Pushcart Prize & Ohioana Book Award Nominations

Each year, Pushcart Press permits little magazine and small press editors to nominate up to six works by writers they've published during the calendar year. The deadline is December 1st. Acceptances for the annual Pushcart Prize Best of the Presses anthology usually begin arriving in April.

This year, NightBallet Press is pleased and honored to nominate the following poets and their poems for this year's Pushcart Prize:

Kathleen S. Burgess
“Walnuts”
from the NightBallet Press book The Wonder Cupboard, September 2019

Karen Schubert
“Letter to Youngstown”
from the NightBallet Press book Dear Youngstown, February 2019

Sean Thomas Dougherty
"Ask the Ghost Roads"
from the NightBallet Press book The Answer Is Not Here, May 2019

Lisa M. Dougherty
"Ask of the Feather You Found on the Ground"
from the NightBallet Press book The Answer Is Not Here, May 2019

Gregg Shapiro
“Florida Bang Bang”
from the NightBallet Press book Sunshine State, July 2019

Julio Montalvo Valentin
"13 Ways of Looking at Rice"
from the NightBallet Press book Those Who Pray to Rice, November 2019


                             

Each year, NightBallet Press proudly nominates books written by Ohio residents for the Ohioana Book Award. The Ohioana Book Awards are the second oldest, and among the most prestigious, state literary prizes in the U.S. This year, we are pleased and honored to nominate the following books for the 2020 Ohioana Book Award in poetry:

The Curve of Her Arm by Robin Mullet & Holli Rainwater

The Wonder Cupboard by Kathleen S. Burgess

Dear Youngstown by Karen Schubert

Results of the judging will be announced in July 2020.


Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees!

Thank you to all the poets who have entrusted me to make books for you. It is an honor and a privilege to work with you and your poems.
This year has been an especially difficult one for me personally, and I appreciate the support, encouragement, and patience of everyone involved with the press. We experienced delays and fewer publications, but the books we did publish are full of outstanding and astonishingly beautiful poetry. There is more to come in 2020!

THE WONDER CUPBOARD by Kathleen S. Burgess

 

 

NightBallet Press is delighted to announce the publication of the first title in our ninth year of publishing...The Wonder Cupboard by Kathleen S. Burgess!

 

 

In The Wonder Cupboard, Kathleen S. Burgess has written poems both filled, and filling, with wonder..."Why We Went to See Madame Luminitsa," "Marilyn's Lips," "I'm a pilgrim light needles into space," "Unearthing Earth Day." Using skillful language to draw crisp, colorful sketches of time and place, Burgess addresses a child's thrilled reaction to a father's wild driving, an F2 twister, Singer sewing machines, bird-watching, going braless, pregnancy, sunflowers, a Chinese lantern festival, missing women, mass shootings, and quiet hikes through Southern Ohio beauty.

The Wonder Cupboard contains thirty-four poems on forty-four pages. The cover is a pale ivory textured card stock, with a warm wren-brown textured card stock insert. The poems are printed on pale ivory paper. Once again, we are ecstatic to have Bree's art grace the front cover of a NightBallet Press book. Many thanks to her for giving us permission to use "White Tailed Fawn 4.13.19" for The Wonder Cupboard.

                                         

Kathleen S. Burgess is senior editor at Pudding Magazine: The Journal of Applied Poetry, and has been published in dozens of journals and anthologies. Collections include Reeds and Rushes: Pitch, Buzz, and Hum (Pudding House Publications, 2010, as editor), What Burdens Do Those Trains Bear Away (Bottom Dog Press, 2018), Gardening With Wallace Stevens (Locofo Chaps, 2017), and Shaping What Was Left (Pudding House Publications, 2006). Retired public school music teacher and union officer, she has worked pink-white-and-blue collar jobs, and served as president of Datagang Corporation, a 501(c)(3) video production company commissioned by The Ohio State Libraries, the Ohio Endowment of the Arts, et al. She and husband Jack Burgess enjoy trails, earthworks, the arts, and four adult children.

You may buy a signed copy of The Wonder Cupboard from Kathleen herself, should you be local to Chillicothe/Columbus/Southern Ohio. Beginning 8/30/19, you may purchase copies directly from NightBallet Press for only $15, which includes shipping/handling. Use the PayPal button below; you don't have to have an account to pay. Treat yourself to some wonder...order The Wonder Cupboard today!

We Celebrate Eight-Going-on-Nine-Years of NightBallet Press!

