A Novella is Born: Come Help Us Celebrate the Release of Monster Party by Lizzy Acker! Dec. 11, 7pm, Amnesia, S.F!

Small Desk Press is excited to announce the release of



Monster Party

by Lizzy Acker



Please come celebrate at the book’s launch party!

When: Saturday, December 11th 7:00 PM

Where: Amnesia, 853 Valencia Street, San Francisco

With readings by Jim Nelson, Anisse Gross, Adam Moskowitz, Marisa Crawford, and the author.



For more information or to buy the book, visit smalldeskpress.com

Or contact the editors at info@smalldeskpress.com

To view the Facebook invite click here:Monster Party Book Launch




Praise for Monster Party:



“I remember the first time I read Irvine Welsh and thinking ‘my god, how does this guy do it?’ Meaning, not only write with the terrible awful beauty he does, but also how does he go on living if he knows this stuff? I felt a similar thing when I finished reading Lizzy Acker’s MONSTER PARTY: How does she do it? Write that way and keep on keeping on even after she knows this horrible life stuff? This book is the real deal – with a voice that is true and truly its own, characters mushing towards and away from each other in pathetic, funny, wounded human, fucked-up ways that will break whatever is left of your tired heart.” - Rebecca Brown, The Gifts of the Body



“If there is a genre called Southern Gothic, shouldn’t there be a genre called Northwest Abjection? And voila! here is a shining example. Lizzy Acker’s novella seems awkward, unresolved, and right, like she’s some kind of corn-fed Zen mistress, imminence pouring like daylight into her intolerable fables of life’s hilarious randomness. Meanwhile, the search for love and perhaps most importantly the attempt to somehow get through the day twist emotions and plotlines. What a wonderful book!”

- Robert Glück, Jack the Modernist



“Lizzy Acker’s Monster Party is a rager of vulnerable tomboy bravado. This is the girl who you want holding back your hair at the end of the night, totally in touch with the ridiculous sickness of life – all its sad absurdity, useless longings, flares of courage and derring-do. There’s a goofy punch of love fist-kissing the the heart of this book, bruising its tough poetry with melancholy humor. Totally awesome.” - Michelle Tea, Valencia

Sarah Fran Wisby -- Litseen's "Best SF Reading of the Week"

Read Full Review Here

Sarah Wisby » Kaleidoscope Reading Series from Evan Karp on Vimeo.

Small Desk Press Wants You to Like Literature Again

SMALL DESK PRESS WANTS YOU TO LIKE LITERATURE AGAIN. I MEAN, NOT LIKE YOU EVER STOPPED, BUT WE WANT YOU TO REALLY LIKE IT. WE ALSO WANT YOU TO FEEL ALIVE, TO ACT CRAZY, TO APPRECIATE BODIES AND TOILET HUMOR, TO MAKE ART, TO FORM WEIRD CONSPIRACIES THAT PLOT THE OVERTHROW OF SOMETHING UGLY, TO SIT QUIETLY AND LISTEN IN A TIME WHEN LISTENING IS NOT REALLY IN FASHION. COME OUT AND SEE OUR AUTHORS READ. YOU WON'T REGRET IT OR YOU MIGHT REGRET IT, BUT THEN YOU HAVE PROBLEMS THAT MERE LITERATURE ALONE CANNOT REPAIR.

SARAH FRAN WISBY
ALI LAWRENCE
DUSTIN HERON
LIZZY ACKER
& JEANNINE HALL GAILEY

OCTOBER 9TH AT 6 PM. ADOBE
BOOKS, 3166 16TH ST, SF, CA

Jeannine Hall Gailey Wins the Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Contest!

Read Jeannine Hall Gailey's winning poem, "They Are Not Regenerating," at We Who Are About to Die

Matt Rohrer Interviews Matt Rohrer about Small Desk Press, but calls himself Melissa Broder

Get the real scoop on how Small Desk Press was started, the kind of writing we look for, and how we make the world a little brighter for unpublished consecrators of poop at

We Who Are About to Die

M: What do you look for in a potential Small Desk Press book besides a hairy author?

Our authors are not usually terribly hairy so it’s funny that you mention that. We like stuff that is taboo and raw and gutsy in terms of content and/or form. I’m a sucker for writing about sex and blood and poop and death and all that bodily stuff. We also tend to publish work that’s not perfectly polished: that has raw emotional content and maybe a few sloppy lines. Sometimes we work a lot on a manuscript with an author if we feel like it could be better, which is something that takes a lot of time but I think this goes along with our mission of publishing emerging writers. Sometimes we publish work as is. It’s also nice to publish people who you think you might like to work with. You end up communicating a lot with a person who you publish. Luckily the people we’ve published are all pretty cool, but I can’t imagine how much it would suck to publish someone who was a jerk. And we all know people who are great writers and total jerks.

