Hey, let's go to a big DOUBLE book launch party!

Come hang out with us--the editors Kate Lynn Hibbard and Raymond Luczak--and some of the poets featured in our twin anthologies WHEN WE BECOME WEAVERS: QUEER FEMALE POETS ON THE MIDWESTERN EXPERIENCE and AMONG THE LEAVES: QUEER MALE POETS ON THE MIDWESTERN EXPERIENCE. 


 

So: what does it mean to be queer and Midwestern? 
Some 35 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) poets across both anthologies answer that question in many different and surprising ways. 


Copies of both books, published by Squares & Rebels, will be available for purchasing (at a special price, of course) and autographing!


The official pub date is October 1, 2012 so come join us while the books are fresh out of the oven!


So when and where's the party?!?


Friday, October 5th
, 2012

7 to 9 p.m.


Blue Moon Coffee Cafe


3822 East Lake Street


Minneapolis, MN


(612) 721-9230

Finally! WHEN WE BECOME WEAVERS / AMONG THE LEAVES!

This is exactly what everybody associated with our first two anthologies have been waiting to see: their names on the COVERS! Yayyyyy!

The covers for WHEN WE BECOME WEAVERS and AMONG THE LEAVES
(scroll down for a better look at both covers)

Last January when we put out the call for submissions for both anthologies, we weren't sure what to expect. A mere seven months later we've discovered 35 wonderful LGBT poets with a lot to say about the Midwestern experience. The books will ship no later than early October, so if you preorder NOW, you can get both copies with FREE shipping! (The free shipping deal ends on September 30, 2012.)

We are planning to have a book launch party in the Twin Cities for both anthologies in late September. We are also investigating the possibility of having a joint reading in mid-October. More details to come as they are confirmed.

In the meantime, please read below about both anthologies and be the first on your block to have a copy in your hands!

WHEN WE BECOME WEAVERS: QUEER FEMALE POETS ON THE MIDWESTERN EXPERIENCE edited by Kate Lynn Hibbard


When We Become Weavers brings together a multitude of voices exploring the many dimensions of the Midwest queer female experience: a land of moderation and extremes, lakes and thunderstorms, tall grass prairie and dance clubs, racism and transphobia, assault and female erotic power. In this volume, 17 poets, familiar and new, share stories you won't soon forget.

“Lovers of poetry, click your heels together three times and rejoice. Queer female poets of the Midwest have shared the wide-prairie range of their imaginations in Kate Lynn Hibbard’s When We Become Weavers. We may or may not be in Kansas anymore. But read these lines, read between these lines, and enter the clear-eyed, sometimes subtle, sometimes seething, always edifying landscape of these women’s words. Go ahead, let yourself be transported by this tornado of queer female poets. You know how to find your way home.” — Sally Bellerose, author of Girls Talk

Please preorder this book here.

AMONG THE LEAVES: QUEER MALE POETS ON THE MIDWESTERN EXPERIENCE edited by Raymond Luczak


In Among the Leaves, 18 queer male poets share stories what it means to live in the Midwest. We learn what it’s like for them to play football and come up short. We feel their lingering effects of bullying. We experience the undeniable power of seasons affecting their moods as they ache for a meaningful connection. We learn what it means to celebrate in spite of the odds against them. But more than anything, we discover anew through their poems the redemptive power of love and renewal among the leaves growing and falling.

“The poetry in Among the Leaves crackles to life across plains both arid and wintry, from first crushes on grain-fed jock boys to fathers brandishing Bibles, guns, and catcher’s mitts. The Midwest is brought into sharp focus by a group of top-notch poets unafraid to explode the myth of the American heartland and expose the gritty, hard-scrabble realities of growing up gay there. I can’t remember an anthology so full of varied voices and styles that so deftly defines a region.” — Collin Kelley, author of Render and Slow to Burn

Please preorder this book here.

We both thank you all for waiting, and for sharing in our excitement! We think you'll find both anthologies fascinating and illuminating.