Well, we've had an exciting year here at NightBallet Press, to say the least! Our year, or Season as we call it, runs from September to September. We've just completed Season Eight, and we couldn't be more proud of the poets whose books we've produced over the past twelve months:

Waiting for the Wind to Rise by M. J. Arcangelini

Fragile Capacities by Sandra Feen

As Falls Trees by Mark Danowsky

Throwback Thursdays by Margie Shaheed

The Curve of Her Arm by Robin Mullet and Holli Rainwater

Dear Youngstown by Karen Schubert

The Answer Is Not Here by Lisa and Sean Dougherty

Sunshine State by Gregg Shapiro

Although beset by a couple of months' delays early this year -- the publisher was in an accident in February that totaled her car, gave her a concussion and seat-belt injury, and shook her to the core -- we've still managed to publish eight excellent titles for poets across the United States!

AND, we've already accepted seven exciting manuscripts for Season Nine, September 2019 to September 2020.

The Wonder Cupboard by Kathleen S. Burgess

Those Who Pray to Rice by Julio Montalvo Valentin

Semidomesticated (working title) by Jonie McIntire

Pawning My Sins by M. J. Arcangelini

Holding Your Breath by Jennifer Hambrick

Leaning Toward Greenland by Andy Roberts

Miracle Days by Paula Lambert

We expect to accept several more over the coming year!

The printer, ink, paper, cardstock, postage, business cards, envelopes, packing tape, staples, and pens are only a part of what makes NightBallet Press run smoothly. We have our covers professionally printed by a local family-owned print shop. We make regular runs out to Brunswick (about a forty minute drive) to obtain our paper and cardstock from another family-owned business. Wherever possible, we support other small presses and family-owned small businesses, and we travel to literary festivals to publicize and promote our poets and their books.

We have produced over one hundred titles for poets across the United States and Canada. We have used the art of over a dozen artists and photographers for our covers, and we actively seek out exciting new art for future covers.

To any-and-everyone who has ever bought a NightBallet Press book, promoted the press, given us a table at an indie/literary festival, invited us to participate in workshops, ordered additional copies, subscribed, or donated money, THANK YOU. You make it possible for NBP to give voice to some of the best contemporary poets alive today. I appreciate you, from the bottom of my heart.

This summer, NBP offers you an opportunity to participate in this grand endeavor and to be directly responsible for the next season's publications, by joining the Wingman Club. What is the Wingman Club? It's a one-year subscription to the press, which will start September, 2019 and go through to September, 2020. For $50, you receive every book that we publish during Season Nine, including the ones listed above! We guarantee you'll get your money's worth!

Season Seven's books, 2017-2018, totaled $126.00, before shipping. Season Eight, even with the accident's setback, totaled $80. Plus, the subscription offers an additional bonus: no charge for postage! That's a huge savings, in addition to the incredibly low cost of a subscription.

A wingman is someone who supports a friend or associate. Feel the wind beneath your wings and take advantage of this offer while you can!  (Due to the high cost of postage, this offer is only for residents inside the United States, but we are more than happy to make alternate arrangements for anyone outside the U.S. who wishes to subscribe! Just contact us and we'll discuss it.)

Support this small press and you'll know that your subscription donation is going directly into books we publish. We do not receive grants or funding from any outside source but YOU. As a bonus, subscribe now and we'll include a copy of Throwback Thursdays, Margie Shaheed's final book, along with your first copy in the new subscription.

Join NightBallet Press' Wingman Club and begin your one year subscription today!

SUNSHINE STATE by Gregg Shapiro

 

NightBallet Press is incredibly pleased to announce the publication
of a new collection of poems
  by Florida resident Gregg Shapiro:
Sunshine State! 

Gregg Shapiro observes and writes about his adopted state with wisdom, passion, a quiet humor, and a sharp eye for detail.  

"When you live/in a state shaped like a gun, everything/is a bullet, a target."

"Hurricanes want grave/and dodgy names that inspire terror, words that cause the speaker and/the listener to wince, struggle for breath. Hurricane Motherfucker./ Hurricane Bloodbath. Hurricane Apocalypse. Hurricane Armageddon."

His poems also sing about Florida's beauty. In his poem "Wynwood Walls," he writes

"Maureen told me about them first, in a poem/she read at Los Manos Gallery in Andersonville./Her detailed and vivid description made my eyes/and mouth water simultaneously."

In "Making Light," he observes

"The days are long and/filled with more daylight than anyone could possibly use./It's a losing battle to keep your face from turning towards/the glow..."

Shapiro reveals having "Peas for Breakfast" and bemoans "Because of Facebook." And he celebrates beloved dogs.

"Adopting a dog was not in the plans, a little/more than a week after k.d. died, but Sharon said/it was bashert, a mitzvah, to provide her with a new/home when Willie grew too ill to care for her."

Sunshine State contains 28 pages of 17 poems. The poems are printed on a richly textured ivory paper. The cover card stock is a creamy matching ivory; the inside card stock is a warm textured pumpkin color. The gorgeous cover art, "Electric Entrance, 2014," by Cleveland artist Timothy Gaewsky, explodes with life and light.

