John B. Lee's New Book

In April of 2014 John B. Lee will be releasing a new book from the Black Barns Trilogy's collection of poetry, 'Burning My Father.' Follow along as Marty Gervais' editing class of 2013 edits and publishes the best of John B Lee. Updates straight from the editor's table!

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Video Wednesday!

John B Lee reads from Variations on Herb. Happy Wednesday!

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13. 11. 13

Hey all!

Today we are going over our presentation for KPMG and working out the kinks. Our presentation covers topics such as a short bio of our author, our progress over the semester, and why poetry matters. Stay tuned later today for pictures from the presentation!

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11. 11. 2013

Hello all!

Next week is the KPMG presentation! Three of our group members will be pitching our manuscript to a publishing company; the presentation will cover topics such as our social media campaign, copyright and a brief bio of our author, John B. Lee. We are doing our first run-through as I type this post.

The next few days we will be running through the presentation several times in order to nail it down. So far, it's looking great!

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Video Wednesday!

Take a look at a video one of our classmates shot on our progress on John B Lee's new book!

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John's childhood desk from the Leeland Farm. 

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QUESTION?

Hey, do any poetry readers out there prefer rural, romantic-style, pastoral poetry?

Stay tuned for John B. Lee's new book coming in April!

We'd love some feedback about the theme of farm related poetry.

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Title of the NEW book!?

Hey Tumblrs!

Are you ready to hear the title of the book?  Release date set for April 2014!

The title is:

"Burning my Father" 

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Visiting John in his former residence of Highgate. We couldn't go onto the farm, but we still got pretty close.

-- John's Editing Team

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Excerpt from A State of Gracelessness

"The poppy roan startled by this fragment of human sky suddenly wheezing in her dung came to snuff me like a newborn calf before she turned to moo above the half door"

-- John B. Lee "The Pig Dance Dreams"

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11. 04. 2013

Hey all!

Today the editing team is going over what needs to be done for our KPMG presentation two weeks from today.The presentation is our book pitch to the publishing company. Three of our group members have stepped up and volunteered to present our manuscript.

But should we have handouts or no hands outs? What three stories do we want to tell? What four questions do we have for the business men? There's a lot of detail that goes into selling an book!

Stay tuned for Wednesday, when we will be releasing the title we will officially be using! As for us, Word format versions of the poems - with our edits - are due. See you Wednesday!

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CONGRATULATIONS TO BLACK MOSS PRESS AUTHOR TERRY ANN CARTER FOR HER AWARD NOMINATION FOR 'day moon rising', published by Black Moss Press!! And to John...

John has been nominated (for the third time!) for the People's Poetry Award for his book Let Us Be Silent Here. Congratulations, John!

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10. 30. 2013

Hey all!

Today was super exciting, as we facebook chatted with John B Lee about his ideas about the book. John was very enthusiastic about the book so far and gave us a lot of great advice. And you heard it here first: another one of his poems might make its way into the manuscript!

Other than that, we split the poems between ourselves to edit in groups of two. Because of the age of the poems, we have to type the poems out ourselves and then edit them - there are no electronic copies. Stay tuned for updates on the poems, due next Wednesday!

Fun fact: we found out today that John B Lee has received a letter of praise from Nelson Mandela for his work!

Check back in on Monday to see what we're up to - next week we're working on our pitch!

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Our Facebook video meeting with John on Wednesday morning!

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Reading Wednesdays! John B Lee reads 'If I were a Nation Innocent of War'.

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10. 28. 2013

Hey all!

Welcome back to the editing table! Today we're getting into the nitty-gritty of the poems and making changes as well as catching some typos that managed to slip through the first time.

There's a bit of a challenge because one of the poems has a visual element. We really like it, but it's the only one of its' kind. The question is, will it stand out too much or will it be a pleasant element that intrigues the reader? And if it's the former, should we take it out or find a way to reformat it?

Stay tuned to find out!

- John B-lee-vers

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Our editing class getting marketing advice from one of the best in the biz!

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Reading Wednesdays! John B Lee reads from his book 'Hired Hands', published in 1986 by Brick Books.