Sagging Meniscus Turns One!

It’s been quite a year.  October 15th, 2015, a year ago today, was the official publication date of our first book, John Tynan’s beautiful Voice Lessons.  Since then we have released nine other books, and right now we have another eighteen in various stages of preparation.

Here’s some of what has occurred that you might have missed, and some of what is coming up ahead for us.

Highlights of 2015/2016

• We sponsored the 2015 New York Poetry Festival bringing copies of Voice Lessons and Dribble; Roy Lisker performed two of his inimitable Language Compositions.

• We began distributing our books through the always supportive Small Press Distribution.

• In November, we released our first novel, Christopher Carter Sanderson’s The Too-Brief Chronicle of Judah Lowe, a novel written in tweets.

• Wheeler Antabanez, author of The Old Asylum, appeared at the Montclair Art Museum at their first Free Thursday Night of the season to read from his book to a standing-room audience.

• We released two books, hopefully the first of many, by Roy Lisker; and a book of jokes by the mathematician Raymond Smullyan.

• Poet Aaron Anstett’s Moreover received a particularly insightful review by Charles Holdefer in Entropy Magazine.

• Believing that the “American underground” is a worldwide phenomenon, we published two brilliant books by UK authors: M.J. Nicholls’ The House of Writers (see its brilliant and hilarious reviews on Goodreads) and Stephen Moles’ The Most Wretched Thing Imaginable (Moles recites a colorful excerpt from it here).

• The American Book Review featured Sagging Meniscus in its column on small presses, interviewing editor Jacob Smullyan about the peculiar origins and character of the press.

Coming up in Fall 2016

• Fay Webern’s masterful chronicle of growing up on the Lower East Side, The Button Thief of East 14th Street.

• Alvin Krinst’s The Yalta Stunts.

• Jack Foley’s The Tiger and Other Tales.

• Joseph D. Reich’s The Rituals of Mummification.

• Finally, the work that inspired the Sagging Meniscus project, Mamjjasond and Finkelmeyer’s Hoptime.

Plans for 2017: “Sagging Shorts”

We’ve always loved small books you could carry along easily and take with you into the world, for contemplation in the fresh air or amidst the bustle of a city, to keep close at hand for immersion into a problem or an attitude, even for spiritual and aesthetic assistance.  Inspired by series like the City Lights Pocket Poets, Penguin’s Little Black Classics; and Restless Books’ “Face” series, we are creating “Sagging Shorts”: short, intense books for the back pocket by Laura Davenport, Matthew Gasda, Jacob Smullyan, Charles Holdefer, M.J. Nicholls, Christine Tierney, and others.

And more!

We have full-length books planned as well, including a comic novel in verse by Joe Taylor, a Jersey Devil novel by Lee Klein, a disturbing novel about childhood bullying by Ed Hamilton, exceptionally witty limericks and drawings by the great New Orleans jazz pianist Tom McDermott, comic essays by Tyler Gore (a longstanding friend of the press) and more that we can’t mention yet.

Sagging Meniscus is really about its authors, but until recently we haven’t had an Authors page on our website.  Now we do have a simple one (still incomplete!), but primitive it is, I think it is impossible to look at it without thinking, “What a curious bunch!”

Help!
 

• Most importantly, read our books, whether you buy them or request them from your library, and take them to heart!

• If you have reactions to our books, please write them down!  Amazon or Goodreads reviews are helpful in many ways – not only do they spread awareness, which is good for us, but they are a meaningful form of public dialogue.

• Last but not least, please consider donating to Sagging Meniscus via our Patreon page.  Your support can make a real difference.

Thank you!

Sagging Meniscus Press