NOSTROVIA! TAVERN

on the road // Tucson // Bay // traveling bookstore // chapbook contests // F.A.L.D. // accessible passionate living // process into process

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from our 2018 Chapbook Series, Laura Villareal’s The Cartography of Sleep <3

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from our 2018 Chapbook Series, Stephen Furlong’s What Loss Taught Me <3

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from our 2018 Chapbook Series, Lydia Haven’s I Gave Birth To All The Ghosts Here <3

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 15 Review

Video Poem: Lydia Havens

a poem by Lydia Havens from their chapbook, I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here, available from Nostrovia! Press here:

http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/product/i-gave-birth-to-all-the-ghosts-here-by-lydia-havens

"Aubade for gender (or a lack thereof)"

If I must have a corporeal form I will do so on my own terms: I will exist the most when the sun also exists the most. Raging

against the dying spite. Making every third-story window into my own reflection. There is pink in the sky

every morning, so there will be pink in my own face always. My hair will grow into its own astronomy. I have

entire months under my fingernails, and they all taste like the pronouns that do not rest easy in my mouth

anymore. May this be my coming out poem. May this be another liminal Sunday morning. I’ll fall asleep at 10AM

to the rhythm of my legal name, wake up to the effortless syllable that all my friends call me.

There is light coming in through the shutters. It all reminds me of my own arms.

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1 Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2 Week 13: Covers! Week 14: Stephen’s Video Poem 

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 14 Review

Presales

We’ve been truly humbled by your support this last week--we’ve already accounted for most of our entire first print run! While we still have copies left, we’ll be moving to a smaller 2nd print run soon to make sure you have access to these chaps in time for the holidays <3

Get a chapbook for pay-what-you-can rates here: http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/

Video Poem: Stephen Furlong

a poem by Stephen Furlong from his chapbook, What Loss Taught Me, available from Nostrovia! Press here: http://nostroviapress.bigcartel.com/product/what-loss-taught-me-by-stephen-furlong

"Introduction to Creative Writing"

The first time I read James Wright’s “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s…” the last line was cut off—a machine-made mistake. The chicken hawk looking for home instead of I have wasted my life. You requested amnesty, yet class called uproar. Sounded barbaric yawps.

Words change, worlds change, and         words change again. Still, two pines surrounded the poem’s frame, cornered by words tinged with nostalgia, carefree. A couple of years have passed and I’m thumbing through my notebook from that class. I’ve noticed my words reaching out, under influence of these same forces. Creating heaviness, bounded notebooks should have unbounded ideas. You taught me words could help me love —again, I had doubts. Like shadows, they crept, finding the corners of walls. Where two ends meet: Collisions. That’s what Ron Carlson calls ideas—collisions. Words combine, fuse, link—fences, not walls.

I’d rather see where I could go than trust where I might go. I’ll tell my secrets to the river,

reveal myself like a wound-up wrist, watch the colors of the bridge begin to blend into sky, and read these words to passersby. Explain to them before troubled lights and vanishing avenues, William Olsen wrote the past must have loved me though. I try to arrange those words to arrange my feelings. Though the past must have loved me. The past, though, must have loved me. The words ring, a refrain I refrain from hearing. I will let the call go to voicemail. I will hit save. I will hear those words over and over again. The past must have loved me though.

And one day when you and I go for a walk in this city along the river, next to the wall with the faces, we’ll be above the river at last.

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1 Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2 Week 13: Covers!

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 13 Review

It’s a huge day for Nostrovia! Press, as today we’re not only sharing the covers of the three 2018 chapbooks, but PRESALES begin, too!

Covers

Without further adieu, here are the covers for our chapbooks(!):

illustrated by Letícia Bmi

illustrated by Jennifer Walton

illustrated by Shay Alexi

Presales

PRESALES HAVE BEGUN!!! As usual, we’re selling these limited edition chapbooks at a pay-what-you-can rate, so anyone who wants some beautiful writing can get a copy. We’ll also be releasing these collections as free PDFs come Spring 2019. 

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1 Week 12: Blurbs, Part 2

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 12 Review

Blurbs!

Very excited to share the next batch of blurbs for our upcoming chapbooks!

