News and Events

NEWS

updated Feb. 27, 2011

See you in Boston for AWP 2013!

At the Hynes Convention Center

March 6-9 2013

Please visit our Table Number H-8

in Hall A

We'll have exciting news about our 20th anniversary publication!

Saturday, Dec. 10

Click here for full Big Read finale info!

Kore Press threw a 3-part

Birthday Bash For Emily D!

1.) "Delight—becomes pictorial:

A Visual Lexicon of Dickinson's First Lines"

29 artist exhibit respond to Dickinson. Curated by Heather Green & Valerie Galloway, for Big Read Tucson

Big Read pop-up gallery:

429 N 6th Ave, #179

opening reception Dec 10, 5-7pm

Click here to see a preview of the artwork!

2.) Incredible Birthday Cake by Cathleen Dooley

Vicki Brown on strings:

Etherton Gallery, 7:30pm

Don't miss Cathleen Dooley's 3 tier Emily Dickinson cake!

The bottom tier is Dickinson's black cake (adapted from her own recipe) covered in marzipan and fondant; the upper two tiers are coconut cake filled with white chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.

3.) Performance Party: Hotel Congress, 8:30-11:30pm

Doors open at 8 p.m. / Show starts at 8:30 p.m.

Celebrate Emily Dickinson's birthday during this month's Second Saturdays Downtown. The Hotel Congress Performance Party starts at 8:30 with new, Dickinson-inspired music by

Maggie Golston & Brent Miles

Marianne Dissard (video)

Chris Black & Emilie Marchand

Amy Rude & Ryen Eggleston

St Maybe

& La Cerca

PLUS readings of 21st c translations of Emily D

theater & dance excerpts with New ARTiculations & Stories That Soar!

mixes from the Emily Sound archive

live t-shirt screen printing & other Emily bling

engraved cake forks by Janet Miller

Mauricio Toussaint's

"A Death blow is a Life blow to some"

Nov. 19, 2011

Kore Press and 9 Queens presented:

Emily Dickinson Tribute Chess Tournament

Three rounds of chess held outdoors to celebrate Dickinson’s sometimes puzzle-like poems and love of the garden. The tournament also featured poetry readings between matches and Dickinson-inspired prizes, and a fabulous lunch!

Nov. 20, 2011

Kore Press and the Big Read presented

Big Read Community Showcase

with Stories that Soar

Come together with the community to celebrate all the ways we've reimagined Emily Dickinson this fall. Performances include "Hope is a Story that Soars," a 30-minute multimedia presentation by Stories That Soar (inspired by 16 pieces of writing submitted by the community), an Emily D poetry slam by Logan Phillips and TYPS, performance by musician Daniel Slipetsky, and a reading of Dickinson's poems in Spanish by fabulous high school poets Sam and Alma. Plus, additional presentations by other youth and community members!

Nov. 5, 2011:

Kore Press and the Big Read presented:

What Would Emily Say? An Unbridled Translation Workshop

Led by Elizabeth Frankie Rollins & Kristen Nelson

Spend the afternoon in conversation with the poems of Emily Dickinson using traditional and non-traditional translation methods and languages such as: homophonic translation, texting language, punctuation, Oulipo techniques, 21st c and other languages. Join us for a structured and unbridled workshop! Bring paper, pen, cell phones, computers, foreign language dictionaries. Snacks included.

Elizabeth Frankie Rollins

Her writings include: two novels, Origin and Doctor Porchiat’s Dream, and a collection of short stories, The Sin Eater and Other Stories.

Kristen Nelson

photo by Sarah Dalby

You can find her work in: Tarpaulin Sky, Trickhouse, Cranky Literary Journal, Quarter After Eight, In Posse Review, you are here and Dinosaur Bees.

Oct. 26, 2011:

Kore Press and Big Read Tucson presented:

This World is not Conclusion...

An Anne Waldman workshop

Reading through Emily Dickinson's poems, we will consider our own "ethopoetics" and what "nibbles at the soul." We will engage in several "experiments of attention," utilizing montage, dream, "story," collaboration, and a form of modal structure. Waldman will discuss her own praxis and composition in relation to her books: Manatee/Humanity (Penguin Poets, 2009) and The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment (Coffee House Press, 2011).

Poet Anne Waldman

Oct. 1, 2011: Kore's Grrls Literary Activists screened their new short film at the Loft

in conjunction with AZ List's film "Miss Representation"

The Grrls' film explored media, sex, sexuality and self image

Thanks to Pam Grissom & the Crossroads Collaborative with funding from the Ford Foundation!

Grrls Literary Activism Workshops help get the voices of young women and trans youth heard.

Grrls' mentor Jamie Lee with Aida Villareal-Licona & Marigold Hall. photo by Kimi Eisele

Sept. 30, 2011: Zocalo Magazine publishes a gorgeous article about Kore Press and The Big Read in Tucson

Click here to read "Coming Down from the Attic," article by Emily Gindlesparger.

This fall, Tucson will be all about Emily. Kore Press, local publisher of women’s literature, is bringing The Big Read to the Old Pueblo, with Emily Dickinson at the helm...

