20120507

ALMOST ADOLESCENT


A recent acquisition, as we gear up to print The Heads by Justin Sirois. This is the theme of YEAR 12.


This past Saturday (05/05/12) was the twelfth birthday of the NewLights Press. To be perfectly honest, the anniversary came and went and I barely noticed. Always too much to do in the day to day, and always too many year cycles to keep track of—the “real” year, the academic year, the NewLights year, the year of the lease, etc. But this seems like an appropriate time to ruminate on what happened, and what will happen….

Not a bad year! The one before, 2010, was the slowest (read: impossible for me to find time & energy) for NewLights ever, so last year, and a whopping two publications, makes me feel like things are heating back up again. In some ways this work moves glacially slow, but in other ways I feel like I can never keep up. I learned a great deal last year—I’m sure I will always be “figuring this out” for as long as I am making books.

I still have no idea what I’m doing.

But the most important question is, as always: what is NewLights doing?

More books! Definitely this year The Heads by Justin Sirois, and hopefully something by j/j hastain, Divya Victor, and a New Manifesto. More other things! A new (non-delaminated) broadside/poster series called “Words to Live With.” Maybe some short run chapbooks in conjunction with a still-forming reading series here in the Springs. Maybe a little magazine. Definitely a presence at the Codex Fair in February 2013, and it looks like a gallery show, the first for NewLights since 2007, in March/April. Which brings back the question of just which “art world” this work participates in….

And more digital archives of out-or-print books, including redesigned, re-edited, and newly accessible versions of the DIY Books.

That other press is coming along too.

I’m getting nauseous just thinking about all of this. This kind of fun is so unsettling.

Thank you all for reading. Thank you all for giving this a purpose.

1 comment:

Justin Sirois said...

I still have that cassette tape of Ride the Lightning; all we need is a deck.