Monster Poetry Contest -- Last Chance to Submit!

Your last chance to submit your work to the LIZZY ACKER MONSTER POETRY CONTEST is THIS SUNDAY, so please get on it!

The contest winner will receive a free catalog of all Small Desk Press titles – including Monster Party when it's released this fall – plus publication on http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/.

Please send submissions to contest@smalldeskpress.com by August 1st, 2010, and write "Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Submission" in the subject line. Please include a cover page with ONLY the title of the poem. The winner will be notified by email.

What I Kind of Liked About You . . . .

Small Desk Press book designer and founding member Jacob Evans is posting great stuff over at What I Kind of Liked About You, wherein all posts begin with the line "What I kind of liked about you . . . ." as in "What I kind of liked about you was the vomit of information, the barf of language, always coming out of you . . ." Imagine the possibilities . . . . .

Jacob lives in Hanoi, where he teaches English and rides a Russian motorcycle.

Poetry Reading this Thursday -- Marisa Crawford, Britta Austin, and Others

Date: Thursday, June 3, 2010
Time: 7:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: Dog-Eared Books
Street: 900 Valencia Street @ 20th
City/Town: San Francisco

An event celebrating the release of The Haunted House (Marisa Crawford) & Artifacts (Britta Austin)

Featuring readings by:

Britta Austin
Marisa Crawford
Claire Kiefer
Geraldine Kim

Starts at 7PM
There will be wine, snacks & paperbacks.
We hope to see you there!

***********************

Britta Austin grew up on a retired farm in the Pacific Northwest, where she studied the fine arts of tree fort building, river wading, and chicken herding. She now lives in San Francisco where she tends to her small family of old manual typewriters and bikes about town admiring street trees and dreaming of the forest. Her first book, Artifacts, was released from Watchword Press in January 2010.

Marisa Crawford is the author of The Haunted House from Switchback Books. Her poems have also appeared in Shampoo, Action, Yes, Invisible Ear, Glitterpony and Parthenon West. She received her MFA from San Francisco State University and lives in San Francisco where she works as a copywriter and sometimes teaches high school students about poetry and feminism.

Claire Kiefer was born and raised in Georgia, but has been living and teaching in San Francisco for six years. She earned her MFA in Poetry from San Francisco State University in 2007, taught creative writing at San Quentin State Prison for several years, and now teaches children of incarcerated parents at Balboa High School.

Geraldine Kim is the author of Povel (Fence Books, 2005) which was featured in the Believer and Village Voice's top 25 books of the year. She also wrote the play Donning Cheadle, which was produced in San Francisco. She has been published in Kitchen Sink, Big Bell, 2nd Avenue, 14 Hills, and others.

The Lunatic is in the Mall

Marisa Crawford revisits her teen angst when she stumbles upon a Pink Floyd tank top at Forever 21.

"Lyrics like 'Mother, should I trust the government?' screamed at me from my t-shirt and my stereo simultaneously while I laid in my bed, thinking about how totally fucked up society was. This exploration of deep, dark emotions often was not pretty: it sometimes went hand-in-hand with depression, eating issues, drugs and a slew of other self-abusive behaviors. And in some ways, I feel insulted to be offered re-entry into an emotionally charged adolescent world where I first learned to question the status quo via a $15 Pink Floyd tank top."

Read all about it at The Ironing Board Collective

Quote of the Week -- Dickinson

Faith is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see --
But microscopes are prudent
in an emergency

Emily Dickinson #185

LIZZY ACKER MONSTER POETRY CONTEST!!

Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Contest

Judge: Lizzy Acker

Are there monsters in your closet? Or under your bed? Do you see them when you close your eyes? Do you love them?

In celebration of the upcoming release of Lizzy Acker's Monster Party, Small Desk Press is thrilled (and terrified) to present the Monster Poetry Contest.

Send us a poem about monsters: think Frankenstein, Loch Ness, serial killers, childhood nightmares, the REM album, The Aileen Wuornos movie, etc., etc., etc.

The contest winner will receive a free catalog of all Small Desk Press titles – including Monster Party when it's released this fall – plus publication on http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/.

Please send submissions to contest@smalldeskpress.com by August 1st, 2010, and write "Lizzy Acker Monster Poetry Submission" in the subject line. Please include a cover page with ONLY the title of the poem. The winner will be notified by email.

Quote of the Week -- Dostoevsky

" . . . every reality, even though it has its unalterable laws, is almost always difficult to believe and improbable, and sometimes, indeed, the more real it is the more improbable it is."

"But could he eat sixty monks?" they asked, laughing round him.

"He didn't eat them all at once, that's evident. But if he consumed them in the course of fifteen or twenty years, it is perfectly comprehensible and natural . . . . . ."

from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Part 3, Lebedev's drunken rant, p. 346

Our authors are tougher than yours.