Image courtesy of the NEA Big Read

Sept. 22, 2011: Kore Press launches the Big Read Tucson with a kickoff reception and keynote by Charles Alexander

Click here to view our photo album!

This lecture & reading marked the beginning of 10 weeks of Big Read Tucson events, Sept. 22 - Dec 10. Together with 40 partnering organizations, businesses, artists, scholars, libraries and schools, Kore Press will share Dickinson's work and life's story with the community in exciting and innovative ways.

Aug. 2, 2011: Arizona Public Media interviews Kore Press Publisher Lisa Bowden about our 2011 LUMIE Award

Click here to watch the interview with AZPM, and hear some exciting updates about up-and-coming Kore Press programs!

image courtesy of azpm.org

July 21, 2011: Kore Press receives a grant to host The Big Read in Tucson this fall

Kore Press is one of 76 non-profit organizations receiving a grant to host The Big Read project this fall. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and in cooperation with Arts Midwest, The Big Read is an initiative to restore reading to the center of American culture. Tucson's Big Read will involve creative and educational community programming and events taking place between Sept. 22 and Nov. 13, 2011. Kore has chosen to celebrate the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and bring her prolific work to our community in active and meaningful ways.

"We are thrilled to help bring folks together with creative programming around the poetry and life of Emily Dickinson. This is a tremendous opportunity for Tucsonans to talk and read together and perhaps find commonalities through a love of reading for pleasure instead of focusing on divisive politics and what is wrong with the state. It's truly a humane and delightful effort," said Lisa Bowden, Kore Press Publisher and Project Director.

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

June 9, 2011: Kore Press wins the 2011 LUMIE Award for an Established Arts Organization

Kore received the award for an Established Arts Organization at this year's Tucson Pima Arts Council LUMIES Awards. This prize is awarded to an organization functioning for over ten years, in recognition of their innovation, creativity and sustained excellence in their field.

Championing women writers and those underrepresented in the cultural mainstream, Kore Press has thrived as an independent press against difficult economic environments that easily favor corporations. Kore Press remains as one of only six feminist literary publishers in the country and is a leading voice for advancing progressive social change in Southern Arizona. As a platform for emerging writers, Kore renders personal attention to each writer’s work and always gives detailed feedback to enhance the writings of local writers. This organization has furthered the discussion of Tucson’s cultural and artistic future through activism projects and presentations in schools. Engaging local citizens, Kore Press will continue to make literary activism and social justice

a priority in the years to come.

June 5, 2011: Kore Press hosts the 2011 Kore Press Annual Benefit Art Auction and Garden Party

Some of the finest minds and hearts in Tucson came together in community on June 5th to enjoy the sunset on the grass, collect art and win services for a good cause. We are thrilled to say this year was our largest Garden Party ever, with upwards of 200 people, including over 150 registered bidders and 75 artist and business partners.

The event was a huge success for many reasons. We raised a large portion of our annual budget, and had a fabulous evening together filled with art, friends, food and drinks.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our garden party. We truly appreciate all of our guests, as well as the many generous artists, sponsors and donors who made this event possible.

Click here to read our THANK YOU list

May 10, 2011: Kelcey Parker's For Sale By Owner wins 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Short Fiction!

Kelcey Parker's For Sale By Owner (Kore Press 2011) is a collection of "gorgeous, sinister dreams" -- stories of motherhood, marriage, and the "twisted domesticity" of contemporary suburbia.

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest Not-for-Profit book awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. In its fourth year of operation, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards was established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books in 60 different categories, for the year, and is presented by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O'Shea Literary Agency.

Past items:

May 4, 2011: Kore Press wins 2011 Innovations in Reading Prize!

Kore is one of four organizations in the country (selected out of 120) to be honored by the National Book Foundation with a 2011 Innovations in Reading Prize! The National Book Foundation awards prizes to individuals and institutions that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading.

For eighteen years, Kore Press has been defined by innovation. Whether it's publishing the highest quality women's literature, educating youth, or doing creative community programming, they have been on the edge of using literature to advance progressive social change. As a community of literary activists, Kore is dedicated to engaging the public through several visionary, creative writing projects.

Don't miss the 2nd Annual Silent Auction & Garden Party on Sunday, June 5th

Wiggle your toes in the rolling lawn of downtown's historic Franklin House, browse and silently bid on local art and services, and wine and dine with your friends and family at the Kore Press Silent Auction & Garden Party.

Tickets are $15 now, $20 at the door. Get more information and buy tickets here.

We are taking donations from artists & businesses through May 18th. Get more information for artists here.

"Bird Nest" by Valerie Galloway, contributing artist and auction queen bee

Kore Press to release new poetry chapbook, Territories of Folding, by gender queer author TC Tolbert. Check out the book & author at these events at this weekend's Tucson Festival of Books:

Tolbert will be reading with Heather Nagami on Saturday, March 12th from 11:30-12:30 in the UofA Student Union Kiva Room.
TC Tolbert will be on a panel, "LGBTQ Poets & Identity: Creating Language" on Sunday, March 13th from 1:00-2:00 PM, in the UofA Student Union Kiva Room.

