Feminism Friday: A Little CALYX History

The Fall CALYX Glitterati is celebrating Frida Kahlo’s art and Dia de los muertos (October 21^st, Corvallis Arts Center), and as I was looking through old files searching for extra copies of the artist Frida Kahlo’s color plates that we published in the International Anthology I was digging through dusty files in the back room. This resulted in an impromptu lesson to staff and interns on the history of publication layout. I actually don’t remember the exact date we switched to laying out publications completely on the computer. But as I pulled out the complicated cover layouts—hand done in the days before art was handled from computer images—the layers of plastic and instructions for each layer of color were a surprise for the younger staff and interns—particularly the mathematical computations that had to be done for each piece of art. Most surprising was recognizing my handwriting on some of the covers, having forgotten I often had to lay out covers myself.

Kelsey (Assistant Director) and Meghan (intern) with Women and Aging publication layout

Life is so much easier with computerized cover design. As we finalized the cover art and design for the new book Crow Mercies (by Penelope Schott), Cheryl McLean (of Imprint Service who does our production and design) sent 4 variations on 3 different pieces of art for our final consideration. Our Senior Editor watched Cheryl do the magical design and said some of the variations took place in minutes. What a difference from the days we did all those mathematical computations, cut out the red gelatin borders, and wrote instructions to the printer on each page of the layout.

Different alternatives for the cover of Crow Mercies

~Margarita Donnelly, Director

Pick of the Month: Margarita’s Thoughts

While talking to Margarita about the Staff Pick of the Month, we discovered we were both drawn to the same poem from The Woman of Too Many Days. I wrote about what the poem (“In Front of the Library”) meant to me in this post. However, Margarita drew a connection between the piece and the current economic state. To me, it further proved the ability of poetry (and the written word) to touch different people in different ways. We bring our own feelings and experiences to a piece as we read it, gleaning from it meaning that connects to our life experiences, our personalities, heck even the mood we happen to be in. Each piece is a gift, but it is up to the reader to determine what she (or he) receives from it on a personal level. Art is beautiful in that way, isn’t it?

~Kelsey Connell, Assitant Director

Without further ado, here is what Margarita Donnelly, our Director, had to say about the book:

In these hard times the poems of Mary Cuffe in The Woman of Too Many Days are very appropriate. As our Public Library in Corvallis (and many more across the country) cuts back due to lack of funding. I particularly like the poem “In Front of the Library.” The homeless people:

“They come in for more than a warm place to sleep.

They hope one of those books will take them in”

~Margarita Donnelly, Director

Remember can receive 10% off  Staff Pick: The Woman of Too Many Days and FREE shipping by clicking here to order!

Director’s Blog

7/19/10 Anniversary of Seneca Falls—The First US Women’s Rights Convention with Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Summer is finally official here in the great Northwest where we had clouds and rain well into the end of June but now have sunny days and even some heat. And the beautiful summer issue of CALYX Journal arrives at our offices tomorrow, we can’t wait! Subscriber’s issues have already been shipped in a bulk mailing from Illinois last week. So some of you may have received them by this great Anniversary for women’s rights!

Here at CALYX we are busy completing the selections of the finalists for the Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Award. The finalists are sent to the final judge, poet Fran Adler, at the end of July and notification of the winner and finalists will go out in early October. We have also finished the phone-a-thon! Hooray! Our volunteers and board members called our hundreds of supporters across the country from June to July 1^st. It is so inspiring to call our supporters because even those who are not able to give are still supportive and caring of CALYX and continue giving us encouragement for our beautiful publications. We are grateful to our many supporters! Their response so far is over $6,000 in donations. This helps us continue providing women authors and artists a voice for their creative work.

CALYX is also gearing up for our annual Glitterati. This is our annual fundraising event and this fall it is being held at the Corvallis Arts Center on October 21^st. So if you live near CALYX hold that date and join us in celebrating 34 years of feminist publishing. There’s food, music, readings, dancing, and a delightful silent auction to pick and choose incredible art, event tickets, coastal rentals, and other items for purchase, often at a great bargain.

My position involves overseeing CALYX’s finances. An important part is writing grants for organizational support. So far this year there are ten grants written. We are very happy to announce we have received support from the Kinsman Foundation and the Spirit Mountain Community Fund. Thank you! Three other foundations have turned us down. And five grant requests are still pending. More grants will be written before the end of the year.

