DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL USPS SHIPPING TIMES ARE LONGER THAN EXPECTED
Thanks for bearing with us!
- Mik and Joey
Disorder Press and Exchange for Change Open Submissions To Family Members of Incarcerated Writers for the COVID Collection
Dear Family Member of an Incarcerated Writer:
Exchange for Change is a South Florida based nonprofit that offers writing courses in prisons. We provide semester longer classes aimed to improve writing communication skills for students on the inside and disseminate their work on the outside to help inform the public about who fills our local jails and prisons.
To that end, we have launched a project to record this period of the pandemic in book form, not just for our students to express how they feel about what is going on but for all incarcerated writers across the country, as well as their family members. Our decision to include family members was inspired by this moving piece written by the sister of a former E4C student.
If you or another family member want to participate in our book project, please see the information below. We want to record your voices. We want to know what communication has been like for you. Share a heartfelt story, something that is unique and personal to you and yours.
One more favor. Please share this call for submissions with anyone else who may have family members in prison.
Thank you.
Exchange for Change
The COVID Collection, a one-time book publication with Disorder Press, seeks compelling prose, poetry, and art from incarcerated writers, healthcare workers, and staff residing or working in a state or federal facility. Submissions should include work that has been created since the beginning of the quarantine period. It does not have to relate directly to Covid-19 but the submission should reflect the unique experience concerning you and your family member, and how the restrictions have impacted both of you.If relevant, include the impact of recent events around George Floyd, the continuance of structural racism and the ongoing struggles for justice and equality.
There will likely be a lot of focus on lockdowns, isolation, masks, quarantines, loss. Why is your story different? What’s unique that will make the reader want to know more about you and your family member? Your submission should leave the reader needing to take a deep breath.
Fiction, non-fiction, personal essays, poems, drawings encouraged. One submission per person. For poetry, three poems, or less with a maximum of 1500 words. Prose, 1500-word limit. Shorter pieces encouraged. Please indicate if you would like to be identified anonymously, with a pen name, just your first name, or your full name. Please include a few lines about yourself and your incarcerated family member as your bio. Deadline is September 15. Send to Attn: COVID Collection, c/o Exchange for Change 2103 Coral Way 2nd Floor Miami, FL. 33145
Exchange for Change and Disorder Press partner for The COVID Collection
Disorder Press is excited to announce a new partnership with Exchange for Change for the publication of The COVID Collection: an anthology of literature and art by incarcerated writers nationwide.
Exchange for Change is a Miami-based non-profit dedicated to providing opportunities for creative and intellectual engagement for incarcerated individuals. Like Disorder Press, Exchange for Change believes in the value of every voice and the power of seeing those voices come to life on the page.
With The COVID Collection, we hope to shed light on the unique experience of carceral life during a global pandemic. Below is our call for submissions*:
The COVID Collection, a one-time book publication with Disorder Press, seeks compelling prose, poetry, and art from incarcerated writers, healthcare workers and staff residing or working in a state or federal facility. Submissions should include work that has been created since the beginning of the quarantine period. It does not have to relate directly to Covid-19 but the submission should reflect the unique experience going on inside your carceral setting and/or what is happening in the world outside your walls.
There will likely be a lot of focus on lockdowns, isolation, masks, quarantines, loss. Why is your story different? What’s unique that will make the reader want to know more about you and your story. Your submission should leave the reader needing to take a deep breath.
Fiction, non-fiction, personal essays, poems, drawings encouraged. One submission per person. For poetry, three poems, or less with a maximum of 1500 words. Prose, 1500-word limit. Shorter pieces encouraged. Submissions do not have to be typed but must be legible. Please do not use pencil. Include your full name, and DOC number so we can contact you. Please indicate if you would like to be identified anonymously, with a pen name, just your first name only, or your full name. Please include a few lines about yourself as your bio.
Deadline September 15, 2020.
Send to:
Attn: COVID Collection, c/o Exchange for Change
2103 Coral Way 2nd Floor
Miami, FL. 33145
*an adapted version of this call for submissions has been distributed to family members of incarcerated writers to share their thoughts as well.
In Support of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Disorder Press Will Donate 50% of All Sales to the New Orleans Safety and Freedom Fund
Starting this month and going forward, Disorder Press will be donating 50% of our monthly book sales to the New Orleans Safety and Freedom fund in an effort to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
We understand that running a small press gives us a unique platform to stand up for human rights and social justice issues.
