Tag Archives: FootHills Publishing

Flame and ash

I have often imagined what it feels like to lose everything in a fire. Particularly if you are a writer or painter, and you work with easily consumable tools–paper, for example. Maxine Hong Kingston has been articulate and interesting on this situation; perhaps it was her well-reported experience that first got me thinking about how terribly affecting such a loss would be. In 1999, a friend of ours whose business is woodworking lost his shop, tools, work, and wood in a workshop fire. The shock was the worst part–like Hong Kingston, our friends had been away from home and returned to find cinders where their livelihood had been.

Last week, Michael Czarnecki, publisher and sole proprietor of FootHills Publishing, was vacationing in Maine when he learned his house and business had burned to the ground. I have heard that phrase before–but it was literally the case: to the ground. With the loss of clothing, memorabilia, musical instruments, furniture, etc. came the loss of livelihood and the loss of FootHills’ archive of 20+ years of small-press publishing. Many, many books went up in flames, a life’s work.

Paul Martin's chapbook

Paul Martin’s lovely chapbook Morning on Canal Street, FootHills Publishing.

Michael has been documenting the remains and posting images on his Facebook Page. Pictured here, what’s left of a copy of Paul Martin’s chapbook, one of the few that were still recognizable after the tragedy. Paul is a colleague of mine, and this photo makes me sad.

I am sure Michael has not yet done a full accounting of his destroyed inventory. The two books of mine he published are certainly among the casualties, and I feel a selfish pang over that. If he gets the press up and running again–and he plans to (he is an optimist and a hard worker)–he’ll probably try to reprint at least some of the 300 or so books FootHills has produced over the years. The more recent books will be easier to reprint, as he had his computer with him and it was not lost in the fire…pdf files of some of the books are intact. But the “history” of the press…its archival, early chapbooks, may be gone for good.

Once again, I reflect on ephemera. One of the most moving photos Michael took is one of his sons’ birth certificates, charred, the edges the same color as the tiny footprints that are still visible. We are so vulnerable.

And we endure, too. Our art helps us to manage these difficult passages. Love helps us navigate the ashes.

If you are interested in and financially able to help FootHills Publishing recover and rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes, you can go to the FootHills website and donate through PayPal or send a check to

FootHills Publishing
PO Box 68
Kanona, NY 14856

Thanks very much. As Michael Czarnecki says, “Never stop asking for poems.”

Generous community of writers

Lately, my days have been busy with gardening and household chores and efforts to promote my book Water-Rites. I find I can jot ideas into my notebooks but that more sustained creative writing efforts are not possible at this time. That’s okay. Writing, for me, often comes cyclically, with the slow periods acting as collecting points and reflective opportunities that may result in poetry later on. Also, when I am not writing much, I have time to read.

On this blog, I have a page devoted to ART which featured links to work by painters, sculptors, and other artists of my acquaintance. Today, I’m posting links to websites of and books by friends. One thing about the solitary life of writers is that we still require community of some kind: readership, first and foremost; but also reviewers, friendly but useful critique, emotional and career support, and misery-loves-company ranting and hilarity. This community develops many ways–face-to-face, mentorship, virtual collegiality, networking, even postal mail–and sustains the generous community of writers over years and miles.

The event that precipitated my desire to post these links was reconnection with poet Alfred Encarnacion, whose first chapbook, At Winter’s End, David Dunn and I published in the early 1980s when we were running LiMbo bar&grill books. You can find Alfred’s 2012 collection The Outskirts of Karma here.

One poet who has quietly been disseminating poetry for 25 years from his tiny press in Kanona, NY is Michael Czarnecki of FootHills Publishing. From his website, you can order books by many of the people in my writing community: Michael himself, and also Craig Czury, Heather Thomas, Karen Bashkirew, Paul Martin (whose beautiful 2009 full-length collection is available here), Steve Myers, Kelley Jean White, Elizabeth Bodein and many others…including two of my own chapbooks.

Finishing Line Press, which sells through Amazon as well as its own site, has published many of my colleagues in the poetry community and particularly supports female writers; I urge you to purchase books by Celia Lisset Alvarez, Kelley Jean White, Nancy Scott, Elizabeth Bodein. Finishing Line also sells my book The Minor Fauna.

Through Dave Bonta, I met the folks behind Phoenicia Publishing and, through Dave and through the Women’s Poetry Listserv, met Ren Powell. Dave’s book and Ren’s book are available through Phoenicia, and so are print issues of Dave’s online blog literary journal, qarrtsiluni. Also through Dave, my literary community grew through meeting Luisa Igloria, whose books you should definitely check out. Another connection with the inimitable Dave Bonta? That would be Ron Mohring of Seven Kitchens Press, which will be publishing Dave’s next collection and which advocates for the work of Pennsylvania-based poets such as the late Lou McKee and another of my colleagues-in-writing, Harry Humes. August Evening with Trumpet is a particularly lovely book, and Harry is a master. Other Pennsylvania poets to whose tribe I am happy to belong include my much-lauded friend Barbara Crooker, the unpredictable and enthusiastic Barbara DeCesare, Patricia Goodrich (sculptor and poet), and that magnificent woman of letters, Elaine Terranova.

Attending an MFA program at Goddard College granted me an immediate community for which I continue to be grateful many years later. Books by my fellow students and by my mentors include but are not limited to the following (really, there are too many to recall!):

Alan Smerdjian, Jessamyn Johnston-Smyth, Elena Georgiou, Christian Peet, Bea Gates, Ian Haight, Barbara DeCesare, Jan Clausen, Janice Goveas, Bill Moser, Jen McConnell, and forgive me for running short on time or forgetting others…and from my long-ago days at The New School, the amazing Maurice Eidelsberg, whose poems in Shit, Sex, Love, Palsy will have you viewing life from a perspective you may never have imagined.

Through the Women’s Poetry Listserv I mentioned earlier and through conferences and festivals, the generous community of writers has led me to Diane Lockward, Pat Valdata, Elizabeth Raby, Rosemary Starace, Julie Kane, Elaine Heveron, Lori May, Juilene Osborne-McKnight and Steven Allen May of Plan B Press; Ned Balbo, Jane Satterfield, April Lindner among many others. Wendy Ellsworth has written a book on beading and spirituality; my cousin Scott entered the world of book writing with a children’s book you can find here. And my brother, a true Renaissance man, has published a novel and is working away at a non-fiction Rip Van Winkle-type story of archeology, empiricism, Stephen Jay Gould and Samuel Morton.

So  you see, the life of a writer need not be–and seldom is–solitary. Writers love to read, and they therefore support one another inadvertently. My community also includes Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Bishop, Robinson Jeffers, Dante, and Dostoevsky. To name a few.