Friends, things are getting real. We are *this close* to unveiling our full website. It should go live next week! More on that below, along with some book recommendations.
But first:
You've all signed up for our Kickstarter fundraising campaign, right? Right? Seriously, early sign-ups are extremely helpful. Here’s what happens:
Our supporters sign up now to be notified when the campaign goes live.
On April 10, all those who have signed up get an email that the campaign is live, which means people can make pledges.
You all head over to Kickstarter to make a pledge and select a reward—of course you get a reward! It’s a pledge, so no money actually gets transferred yet.
If enough people pledge in the first day or two of the campaign, Kickstarter takes note and starts to promote our campaign on their site and newsletter. Snowball effect!
The campaign runs for a month during which we hopefully hit our initial goal of $60,000. Which is really important, because it’s an all-or-nothing scenario. If we don’t make it to $60,000, we get nothing!
Once the campaign ends, if we reached our goal, that’s when the pledges you’ve made go to Kickstarter, which will then take their 5% and send us the rest.
So please, please take just a minute to pop over to the page and sign up for a Kickstarter account if you don't already have one (you'll see link to do so, under the sign-in fields). It means a huge amount to us to see the number of followers go up. We are at 120 right now. Can you help us make it to 200 by this Monday, April 1? This is no joke!
And a huge THANK YOU to those of you who have already signed up. Really. We are very grateful.
We’ve been hard at work trying to get the word out, as you see. We’ve got a few possible media leads, and a couple of upcoming events, including a talk with the Boston chapter of the Women’s National Book Association on May 2nd about how to navigate today’s publishing landscape, and a session at Grub Street’s The Muse and the Marketplace conference on May 10th.
Website update
Our excellent designer and developer has managed to create the functionality that we want: a unique intake system for submissions (you'll see!) and a seamless shop for our merch and, eventually, our books. Oh, and a way to sign up for classes and our first Galiot Press five-day writing workshop which will take place in November on Cape Cod. Later on, once we have actual authors, each one will get a page on our site through which they will be able to connect with readers and showcase additional material and services. We want to help our authors have multiple streams of revenue and more engagement (for those who want it) with their readers.
And now for this month’s reading wrap-up
Henriette is traveling, but here are two recommendations from Sydney and Anjali, two books—one older and one new—that both explore, among other things, how the dreams and the actions and the hurt of family members get passed down through generations.
Our intern, Sydney, says:
Since moving to Portland this past February, I’ve been interested in reading more books by Maine authors. This March, I read Richard Russo’s Empire Falls. Winner of a Pulitzer for Fiction in 2002, Empire Falls follows the Robys, a poor family grappling not only with inter-familial conflicts, but also with their inextricable ties to Empire Falls’ one wealthy family, the Robideaux. Miles Roby dreams of a better life for himself and his daughter, Tick, a precocious high schooler, while his soon to be ex-wife deals with the estrangement from her family as she searches for a more satisfying connection with another man in town. Russo captures the complexities of life and how dreams and strife trickle through generations. There is a tight cast of characters in this novel, all of whom are deeply important to the story in the way that, in such a small town, they are deeply ingrained in one another’s lives. Overall, Russo captures that feeling of oppressive inescapability bogging down the old town, shaped not only by the landscape, but by the connections formed between its inhabitants.
And from Anjali:
I just finished The Bullet Swallower, by Elizabeth Gonzalez James. It came out recently and has been getting a lot of buzz, and I see why. It is a rich, immersive blend of family saga, magical realism, and Western inspired by the author's own great-grandfather, known as "El Tragabalas," or the eponymous Bullet Swallower. The story takes place on the Texas-Mexico border, where the author grew up. Her love of the place is evident in the writing. In an interview with NPR she says "it is a very fluid place, a very complicated place, and a really incredibly beautiful place... It resists the very simplistic narratives that people want to keep putting on it." The story has two parallel timelines. One takes place in 1895 when a Mexican bandido, Antonio Sonoro, sets off to rob a train in Texas, reluctantly bringing along his younger brother. When the robbery goes terribly wrong, it triggers a months-long face-off between Sonoro, fixated on revenge, and the Texas Rangers, fixated on justice. Meantime, in 1964, Antonio's grandson Jaime, a successful singer and movie star with a seemingly perfect life, discovers a book that claims to tell the entire story of his family's history. Increasingly horrified by the crimes his ancestors committed, Jaime realizes he may the the one in line to repay their debt. Dipping into both timelines is an enigmatic character, Remedio, a sort of soul-collector who is questioning his own role in the universe. With dazzling, haunting language, this book brings up big questions about colonialism, trauma, and what one generation carries forward from the last.