We acknowledge that we’ve benefited from white privilege our entire lives (even in ways we don’t recognize or know) and we have much to learn and much growing to do. We are listening.
We are very small and do not have the financial capability to publish many books but going forward we will work to use our platform to uplift and amplify the voices of minorities.
TEMPORAL on Vol 1 Brooklyn's March Book Preview
Our March release, Troy James Weaver's novel Temporal, is included in Vol. 1 Brooklyn's March Book Preview:
"Troy James Weaver’s fiction blends sharply-observed realism with forays into the unexplained and surreal. His latest novel follows the lives of three Wichita teens over the course of several months; shoegaze plays a significant role in the narrative. Can’t argue with shoegaze fiction."
Praise for TEMPORAL by Troy James Weaver
"Troy James Weaver is one monster of a writer. Troy James Weaver is our Witold Gombrowicz. Troy James Weaver works in a flower shop. Troy James Weaver is the first great writer who worked in a flower shop."
- Scott McClanahan, author of THE SARAH BOOK
"Troy James Weaver can write an irrational divorced drunken noise rock making bathrobe clad dad like a motherfucker. And if that isn't enough to make you buy Temporal right now than there's little hope left for any of us."
- Steve Anwyll, author of WELFARE
"Troy James Weaver guides us through a charred, hellish landscape full of dead people and clouds and broken brains. We should salute him for this intense and mysterious novel of devastation. For fans of Denis Johnson, My Bloody Valentine, and NyQuil."
- Patty Yumi Cottrell, author of SORRY TO DISRUPT THE PEACE
"Troy James Weaver is incredible. Temporal is his best work."
- Bud Smith, author of WORK
“Temporal is a novel painted with the blood of damaged, disaffected teenagers. Imagine S.E. Hinton if she listened to Sonic Youth. With each new book Troy James Weaver writes, he's creating more of an impressive landscape of American gloom and melancholy. But he’s also able to highlight an elusive beauty in the life struggles of his characters.”
- Kevin Sampsell, author of THIS IS BETWEEN US
Memory Foam by Adam Soldofsky wins a 2017 American Book Award
Whoa. Memory Foam by Adam Soldofsky won a 2017 American Book Award. Holy hell. This award is cooler than the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. Check out their statement:
"The American Book Awards Program respects and honors excellence in American literature without restriction or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre. There would be no requirements, restrictions, limitations, or second places. There would be no categories (i.e., no “best” novel or only one “best” of anything). The winners would not selected by any set quota for diversity (nor would “mainstream white anglo male” authors be excluded), because diversity happens naturally. Finally, there would be no losers, only winners. The only criteria would be outstanding contribution to American literature in the opinion of the judges."
SISTER SUITE by Christine Stroud, coming this September
Check out Peter Campanelli's cover design for Christine Stroud's Sister Suite. Wowee!
Here's some early praise for Sister Suite:
"Sister Suite is a haunted obituary, a collage made from a crime scene photograph, a series of love poems whispered to a hungry ghost. Where most writers hope to leave a bit of their heart on the page, Christine Stroud keeps going; she leaves her veins, her hair, and her baby teeth."
- Kevin Maloney, author of Cult of Loretta
"An unusually riveting/page-turning poetry/fiction hybrid you can read on the subway or
while waiting in your dentist’s office instead of staring at your phone for half an hour. Sister Suite reminded me of Christa Parravani’s Her: a Memoir in that they’re both about the strange, intimate-to-the-point-of-claustrophobic relationship between a pair of twin sisters and the even stranger separation of said twin sisters by death. I like strange."
- Elizabeth Ellen, author of Person/a: a novel
"Christine Stroud builds a world that is so beautiful it is grotesque, a world I never want to leave. Each memory in this book shimmers its way into the cords of my brain and seethes at the pages, burning bright and quick. Sister Suite is a fragmentary family portrait of loss that cuts to the bone. "
- Elle Nash, author of Animals Eat Each Other
"Blurring the line between prose poem sequence and the tiniest of postmodern novels, Christine Stroud's Sister Suite captures the emotional and narrative fragmentation emanated by grief. Each one of these lyric shards cuts, draws blood, has you suck in your breath."
- Gerry LaFemina, author of Little Heretic
Hobart Interview with Bud Smith & Rae Buleri
The great Elle Nash interviewed Bud Smith & Rae Buleri about Dust Bunny City and other things over at Hobart. It's a fun read, check it out.