“Like a howl through a crowded room, this collection draws attention, an urgency unconcerned with politeness.  An honest, youthful exploration of personal history and the queer body, I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here builds a world and invites you in. Lydia Havens is special, plain and simple. They are truly an artist to watch.” –Clementine von Radics, In A Dream You Saw A Way To Survive

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“Laura Villareal's The Cartography of Sleep is a sublime map of dreams and a guide to the heart's darkness. Finding your way in her poetry is no easy journey. Villareal offers her readers new mythologies and seasons. The turns are sometimes bloody, sometimes funny, sometimes wild, sometimes surreal, but all the time enlightening. Make no mistake, these poems bite back, sweetly, vengefully, and with grace.  Or put simply, these poems are dangerous.” –Willie Perdomo, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon (Penguin Poets)

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“If you want to know what tenderness means, and what it looks like, and how it graces the lines of a poem, you should read Stephen Furlong's What Loss Taught Me. If you want to know the courage of tenderness, or the way it can be turned toward the self, you should read this. These poems take the hard risk of being honest, and vulnerable, of making out of deep, impossible hurt a kind of home. They inhabit and transcend the wounds that make up our everyday. When I lift my eyes from the page and look around, I see how everything is capable of holding some kind of violence, some kind of beauty, and some kind of love. Stephen's work is a work of grace in that way. "Eventually, love," he writes, and I say yes. But also: the love is here. In the aftermath of cruelty, violence, and fear, Stephen has brought it out. No more eventually. This book ushers love back into the world.”

–Devin Kelly, In This Quiet Church of Night I Say Amen (CCM Press)

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We’ll be sharing the covers and starting presales NEXT WEEK!!!

Much love and see you next week! <3

-Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress Week 11: Blurbs, Part 1

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 11 Review

Another week, another weekly review <3 

Blurbs

Very excited to share the first wave of blurbs for our upcoming chapbooks!

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“These are brave poems that have a remarkable immediacy of voice. They mourn; they bear witness; they warn. While about abuse, they transcend their topic. In the end they do what all compelling poems must – speak to what it means to be human in all its facets, both good and bad.”

–Sue William Silverman, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (University of Georgia Press)

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“We begin with a question ‘I want a healthy coping / mechanism that still allows me to be / heard. Where do I find something like that?’ and the search begins as the poet steps into a voice that is stepping into every light refracting from this prism in the center of their chest. this is giving birth to all one's ghosts. giving them voice, forms, breaks, breadth and breath. names are praised and names are named. the self is extracted from the darkness and the self endures. Havens' ghosts light the way ahead to help us see. To make us seen.”

–Jess Rizkallah, author of the magic my body becomes (University of Arkansas Press)

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“Villareal positions herself the cartographer in this short and poignant collection of poems. With each page she pushes her text to transform and so we encounter the map as text for guidance, map as data, map as myth. Each bit of movement expands the landscape Villareal’s poems define and, in doing so, charts wider territory for the reader to move into. I’m saying, with The Cartography of Sleep I stepped into a series of bound pages and stepped out into an expanse. How grateful I am for it.”

–JR Mahung, Since When He Have Wings (Pizza Pi Press)

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We’ll have more blurbs to share soon! 

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing Weeks 9-10: Editing Progress

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Weeks 9-10 Review

Wow! Can’t believe it’s already October!

We’ve been going back and forth with Lydia, Laura, and Stephen these last two weeks! But all the work has been worth it: as of now, all 3 chapbooks are finished for their interiors (layout, lineup, editing), have their excerpts picked, and cover images decided (with initial mockups)! Can’t wait to share those soon ;)

For now, the three writers are picking pieces from their MSS to create video poems <3 We’ll be sharing the video poems all next month, which is also when presales begins. 

For October, we’ll be sharing blurbs, and then finally the covers! Also diving into print proofs! Stay tuned!

Reviews

BTW(!), if you're interested in writing a review of any (or all) of these upcoming 3 chaps, please let us know! We'll be sending out ARC PDFs soon--if you write a review and post it, we'll get your address to send a complimentary thank-you copy once they're printed in December <3

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners! Weeks 7-8: Editing 

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Weeks 7-8 Review

These last two weeks have been crazy with activity (hence us missing the last review!), but we’re back with another update!

