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