First Annual Small Desk Press Fest!

Friday April 30th at Adobe Books 7:30 pm

Readings by the folks who run Small Desk Press and Lizzy Acker, the author of our forthcoming book, Monster Party! Wine, snacks, and hacky sacks. Free! Come listen to the voices of our generation, support Small Desk Press, buy a book, and enjoy the evening.

Readings by:

Corry Seibert
Lizzy Acker
Marisa Crawford
Matt L. Rohrer
Max Farber
Michael McCarrin
Tim Willcutts

3166 16th Street
(at Albion St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 864-3936

COME VISIT US AT THE AWP CONFERENCE!

Small Desk Press will be at the AWP conference tomorrow (Thurs., 4/8) in Denver, sharing table 017 with Invisible Ear, Agnes Fox Press, Skein, and Minutes Books. Come on By!

If you need to pump yourself up a bit, watch this audiovisual interpretation of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons --

Matt Rohrer's band's new Ep is available for download at www.goldenwestservice.blogspot.com!

SDP at the 2010 AWP Conference in Denver

Small Desk Press will have a table at the Association of Writers & Writing Program's (AWP) annual conference, which takes place in Denver this year, April 7 - 10.


Come stop by our table, say hi to Matt Rohrer and Marisa Crawford, and check out our books!

Review of Marisa Crawford's Haunted House in SF Examiner

LJ Moore Writes, "Crawford’s book is a softly shocking, sensory-waking collection of elegiac poems about childhood and young-adult friendships and how that not-adult, not-child changeling time is when we view ourselves and each other with the deepest acuity. Her free-verse poems are driven by a disarming combination of humor, true affection for her subjects, and a slightly off-kilter sense of the eerie quality of the everyday. There are tastes, scents, touches, thoughts, gut-feelings, knowings, voices: images so rich they cast a shadow over the now."

Read post below for details on next week's book release party (April 2nd at the Space Gallery in S.F)

Book Release Party for Marisa Crawford's The Haunted House

SDP Associate Editor Marisa Crawford's debut collection of poetry, The Haunted House, hits bookshelves next week. Friends, family, and fans are gathering at the Space Gallery next Friday, April 2 to celebrate. Please come and join us! There will be drinks, snacks, cupcakes, and OUIJA BOARDS! Also, dancing.

And Readings by:

Marisa Crawford
Chrissy Anderson-Zavala
LJ Moore
Lizzy Acker
Matt L. Rohrer
Seth Landman

When: Friday, April 2nd at 7:30pm

Where: Space Gallery, 1141 Polk Street, San Francisco

$10 suggested donation gets you a copy of the book. (What a steal!)
21+

About the book:

The Haunted House was selected by Denise Duhamel as the winner of the 2008 Gatewood Prize, and will be released by Switchback Books on April 1st. For more information, go to switchbackbooks.com/hauntedhouse.html

"This poetry is the unholy and inevitable spawn of Emily Dickinson and Judy Blume. And it's a sugar high. Enter and enjoy the rush."
– Arielle Greenberg

"What's a new book of poetry without a prom parade of ghosts and girlfriends, joyrides with monsters, poems that offer up humor with your thrills, language so sharp it chills, and lines that will make you stop dead in your tracks? 'If heaven was a house, what bone structure.' It's scary how good this is."
-- Toni Mirosevich

To view the event page on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=350986294818

For more on OUIJA BOARDS, watch this:

SF Examiner Praises SDP and Spotlights Our Forthcoming Title, MONSTER PARTY!

LJ Moore writes, "Small Desk’s fourth title, Monster Party, by Lizzy Acker — a collection of short works centered around a girl navigating her relationships with men and characterized by a boundless, fantastical imagination and sarcastic wit— is forthcoming in Summer/Fall 2010."

Small Desk Press Featured in SF Examiner

Examiner book critic LJ Moore is writing a series of articles on Bay Area small presses this month, and Small Desk Press is at the top of her list. Check out her small press primer, published today.

LJ writes, "There are a lot more writers (and good ones) than can ever win the profit-making trophy, or dance naked on the head of a ballpoint pen. Contrary to the dog-eat-dog idea that there is only enough public attention span for a couple of literary darlings at a time, small publishers feel that there is enough love to go around, especially for the amazing writing that is being generated by unknowns everywhere."

Word.

Improvements to the Small Desk Press Website

We've been working on a major overhaul of the web page, with the goal of making something that better showcases our authors' work, and, hopefully, is fun to use. It's still in progress, but we're now at a point where we thought we could roll out the new version. Keep an eye out for more improvements and features in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, if you have any problems, please send email to webmaster@smalldeskpress.com.