Gregg Shapiro is the author of Fifty Degrees (Seven Kitchens, 2016), selected by Ching-In Chen as co-winner of the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. Other books by Shapiro include the short story collections How to Whistle (Lethe Press, 2016) and Lincoln Avenue: Chicago Stories (Squares and Rebels Press, 2014), the chapbooks GREGG SHAPIRO: 77 (Souvenir Spoon Press, 2012),  and More Poems About Buildings and Food (Souvenir Spoon Press, 2019), and the poetry collection Protection (Gival Press, 2008). His poetry was recently featured in South Florida Poetry Review, Gay and Lesbian Review, Chelsea Station Magazine, the 2018 anhinga press anthology Reading Queer, and the anthology Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Handtype Press, 2018). An entertainment journalist, whose interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional and mainstream publications and websites, Shapiro lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his husband Rick and their dog Coco.

Shapiro will begin a book tour in August, and will make a Cleveland appearance on his tour. He will read and have copies of his book...and NightBallet Press will be there!

The 2019 Summer Tour itinerary is as follows:

Aug 3    OutWrite 2019 - Washington D.C.

Aug 4    Outlandish - Cleveland, OH

                                Outlandish Imprint Zine Fair
                                9740 Madison Ave.
                                Lakewood, OH

Aug 7    Women & Children First Books - Chicago, IL
Aug 8    Outwords Books - Milwaukee, WI
Aug 14  Southland Books (w/musical guest Jeff Heiskell) - Maryville, TN
Aug 15  Charis Books and More (w/Collin Kelley) - Decatur, GA

Shapiro's poems will warm your heart and singe your senses, in the best of ways! Published today, here in the dog days of summer, Sunshine State is a seasonal reading list must-have!

Bask in the light of the Sunshine State...buy today for only $10 plus $4 s/h!

THE ANSWER IS NOT HERE by Lisa M. & Sean Thomas Dougherty

NightBallet Press is delighted to announce the release of a new collection of poetry by
Lisa M. Dougherty and Sean Thomas Dougherty, The Answer Is Not Here!

 

 

The Answer Is Not Here reads as a type of call-and-response, with poignant and passionate poems by Lisa and Sean Thomas Dougherty. The poems include "Tell Me the Alphabet of Us Is Nothing New" and "The Wind Has a Name It Tells No One" by Lisa, and "Ask the Breath of this Blue Hour" and "Ask the Evening Light Its Shape" by Sean Thomas. The poems alternate in the narrative, with Sean's poems being italicized. These poems whisper, rather than shout, begging you to lean in and listen more closely to sweet words sharing secret truths. Each poem is like a little prayer of the soul.

The Answer Is Not Here contains 17 poems on 32 pages. The cover is a pale green card stock, with a thick, textured and patterned card stock insert. The cover art is a lovely collage by Bree, "Rockin Robin 12.26.18." The collage was made from this single photograph of a guitar in Lewis Mathis Studio in Shelbyville, Kentucky. It was made with Paint, enhanced by Polarr. You can find more of Bree's work here.

                                                                       
Lisa is the author of Small As Hope In the Helicopter Rain (Cervena Barva, 2018), and Sean Thomas' most recent book is The Second O of Sorrow (BOA Editions, 2018). Recently married, they live in Erie, Pennsylvania, where they are raising their two tumultuous daughters, Andaluzja Akhmatova and Amara Rumi.

Find Sean Thomas Dougherty here and on Facebook.
Find Lisa M. Dougherty on Facebook.

                                       
.
The Answer Is Not Here was released this weekend on Saturday, May 18, 2019, at the Borderlands: Poetry on the Edge event at Main Street Books in Mansfield, Ohio. It is available for mailing tomorrow.

Pick up your own copy of this collaboration! The book is a bargain at only $5.

You can obtain a copy of The Answer Is Not Here directly from the poets, or you may order from NightBallet Press for only $5 plus $3 shipping/handling! Order now, and NBP will pop it in the envelope today!

(This price is for United States of America customers only. Out-of-country customers, please contact NightBallet Press for information on shipping charges. Thank you.)

DEAR YOUNGSTOWN by Karen Schubert!

NightBallet Press is enormously pleased to announce
the publication of
Dear Youngstown by Karen Schubert!

 

 

In Dear Youngstown, poet Karen Schubert delves into stories meant to convey emotional truths about living in Youngstown, Ohio. From the opening poem, "Reading at the Old Ward Bakery" to the ending poem "After the New Yorker Festival," Schubert gently leads you through reminiscence and recall, offers observation, appreciation, and tribute to a city she clearly loves. In her poem "Letter to Youngstown, " she celebrates its diversity (an excerpt):

Dear kids of Italians, Slovaks, Lebanese,
Greeks, Puerto Ricans, Russians,
Southern Blacks, Connecticut Yankees,
Appalachians, Hungarians, Irish, Indians,
eat your corned beef, pierogis,
latkes, meatballs, baklava, gyros,
falafel, greens, fish fry, tamales,
eat your wings, your ribs, your foot
long, pickled knuckles, blood
sausage, pasties, poppadoms, gelato.