This year with the difficult economy we hear many complaining about not being able to see the effects of the stimulus funds. Well in case you are not aware, CALYX is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Stimulus Grant (and so are 639 other national art groups) and we have certainly seen the results. The grant doubled our staffing level this year with the hiring of Kelsey Connell (Assistant Director) and Becky Olson (Assistant Editor). We are most grateful to the current administration for including non-profit arts organizations in the Stimulus Plan.

Hope you will find the summer CALYX Journal good beach reading!

-Margarita Donnelly

Staff Pick of the Week

The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal

Revised edition, 2005, by Barbara J. Scot

Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award

The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal, winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, is a moving memoir of a western woman’s transformative sojourn in Nepal. Scot’s vivid account of living, teaching, and trekking in Nepal demonstrated insight into cultural difference while confronting the complex issues of development work and the status of Nepali women. In 2004, Scot returned to Nepal, and in this new edition she records her reactions to the changes the country experienced in the last decade, particularly the current political unrest and the effects on the country of a Maoist insurgency. Scot looks back on her original experience in Nepal and its impact on her life, and reacts to the differences she observed during her recent journey.

Check out the book here

Up & Running

We’ve made the switch to our new provider and web host for the CALYX email and web and the web is finally in place and up and running today. Apologies that it took so long to get the web transferred over. But yeah, we’re delighted to receive no more spam (which the old provider did not seem to be able to stop). Check out our web: www.calyxpress.org

 We’re hard at work on the next issue of CALYX Journal and the new book Crow Mercies by Penelope Scambly Schott (due out October 2010). The prepub galley will be going out to book reviewers in the next week. The final parts of the journal, the contributor notes, art statements, and not the least, the acknowledgement of our generous supporters, are almost done. The journal goes to press in early June for its July release.

 The CALYX journal collective continues its weekly meetings to make decisions for the next issues and is completing second reads. Meanwhile the manuscripts are coming in for the Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. And the editors begin reading them this May for a decision on the finalists to make it out to the final Judge, Frances Payne Adler, by August. DON’T FORGET, DEADLINE FOR THE LOIS CRANSTON MEMORIAL POETRY PRIZE IS MAY 31^ST!

 And one great note. CALYX received a good Konica copy machine as a donation from the Corvallis Tourism Office. We are delighted and so are our interns. No more treks to the copy office for multiple copies. And it does everything! Hooray! And thank you, Corvallis Tourism!

 Margarita Donnelly, Director           

The New Konica & Margarita

CALYX and the AWP Conference

April 13, 2010

Flying back to Portland from mile-high Denver and the AWP conference, I began reading a copy of Fire and Ink and found my depleted conference energy rekindled by the voices in the book. Here is writing that speaks to my soul. The kind of voices I have spent the past 34 years making sure are heard. And I had to rethink CALYX’s attendance at AWP. It is incredibly expensive to attend the book exhibit (table costs have doubled in the past 4 years) and we NEVER cover the costs of attendance through sales (shipping books, drayage fees, AWP fees, plane fares, per diems, and hotels, despite going as cheaply as possible). But reading Fire and Ink while sitting next to Becky (CALYX’s new Assistant Editor), and hearing her enthusiasm for her conference experiences I remembered all the younger writers who had been by the table and spoken with us and found a way to let go of the worry over the money lost on the conference. Here is a new generation coming up who will be the new voices to discover, and the importance of connecting with our current authors as well as the new younger and enthusiastic voices became obvious. Bringing the newer staff members to AWP to attend CLMP training workshops and many of the AWP workshops was important. Becky let me know all she had learned about increasing subscriptions and reaching new readers and the many new groups she had connected with who are starting new feminist publishing ventures (WILLA, Earth’s Daughters, Southern Women’s Review, and others). While I had looked around AWP and seen many publishing peers and friends missing, the younger staff were establishing connections with members of this new generation of feminist writers. They were involved with literature and publishing and excited about putting together workshops for the next AWP. The transition we want to make at CALYX, which will involve the passing of the feminist publishing torch to younger staff members, was beginning during this AWP. And I can finally see the vistas opening for CALYX and feel the excitement and the possibilities that this future can hold. Attending AWP in mile-high Denver wore me out—but hanging out with CALYX authors Fran Adler, Marianne Villanueva, M. Evelina Galang, Ellen Bass, Cass Dalglish, Catherine Brady, and Sybil James was delightful. Yet the prize in this experience was seeing this new generation at work and the possibilities they will bring to CALYX as we begin to hand over the reins and move into transition.

