Call for Book Reviews: William Winfield Wright's Cosmonauts

Readers,

In the interest of time, I will keep this brief. I'm sure some of you know we recently released our first chapbook, Cosmonauts. This chapbook by William Winfield Wright is, in the words of Keats, is our Bright Star. I know, this is cliche and overly romantic; however, to some extent, this manuscript has set an amazing standard of excellence we will certainly hold on to.

With that being said, I have a request. For all you poets, professors, editors, publishers, and anyone involved in the community of the arts, I invite you all to purchase this chapbook. The chapbook can be found by going to www.wormwoodchapbooks.org and clicking on the "store" tab.

Once you've bought and read this book, I invite you to take an extra step forward and review this book. The best of the reviews will be published on AFL and Wormwood's main website. Moreover, if there is a knock-out review of Cosmonauts, we will consider publishing it in the fifth issue of A Few Lines Magazine.

So please, consider my request. Cosmonauts is an amazing piece of literature, and it certainly is worth the two dollars for a PDF. Support us in our endeavor to bring you all the best of the underground literary world.

Thank you all for your time; I hope to receive your reviews. To submit a review, please e-mail me, Jack Foster, at jfoster.editor@gmail.com

Regards,

JF

"Poetry Exists in the Valley of its Making" - W.H. Auden

On Saturday, February the 25th, William Winfield Wright will be coming out to California for the first Wormwood Chapbooks poetry reading. This is an incredibly special event. Not only will Cosmonauts be, finally, unveiled for the public to obtain, but Wright himself will be orating sections of it as well as portions of Bird Feet, his second chapbook -- slated to release in the summer of 2012.

Now that you all have some background, I'd like to take some time to give thanks to the English Department of Cal Poly Pomona. The poetry night will be taking place in a room called Orion C, which is located in the Bronco Student Center. Cal Poly does not allow rooms to be occupied free of charge to people or associations who are not affiliated with Cal Poly-run clubs; however, the English Department of Cal Poly has agreed to front the room rental (which would have come out to be about half the cost of a print run) and will be providing beverages and other accommodations for the night. So, on behalf of the AFL staff, I'd just like to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts; we could not host this special night without your support. As Liam Corley has said time after time -- taking from the words of Auden -- "poetry exists in the valley of its making." The Cal Poly English Department -- especially Liam, Alison, Maria, and Liliane -- have provided a valley for which poetry can exist. Thank you all so much.

So, please, if you live in Southern California, stop on by and support us and William Winfield Wright. It's going to be an amazing night of poetry.

Regards,

JF

Writing or Designing or Something

I can never tell if I write to take time off from designing or if I design to take time off from writing - tonight it was a little bit of both.

Designing is a very fiddly art - you invest a lot of effort into very slight changes that your audience may never even see, but I suppose the same is true of writing.

Both art forms are more compulsory than voluntary for me - if I couldn't write or design I'd be miserable. I must write. I must lay out pages and make logos. Nobody makes me do either of these things - there's just a little voice in my heat that sometimes shouts out "YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING WITH THIS!"

That little voice told me to design today, and so in lieu of a normal, ranting blog from me I'll present you with my other compulsion: Wormwood Chapbooks has a live blog, a logo, and a design theme as of four minutes ago, all because of that persistent little voice.

Please stop by, and check up on it now and then - we're all delighted to be sharing even more literature with our readers, and I very strongly hope that Wormwood Chapbooks will soon become a very strong division of our upstart publishing company.

You can find it here: Wormwood Chapbooks. Enjoy.

Cheers,
-Alli