After talking a little with the three winners, we dove into the timeline for the next few months, making sure to lay out the challenges we’ll be facing. Bob and I asked for any extra poems the writers had considered (but not included) for their MSS--in all three instances, we found ~2 poems that really struck us as important additions. 

Otherwise, Bob and I did ~6 back-and-forth edits for each MS before passing it back to each writer for review :) We’ve confirmed the size of the chaps with Craig at @bottlecappress, picked out a typeface for each book, and are working now on the formatting and layout of pieces (shifting from 8.5x11 to 5x8). And we’re investigating cover art options!!

Stephen, Lyd, and Laura are all a pleasure to work with <3

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists! Week 6: The Winners!

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 6 Review

It's our tremendous joy to announce the 3 winners for our 2018 Chapbook Contest(!):

* Stephen Furlong - What Loss Taught Me * Lydia Havens - I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here * Laura Villareal - The Cartography of Sleep

Cheers and much love--we can't wait to share these powerful chaps with you all <3 Presales start in November! Set for December release!

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20 Week 5: Featured Finalists!

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 5 Review

We’ve got some huge news today!

Before I share the updates, let’s just dive in with the list of Finalists and Honorable Mentions!!!

Much love to all these tremendous writers <3 

This Last Week

So Bob and I got it down to ~20 chaps by Wednesday night. We reread again, and discussed a bit, and by Saturday afternoon we had our top 10.  

With that decided, we knew we had to reach out to everyone who'd submitted. Rejecting folks is always the worst part of the chapbook contest, so Bob and I spent several hours on Sunday, reviewing our comments, noting what we admired most from each chap. 

The writing was very good this year, and we wanted to send along as much love as we could. To this end, we made personal notes on 102 of the responses (81%). I spent most of Sunday and Monday sending along notes. 

Yesterday we reached out to the Finalists, letting them know! We'll be sharing a feature later this week, including an example of their work <3 

Next week we'll have the winners! Now Bob and I need to determine who those will be. Crazy stuff! 

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading Week 4: Determining Top ~20

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 4 Review

Hi Everyone!

Quick update: I’ve finished reading all the chaps Sunday evening :) 

Talking with Bob, our goal now is to review all the chapbooks we both loved, getting a list of ~20 MSS. Then we’ll reread everything, trying to get that list down to 10 finalists for the next review! 

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps Week 3: Bob’s Done Reading

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 3 Review

Hi Everyone!

Bob and I have continued to read your work--as of now Bob has done the first read-through of all 135 chapbooks! I got a bit distracted (proposed to my lady this weekend), and have fallen a little behind. Please forgive me ;) But I’ve still completed a little over 100 chaps, and I’ll be reading the remaining 35 this week no problem!

Bob Thoughts!

Woohoo, it’s time for some new thoughts from Bob: 

It took 2 and a half weeks, but I’ve finished reading through all 135 chapbook submissions. The marathon of reading was both exhilarating and exhausting. And while it’s been a joy to see so many voices and styles, I’m really excited to spend time lingering with some of these chaps over the next week or so as we narrow down our finalists. Generally, I’ve been overwhelmed by the quality of work. These chaps cover such a range of topics, there are so many brave poems, so much formal innovation and play—I feel like we’ve read a little bit of everything that makes contemporary poetry so exciting to me. We’ve written notes about each chap to start the process of narrowing down our favorites, and there’s undoubtedly more than three deserving chapbooks here. Tough calls are ahead, but this first round of reading has been such a delight.

For this next week, I’m trying to finish reading all of the chaps. And then Bob and I can start work picking the finalists!! Crazy times!