Margarita Donnelly, Director

Kelsey, Cass Dalglish, Ingrid Wendt, and Fran Adler

Becky at AWP Table

The Director’s Blog

Penelope Scambly Schott

March 16, 2010

The announcement of the winner of the first Sarah Lantz Memorial Poetry Book Award that went to Penelope Scambly Schott for her collection Crow Mercies has been exciting. It has also kept CALYX and Penelope very busy. We were delighted to receive the news from the Final Judge, Colleen McElroy, earlier in January than expected. Our distributor, Consortium’s (CBSD) deadlines for the announcement of Fall titles were due in January and February. We rushed to get information from the author and write the “tipsheets” for the new title. Then rushed to write the catalogue copy for CBSD and rushed to get a cover design in as well. And at the same time we wrote to authors Penelope has suggested asking them if they would read Penelope’s manuscript and give a cover comment. I just wrote to Lucille Clifton earlier this week without knowing she had been ill, and just received the news she has died. How very sad.

The hard part of the award is all the good manuscripts that CALYX received for consideration that didn’t win. I was left contacting all the authors and letting them know. There’s never an easy way to handle that correspondence.

Sarah Lantz

This award came about because a generous donor set up funds to establish an award in Sarah Lantz’s memory after we published her book, Far Beyond Triage. Sarah was a great poet, a brilliant thinker, and an enthusiast for life. She was a long-time supporter of CALYX and had been an editorial member of CALYX Journal for a number of years. We had published her poetry in CALYX Journal early in her publishing life. When her book ms. was selected for publication, I had no idea that the experience would be life-changing for me. Sarah had become a close friend. She was suffering from brain cancer and had aphasia resulting from surgeries removing the tumors as we started editing her ms. Yet, her sense of humor and her exciting character were still intact through the cancer ordeal. But communication with Sarah over the ms. was a struggle with language. It was the most difficult editorial work we ever have done—discovering, as we worked together on the book, that Sarah, despite signs of hopeful remissions, would not be recuperating. And that Sarah’s struggle with words—this brilliant poet whose life had been the beauty of words—continued throughout the process. Despite all this Sarah’s eyes continued to shine with her remarkable humor and she continued to laugh through her episodes finding words as we finalized her first, and very unfortunately last, book.

Far Beyond Triage was released in October 2007. Sarah died September 10th, 2007 at the age of 48. It was the month before we had her book back from the printer. She did receive the galley copy of her book (the early copy that goes to reviewers months before the final release of the book) and was delighted with the design and cover art which she had helped select. I’ll never forget the day I brought her the galleys. How she hugged her new book and loved it! I miss Sarah but am glad that we are able to commemorate her love of poetry with the Sarah Lantz Memorial Poetry Book Prize.

From the Director

Margarita

12/3/09  I just returned from a vacation to the Philadelphia area for Thanksgiving. Flying into Portland airport after a 12-hour travel day was delightful. As the plane banked over the silvery Columbia River Mt. Hood, the Three Sisters, Mt. St. Helens, and even Mt. Rainier were visible under an ascending full moon. A beautiful welcome home. Back at CALYX I returned to the new issue, Volume 25:3 (Winter 2010), which is going to press on Monday the 7th. We did all the last minute checks and corrections of another incredible issue of women’s poetry, prose, reviews, and art. Look for it in your mailboxes early in January if you are a subscriber. If you’re not a subscriber, become one by the end of the year to ensure your receipt by mail of another incredible Journal of women’s words and art.

I continue reading (with another CALYX editor) the first reads of poetry manuscripts for the Oregon Women Poets Sarah Lantz Memorial Poetry Book Prize. It is not an easy task selecting from the many fine manuscripts we have received. The meeting to select finalists to send on to the final judge Colleen McElroy is Friday, December 11th. We plan to announce the first prize winner of the Book Prize in early February. At the same time CALYX Journal also opened for the annual open submission period (October 1 to December 31) and our editors are immersed in reading those first reads. The manuscripts are coming in heavily at this point.