  Not only do we still have the three great stories we featured before (Hush, The M-Word and Striking out in Paris--and if you haven't read them yet, you really should), but we've added two new stories: Deadline by Cherie ter Bogt and Saturn Cafe by Natasha Gold.

There's lots of exciting stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks, so definitely stay tuned!  If you haven't already, make sure to join our mailing list to stay on top of all the big stuff we've got going on, and be sure to like us on Facebook to get notified not only of new issues, but also of fun contests and up coming events.

Happy reading!

The transition into Autumn seems to have started here in New Hampshire.  As the days get cooler I find myself getting cozy in my big chair with my e-reader trying to catch some sunlight peeking in through my windows.   I now wrap my hands around a warm cup of tea or coffee instead of the iced beverages that accompanied me in my summer reading outside.   We have some great new short stories for our first Katherine Press Review which will be released next week.  We at Katherine Press always look forward to reading new submissions so keep them coming.

Emily Lahut
Publisher

Katherine Press Review now live!

Today, the Katherine Press Review Sneak Peek of our September Issue went live!  It's been crazy and exciting and exhausting and... well, we wrote a whole letter about it introducing the Sneak Peek (click here to read the original):

It was only about six months ago that we decided to start our own chick-lit publishing company.  Both of us felt that we needed a new challenge and an opportunity to be really intellectually stimulated, and boy did we get it!  Starting this company, going through the submissions, making really tough decisions about what to publish, and then getting those pieces in shape for publication has been one of the most rewarding projects either of us has ever worked on.

And it doesn’t end here!  On September 20th, we’ll release the entire first issue of the Katherine Press Review right here on KatherinePress.com.  Every month after that, you will find another issue of the Katherine Press Review full of great short stories and essays.  Also coming in September, you can read the Katherine Press Review on your e-reader or mobile device for just 99 cents a month if you subscribe via Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  Subscribers won’t just get the stories and essays featured here on the website, but also get poetry—and we promise, we have got some great poetry coming in the next couple of months—as well as longer excerpts of the novellas, novels, and memoirs we’ll be publishing in the next year, and occasionally even a special bonus story!  More details will be available here soon, or click here to sign up for our mailing list.

Speaking of novellas, novels, and memoirs: we’ve got an exciting list of releases coming up in the next year.  In December, we’ve got The Last Bridesmaid, by our very own Inga Gardner.  In June, we’ll have the first in a rollicking new series, starting with The PMS Detectives: A Family Affair by Amber Gillet .  In between, we’ll be releasing some shorter pieces for individual sale.  As always, we remain committed to bringing you the best entertainment at a great price.

Thank you so much for joining us for this sneak peek and we look forward to seeing you again in the months to come!

Sincerely,

Emily Lahut, Publisher
Inga Gardner, Editor

July 27, 2011

What is chick lit?  There seems to be a variety of definitions for the chick lit genre, so I would like to clarify our vision for Katherine Press.   Chick lit tends to depict women between the ages of 20 and 60 and touches on the complexities of life and women’s psyche in a humorous or lighthearted way.  Our vision for Katherine Press is to publish a broad definition of chick lit for our readers.  We would like to have a balance between humorous and touching writing.  We are hopeful that our readers will appreciate diversity in age, race, gender and sexuality in the writing and the authors.  Our intended audience is mostly women who enjoy stories with a personal tone.

Emily Lahut, Publisher