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The sun was rising. In the morning, the streets were deserted, the bridges raised and the sun rising behind the crosses on the right bank of the Neva. I slept little and occasionally fainted. To love a woman and the hat she wears, to remember her for twelve or fifteen years--is nice.
Viktor Shklovsky, Third Factory
Woody Leslie, with Anna Moschovakis & Dan Owen, talking about uglyducklingpresse and Third Factory, on Bk Live, 2/25/14.
Ugly Duckling Presse has two new ventures we must put our eyes to! In Brooklyn, they’ve opened up UDP’s Pop-Up Bookstore: Third Factory, a temporary storefront at their HQ in the Old American Can Factory. Third Factory will be stocked with books, chapbooks, letterpress prints, and ephemera from UDP, Archipelago, Belladonna*, Akashic, and many more [...]
Week Six: Nearing the End
It's safe to say that, at UDP, they seem to like me a lot. So much, in fact, that they don't mind my updating this while at work (because silly me forgot to do it yesterday).
The most important thing that had happened for my sixth week of my first FWT would have to be the triple release party that took place on Tuesday, February 4, at the Pierogi Gallery in Williamstown, Brooklyn. Beforehand was any other day, of course: I packaged books, answered emails, updated our database, added multiple news and events items to the website, and even managed to quickly stop at Whole Foods to grab a nice salad for dinner, since I needed to have a quick one at the Presse that night. We were to leave the studio by around 5:30PM (we left closer to 6 and got stuck in traffic, figures) and, right before, had a mad-dash for everything that we needed to have: forty copies of each book to be sold there to the patrons who came to the event, book stands, technology for credit cards, wine and whiskey, cups for said wine and whiskey, and ourselves, all piled into the backseat of a cab and sitting in about a half hour of traffic.
The event itself was small; only about thirty or so people wee present, including those whose works were being read. Reading first had been Josef Kaplan with excerpts from his All Nightmare, which, happily enough, was a book completely filled with introductions for other authors that glorified both themselves and their work. Once reading one segment he craftily introduced the next author, Robert Fitterman -- whom I'll be posting all about an interview for in my next update, because I just interview him this morning and it was a great success -- with his book No, Wait. Yep. Definitely Still Hate Myself. He read a good few pages from his newest poetry book, then allowed Mike Taylor to go up, though she herself didn't present because she hated speaking in front of crowds. But her book was a play-transformed-novel, and she had both live performance and video, in time with each other, to show off her good writing skills. Then, there was an hour afterward that was very much similar to the beginning half hour: one of the newest interns, Brenna, and I sold nearly thirty copies of books all together, for all three that were being broadcasted.
But that wasn't all the week had to offer. On Friday, I had the glorious pleasure of meeting the other two new interns, Corrine and Jessica. It was only a little awkward because they were both college graduates holding at least two other jobs besides the internship and I was only a freshman (at least the other two interns are still in school, so that makes me feel a bit better and not so much like a small child in a game of Grown-Up). But they learned the ropes just as quickly as I did, and they were a blast to work with the following day, Saturday, where we cleaned the Presse because, in our Third Factory Pop-Up Shop, there was to be a reading by UDP apprentices (and, for most of them, former interns). But Saturday also brought along learning how to update the archive, something that's become my project for the rest of the week because I accidentally gave myself a slight reputation for being heavily organized and not minding organizing anything else (I already organized the bookshelves; the extra inventory shelf is a different question entirely and would take a month per section, at the very least).
But also on Saturday, I had the pleasure of bringing my parents to the Presse to show them around, since, sadly, it was my last of my FWT. And that in itself was sad, but it was nice to show them both where I've been coming every other day for the past month and a half, and also showing them what I do and what I'm still going to do.
So, nearing the end of this internship, I realized that it's going to be hard to leave. Working in an actual working environment (though everyone here is so lax that I can wear a sweatshirt and they don't say anything, which helps tremendously fighting off the cold at the train station at 8AM) has helped to figure exactly what kind of worker I am. I like to get things done as soon as they're dished out to me, and I'm better at doing something than showing someone how to do something. Although I can speak my mind, telling someone directions is as foreign to me as my semester of Japanese was. But I'm learning, albeit slowly. Even still, UDP is teaching me how to be a worker in a literary environment, which was the ultimate goal. So I must be doing something right.
Keys Woody Leslie February, 2014 4" x 4" x 1.5" Printed by One Page Productions Bound while artist-in-residence at uglyducklingpresse's Third Factory.
Week Five: The Interns are Coming!
Recently, UDP has been trying to brainstorm more ways to make their Tumblr shine and to get more acknowledgment on all aspects of social media. That being said, I mentioned that I had been using Tumblr for years, and even had to write a blog reaction every single week about my time at UDP. They were amazed that I was able to find so many things to write, to reflect on. And I guess that I can because I write what I think -- I don't particularly have a filter between private and public thoughts most of the time. UDP is an amazing experience, and I want to share that with the FWT office and Bennington College in general. After all, I'm the first ever intern that Ugly Duckling Presse has taken on at this time of the year -- normally the interns start early to mid-February and work until their end of term, around the beginning of May. So, not only was I a guinea pig in timing, but I also found out that I was the youngest intern that they ever took on. (Either way, they have made it very clear that they will be sad to see me go come Valentine's Day.)
But, that being said, there are going to be five new interns parading their way into the studio next week, all of whom I've met because I was awkwardly sitting there during their interviews, and one whom I've already worked with twice already, because he started while I was working on Friday and he came in yesterday for Saturday's Presse Day. But, even with all this fresh meat (so to speak), Brett has made it clear that I get first priority of work, since, not only am I leaving soon, but I have seniority. I'm also the only one who will be working the triple book launch at the Pierogi Gallery on Tuesday, February 4, and I'm both honored and excited for that. Never have I ever been to a book launching, though hopefully it won't be my last, and, not only will we be selling the newly published books, but each author will also be there to read excerpts from their own work. That in itself is fantastic, because the man I plan to interview -- another UDP test run which I'm happy to be the trail for -- is going to be presenting his book, and it'll give me a better chance to talk to and get to know him.
But being at a publishing house, albeit a small one, has definitely solidified my wanting to be in a similar setting permanently. My horrible commute almost always puts me in a bad mood, but as soon as I sit down with my cup of tea and just focus on books, the Presse, and more books, I feel at ease. I feel like I'm home, like I'm where I'm supposed to be. I'm even getting better at binding chapbooks by hand (the last of which we finally finished yesterday). As I was saying to my friend last week, who has an even more horrid and longer commute than I do, that we found the most perfect FWTs we ever could, they're just so far away that it's deterring.
This past week, though, was nothing special, save for the absolutely huge shipment of Aaram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems: Second Edition, which has been impatiently awaited since a few weeks into my internship. We received two twenty-five box crates to the studio, one of which we needed to send to another dealer because we had screwed up the shipment address. Even still, we had to climb over a lot of boxes for about two days to get from one side of the Presse to the other. Also, in addition to new books, our Third Factory pop-up shop (located in the building right next to our main headquarters) is receiving attention on a large scale, and will even be featured in the New York Times either this week or the next (I can't exactly remember which). It makes me excited that I was there from the beginning, helping them set up shop, and now it's going to be featured in New York's top newspaper.
You can bet that clipping is going on my fridge.
Third Factory (newly named) at sunset.
Birds hold fast to a branch even when they sleep. People should hold fast to each other that way.
Viktor Shklovsky
