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At Home at Wilkes: A Love Letter
by Outreach Coordinator Cynthia Kolanowski
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At
Etruscan Press, Monday mornings are magical. On Mondays, Etruscans
gather on Zoom for the weekly production meeting. Managing Editor Bill
Schneider and Production Editor Pamela Turchin lead us through the
sacred production schedule, the master document that chronicles all
titles in production and keeps us moving forward. The format of the
meetings is almost always the same—Bill calls out a title, and Pamela
responds with an update on font samples, a copy editor’s suggestions, or
notes on the latest page proof.
Their exchanges serve as lessons in book publishing: from acquisition
and permissions to manuscript setting and copy editing to marketing and
promotion. I quickly fell in love with these meetings, partly because
there’s an element of drama to them. Attend a few, and you’ll understand
what I mean. Every title writes its own complicated and beautiful
story. When the Zoom room lights up, and Bill calls out the first title,
I want to know what’s happened since last week…
Was the cover design approved?
What’s the latest feedback from the pre-sales conference?
When will the ARCs arrive at the office?
The process of going from manuscript to book is a gorgeous one, and it
involves the work of many. This is another reason why I love the
production meetings: everyone contributes. No one is a spectator. These
meetings are time for us to come together, learn, and improve. We are
all publishing apprentices, and we’re grateful that the Maslow Family
Creative Writing Program at Wilkes University has provided us a home to
publish over 100 titles and to live out Executive Director Phil Brady
and Executive Editor Robert Mooney’s mission to contest the assumptions
about the isolation and irrelevance of literature as well as to nurture a
colloquy of voices: writers and readers engaged in enlivening the
discourse between individuals and across communities. For 17 years,
Wilkes has given us the financial support and physical space on campus
to do our work.
We’re also grateful to the Creative Writing Program for sharing its
talented students with us. Every semester a team of graduate
assistants and interns from Wilkes arrives, ready to learn the trade of
publishing, and without fail, every semester the students distinguish
themselves as the next generation of publishers, bringing to the
production meetings their ideas and expertise. Last semester, graduate
assistant Amanda Rabaduex designed and implemented the “Behind the
Scenes” social media campaign, giving followers an intimate view of our
authors’ writing practices and spaces. Intern John Cornelius,
demonstrating his copy-editing acumen, served as Production Editor on a
special project for the nonprofit organization, Narrative 4. Ashlee
Harry, a second-year graduate assistant, was given the title of
CoreSource-eress for her amazing work with cataloging and metadata.
Wilkes undergraduate intern Maddy Kinard wrote press releases and
reminded us (and we needed this reminder) that there’s room for whimsy,
proposing and helping to implement our Blind-Date-With-A-Book promotion
at the Downtown Wilkes-Barre Holiday Market.
The home we share with Wilkes not only makes our work possible; it also
gives our work meaning. Over the years, our relationship with Wilkes has
developed into a partnership that Dr. David Hicks, Director of the
Maslow Family Program in Creative Writing, describes as a symbiotic
union:
Our students have the invaluable opportunity to intern with a
world-class literary press, while Etruscan welcomes the contributions of
our brilliant and dedicated students toward the publication and
marketing of its beautiful books. Their publisher and editor are among
our most beloved faculty mentors; we co-sponsor and attend book fairs
and conferences together; we share an office space on the Wilkes campus
in Wilkes-Barre. They are an integral part of our writing program and
our writing program is an integral part of their press.
This relationship helps us to navigate the changing landscape of
publishing, to continue publishing six titles a year, and, most
importantly, to demonstrate to our communities how books enlarge our
worlds and call to us to care for one another.
To the Maslow Creative Writing Program at Wilkes—
Thank you for the home,
and for the students.
Ne plus ultra.
To learn more about the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing, visit the program’s website.
To learn more about the work our graduate assistants and interns are doing, watch our video.
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Cynthia Kolanowski grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, earning a
BA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from the University of
Michigan. An educator for over twenty years, she has taught writing and
literature at the secondary and post-secondary levels, and was twice
named Teacher of the Year. As Director of Student Success at Regis
University in Denver, Colorado, Cynthia connected students with
nonprofits, organized service-learning projects, and directed and taught
courses that helped students to succeed in college—work that earned her
the Faculty Advisor of the Year award in 2016. She returned to
Pennsylvania in 2020.
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New Release from Etruscan
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We are pleased to welcome Shanta Lee Gander’s Black Metamorphoses to the Etruscan Press family.
Inspired by a range of Ovidian myths, Gander’s poetry collection
explores the Black psyche, body, and soul through inversion and brazen
confrontation of work that has shaped Western civilization. In a poetic
range of forms, voices, and rhythms, the reader is bathed in ancestral
memory, myth, and sense of the timelessness of the shapeshifting,
resilient Black body.
Coupled with Alan Blackwell’s original interior illustrations, this
collection pairs poetry with visual arts, creating a layer of mythos for
the reader.
Gander’s Ghettoclaustrophobia: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues
was the winner of the 2020 Diode Press Full-length Book Prize with an
honorable mention from the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize. That collection
was also longlisted for the 2021 Idaho Poetry Prize, shortlisted for
the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize, and named a finalist in the 2021
Hudson Prize.
Gander, who has an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry from the
Vermont College of Fine Arts, teaches Media Studies at The Putney
School, an independent high school in Vermont.
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Etruscan Press executive
director, Phil Brady (left), and Wilkes University MFA director, David
Hicks (right), in front of their tables at 2022 Literary Festival book
fair.
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Etruscan at 2022 Fall Lit Fest Youngstown OH
by Anastasios Mihalopoulos
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This past fall, Etruscan Press and Wilkes university took part in Lit
Youngstown’s 2022 Fall Literary Festival. Both took part in the book
fair and some staff members gave presentations.
The sixth annual festival was held at Youngstown State University and
brought writers, presenters, presses, journals and other individuals
from across the country. The conference theme of “The Places that Make
Us” drew focus on the various modalities with which writers and other
artists engage and are altered by landscape and sense of place. What
made this conference especially unique is that it emphasized not only
works of writing, but also brought in various producers and filmmakers
to consider how story is transposed onto the big screen.
The conference offered over 50 presentations, panels, film screenings or
creative readings over the span of three days with featured presenters
including Laura Beadling, Candace Fleming, Kelly Ford, Joy Priest Chris
Barzak, Mary Biddinger and others. Some of the presentations included
“The Danger of Forced Silence: Why Fighting Book Bannings and
Problematic Educational Legislation Matters,” “Literary Mapping: The
Place in our Metaphors,” “Ohio’s Girlhood Landscape: Exploring the
Intersection of Place and Identity” and many more.
The mission of Lit Youngstown is to provide opportunities for writers
and readers to experience and enjoy the literary arts. The organization
offers a myriad of opportunities within the community for both beginning
and experienced writers to hone their craft and to share and publish
their work. Lit Youngstown was founded by and continues under the
leadership of Karen Schubert.
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Anastasios Mihalopoulos is a Greek/Italian-American writer from
Boardman, Ohio. He holds a B.S. in both English and Chemistry from
Allegheny College and is currently a third-year MFA candidate in the
Northeast Ohio MFA consortium. He also serves as the poetry center
assistant for Etruscan Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in
Foothill Poetry Journal, Jenny Magazine, West Trade Review, Helix Literary Journal, The Decadent Review and elsewhere.
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About Etruscan Press:
Housed at Wilkes University and partnering with Youngstown State
University, Etruscan is a non-profit literary press working to produce
and promote books that nurture the dialogue among genres, cultures, and
voices.
For the latest Etruscan events, please visit our website.
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