Dear Youngstown boasts bold and exciting cover art by Cleveland-area artist Timothy Gaewsky. It contains forty-eight pages of poems, including "Ella Fitzgerald Marries Ray Brown Dec. 10, 1947," "Sculpture Near Bliss Hall," "I Miss You, Chicken in Every Pot," and "Autumn with Parker." In "Autumn with Parker" are the delightful lines:

Lasterday my grandson told me I like it when you're here

and

Now I'll be the vampire he says. Strike three. You're out.

Karen Schubert is the author of five poetry chapbooks, including I Left My Wings on a Chair (Kent State University Press, 2014), selected by Kathleen Flenniken for a Wick Poetry Center Chapbook Prize, and Black Sand Beach (Kattywompus Press, 2015). Her poems, creative nonfiction, and interviews have appeared in Artful Dodge, Water~Stone Review, Versal, diode poetry journal, Aeolian Harp, The American Literary Review, and many others. Her awards include the William Dickey Memorial Broadside prize, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Headlands Center for the Arts. She has an MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts, and is Director of Lit Youngstown in Youngstown, Ohio.


                                               

Dear Youngstown will be released TODAY, February 28, 2019, at A&C Studios (above A&C Beverage), 45 South Avenue, Youngstown, Ohio, 4:30 to 8:00 p.m. Please join us for an evening filled with art, music, dance, and the poetry of the incomparable Karen Schubert!

If you are unable to catch Karen Schubert in person tonight, you can still obtain Dear Youngstown by ordering it right here through PayPal! It's only $15 plus s/h. Order your copy today!

THE CURVE OF HER ARM by Mullet & Rainwater!

Happy New Year from NightBallet Press!
We are beginning the year right by announcing the imminent publication of
The Curve of Her Arm by Robin Mullet and Holli Rainwater!

The Curve of Her Arm is a collaborative book of free verse and haiku from two remarkable poets.

 

Robin Mullet is an avid practitioner of qigong/tai chi, which she feels centers her and expands her creativity. Each one of her poems takes you through the art and practice, movements and moments, of qigong. As Robin wrote to me in her original proposal, "The poetry goes beyond the movements ekphrastically to the emotions and memories brought to the forefront by the ancient form."


                                                

Holli Rainwater's award-winning haiku have appeared in numerous publications, including the OPA Press anthologies Everything Stops and Listens, and A Rustling and Waking Within. Two of her haiku were chosen for the Seasons of Haiku walking path at the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio. She works at the Coshocton Public Library and teaches Chi classes—her own fusion of qigong, tai chi, and poetry.

Holli Rainwater has written "Each of these poems was inspired by the art and practice of qigong, an ancient Chinese health care system that combines gentle body movement, breath practice, and mindfulness. Qi (pronounced "chee") refers to the life force or vital energy that flows through all things in the universe. To practice qigong is to cultivate and balance this energy as it flows through our bodies."

The stunning cover photo is a watercolor painting by Becky Hernadez, commissioned specially by NBP for The Curve of Her Arm. Of the cover art, Rainwater wrote: "I love mandalas and this one is so interesting. She has all the colors that represent each season and each element in the qigong system. The whole world is represented, sort of a bursting forth of creativity and stillness. A representation of the human body and soul moving toward wholeness. And of course, the round feminine inclusive shapes." Mullet wrote: "Love the hands and the background seems like the endless universe." Hernandez also contributed two more watercolors for the inside of the book; one can be found on the introductory haiku's page, and one on the acknowledgments page. Both of the smaller pieces are delicate and lovely. Hernandez responded: "I am really honored to have had my work paired with the stunning and beautiful writing of two such talented and healing artists. I found the style of the book innovative and calming,(and) at the same time, truly heartfelt and human, blending two very different writers beautifully." You can find more of Hernandez's work here.

The Curve of Her Arm is a forty-page book containing thirty-three haiku and poems, Rainwater's haiku appearing first, with Mullet's parallel poems on the opposite pages. Each form is introduced within the poem that explores it. Reading The Curve of Her Arm is a refreshing, rewarding experience that leaves one with a sense of calm, wonder, and appreciation. This book will be released at a very special performance/reading on January 31st, 2019, at 6:30 pm at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum, 300 N. Whitewoman St., Coshocton, Ohio.

The Curve of Her Arm will be published within two weeks, in time for Mullet and Rainwater's debut reading of it on January 31st. Pre-orders are being taken now for this lovely book of heartwarming poetry. Order now, and NBP will include a copy of Margie Shaheed's last book, Throwback Thursdays, with your order, for free.