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions Week 2: Reading Chaps

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 2 Review

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a busy week, but Bob and I are making our way through your chapbooks. We’re trying to do 8-10 a day, as we don’t want to burn out while reading your work <3 

So far we’ve read ~80 chapbooks! Even though I feel like I say this each year, I’m very impressed by these entries--many of these chaps have a clear purpose in mind and have been revised with care. Lots of strong writing. Lots of risks being taken. To honor the folks who submit early (which is always scary), we’re reading in chronological order. As of now we’ve done all the Day One and Day Two submissions <3 

Our goal is to try to have the first read-through done by the end of next week! From there, we’ll see what’s stuck out to us, and begin rereading and re-rereading ;) Hoping to have the finalists decided by the end of the month. I like keeping things FAST!

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

Week 1: Submissions 

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2018 Chapbook Contest: Week 1 Review

Hi Everyone!

After taking a mini-hiatus for the first half of 2018, we’re so excited to be back in action at Nostrovia! Press. Another year, another chapbook contest! We’re trying to change a few things this time around.... First and foremost, Jeremiah and I are overjoyed to have Bob Sykora joining the team!! As both a previous chapbook winner (I Was Talking About Love--You Are Talking About Geography) and a superb editor and poet, Bob is jumping in with some fresh energy. We’re lucky to have him <3 

Submissions Received! 

Speaking of changes, Bob and I thought it’d be fun to change our submission window a little--we still really loved the urgency created by a 48-hour period and thought it was an important part of the contest’s identity. So a week-long submission period was out of the question (lol). But we settled on adding a third day, kicking things off on the last Friday of July: 7/27

Success! I’m excited to share we received 134 submissions in 72 hours <3 Again, tremendous thanks to everyone who entrusted their manuscripts to us, or supported us by spreading the submission call. We always got much love for our friends.

Our goal is to have all of the chaps read these next two weeks, followed by picking our ten finalists the week after, and then the winners. We’ll have more info on that as we go ;)

Bob Thoughts!

After three years of sharing behind-the-scenes info, I think it’s especially important to have Bob offering his own unique insights. So here’s Bob’s corner (<insert fireworks, etc>)

“I’m still a little bit (lotta bit) reeling from seeing all of these submissions in my inbox. I knew people would be interested, but the night before we opened I briefly had the panicked thought that no one would submit. As submissions started coming in, I opened the emails and read the bios of our submitters in real time. It was wild to see the names and submissions from all sorts of backgrounds, with all sorts of credentials, even from out of the country. A lot of names I recognized and even more names I didn’t. At some point over the weekend the magnitude of actually reading these submissions hit me. Not just the quantity of submissions, but I know from my own experience how terrifying it is to send some mysterious press a whole manuscript, the sense of relief and horror that comes with clicking send and suddenly letting go of a project I poured myself into. The thought that people were trusting me with their work felt big and scary and wondrous. 

After two days of reading submissions—and barely scratching the surface—it’s wild to think that I might not have read any of the winners. On the other hand, there’s already been some tremendous work—vulnerable, brave, formally inventive, funny. What I’m getting at is that the opportunity to read these chapbooks is an honor and a delight. I’m so grateful by the poets and poetry I’ve gotten to meet so far. And so excited to see what comes next.”

-Bob   

Full agreement--year after year, it’s still so humbling to be trusted with your words, and equally exciting to see the quality of what’s been shared. 

As a final note: we’re putting together a questionnaire, which we’ll be sending out soon to everyone who submitted. We’re curious about the demographics for folks sending us their work, and want to see how we can do better as editors. Stay tuned.

Much love and see you next week! <3 -Christopher

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We’ll have a new Tavern post each Wednesday, giving an inside look at the N! process, so stay tuned for more updates!

[nostroviapress]

OUR FREE 2018 CHAPBOOK CONTEST HAS BEGUN!! We're accepting work for the next 3 days: 7/27 - 7/29

Here's what we offer (each of our three winners!):​

20 author copies (plus free copies of the other winning chaps for the year!)

An initial print run of 125 copies, w/ a 2nd print run as needed 

Beautiful cover art

Expert printing and binding, courtesy of @bottlecappress

Online release as free ebooks later this year

An invitation to feature at N!‘s yearly online reading

Reviews and blurbs within N!‘s network of friends 

Winners will have extensive involvement regarding their cover art, interior design, and general editing, with plenty of guidance from our chapbook editors

Full Details: http://www.nostroviatowriting.com/chapbook-contest.html