Twelfth Annual Small Press Month Kicks Off in March

The twelfth annual Small Press Month, celebrated by a series of nationwide literary happenings throughout the month of March, kicks off on March 6 with events in New York City (Bowery Poetry Club), Milwaukee (Woodland Pattern Book Center), and San Francisco (City Lights). Small Press Month, sponsored by the New York Center for Independent Publishing, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, promotes independent presses and the authors they publish "to showcase the diverse, unique, and often most significant voices being published today."

Events include a reading of Pushcart Prize-winning work at Symphony Space in New York City, an independent press showcase at the Small Press Center of Chicago, short story and poetry readings presented by WordTheatre in Los Angeles, and appearances by small press authors at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville. Visit the Small Press Month Web site for a full roster of events and more information. The Web site also features a list of grass-roots activities encouraging individuals and communities to participate in the initiative.

Endorsing this year's program is novelist Walter Mosley, quoted on the Small Press Month poster as saying, "The life’s blood of contemporary and modern literature is in the custodianship of so-called small publishers. Without them, there is no future for literature."