TC Tolbert, author of Territories of Folding

Kelcey Parker, author of Kore's new and steamy collection of stories set in the suburbs, For Sale By Owner, reads at Notre Dame University!

Author Kelcey Parker signing copies of For Sale By Owner for fans.

To purchase your own copy of these twisted tales of domesticity, For Sale By Owner, click here. Check out other upcoming readings by Kelcey Parker here.

Kore women always making waves!

Sally Ashton, author of prose-poetry tale Her Name is Juanita, was named Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. Read more here.

Kore authors Laura Newbern (Love and the Eye, 2010) and Tiphanie Yanique (The Saving Work, 2007) win Rona Jaffe Awards for Emerging Women Writers. Read more here.

Heather Brittain Bergstrom, author of All Sorts of Hunger (2010 Short Fiction Award winner, selected by Leslie Marmon Silko) won Narrative Magazine's Fall 2010 Story Contest. Read more here.

Order your own copies of Her Name is Juanita and All Sorts of Hunger here.

Kore author Joni Wallace releases

second book just in time for AWP

2011!

Wallace will be doing a book signing and reading

from her new book of poems Blinking Ephemeral

Valentine (Four Way Books) during the AWP

conference on February 4th at 4pm in Washington,

D.C.

For more information on this title, see the Blinking Ephemeral Valentine Press Release.

Click here to get your copy of Wallace's first book and discover infinity intersected by science, mathematics, and poetry.

Grrls Pocket Notebooks now available for only $1 each!

Did you know....

Since 1948, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has gone to 42 men and only 15 women? (That's 38% in 62 years)

Only 22% of National Book Award winners are women? (or, 73 out of 343 total)

Since its inception in 1923, Time Magazine has never had a female editor?

A whopping 72% of full-time art teachers are male?

Purchase a Grrls pocket notebook and allow these facts to propel and inspire your writing!

Grrls Billboards now for sale - only $10 each!

In spring 2009, the Grrls Literary Activists designed and created billboards that were subsequently hung around the Tucson community to inspire change.

For more information on these and the Grrls project, visit the Grrls website, blog, or Facebook.

Kore First Book Award for

Poetry 2008 Winner

Holly Iglesias wins a National

Endowment for the Arts Grant

for her poetic work!

Holly Iglesias published her debut book of

poetry, Souvenirs of a Shrunken World,

with Kore Press in 2008, and has

subsequently published Angles of

Approach.

Click here to get your copy of Iglesias' first book, a "moving mosaic" of the last World's Fair of 1904, selected by Haryette Mullen.

Kore Press celebrates

National Coming Out Week

In honor of National Coming Out Day (Monday, October 11th) and Week (October 11th-17th), Kore will celebrate our LGBTQ authors (titles to the right, excerpts below) and all Kore Press titles will be sold at a 10% discount and shipped for free to all of our LGBTQ patrons. E-mail colleen@korepress.org for more details.

"Some days I feel like a music box with the play shut up inside. Or a cloud in which one man sees his dream, another his nightmare. Surely we are all projections of one sort or another, and so the crowd grabs at me, tries to touch what delights and terrifies."

---Holly Iglesias, Souvenirs of a Shrunken World

(Kore Press 2008)

"Imagine yourself undoing the dream in clean air, stones in your pockets, just steps from a quiet beach. Imagine yourself a judge who can be ruthless, rigging each decision with semantic land mines, while a hunting dog stands in high grass on a tiny button... We confess that we have found ourselves very distant from the goals of justice and that in this we have come closer to the fires of persecution, astonishingly seductive... Near seven-thirty you give up ratiocination and ask the Lord's aid in becoming a whole sea billowing. At one time this was achieved through the offices of a saintly and ingenious abbess who believed study was a thing of the past, of the Inquisition, who commanded us not to study. But how I have strayed, lady."

---Barbara Cully, Shoreline Series (Kore Press 1997)

Epiphanies

I am afraid of the glassed perfective,

The mannequin stance, the face impassive

Of the never-awed, the caged, impressive dead

I am afraid of the shut, the unreflective,

The hollow and public head.

I am in love with Sappho aging,

With Tu Fu exiled, white head verging

Upon the banquet dish expunging death.

I am in love with epiphanies uncaging

The heart from private flesh.

---Jeremy Ingalls, Selected Poems (Kore Press 2007)

"To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience, and to allow ourselves to be reduced to the pornographic, the abused, and the absurd . . . Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama."

--- Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic (Kore Press 2000)

LA Liminal receives glowing review on NewPages.com

"This is a smart and obsessed poetry, a long meditation on a city unreal. Even with details of film school and smoking cigarettes on the balcony of her apartment, Klaver knows her own memories are abstractions. In “How to Abstract A Place,” she instructs, “Never go back,” and while the old saying, you can’t go home again, is always in the background, Klaver faces it head on in one of the prose pieces: “You can’t go home again, but I did and I refused to listen, so that certain things were taken from me, or I made certain sacrifices. There seems to be a distinction there, but the results are the same. You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.""

-- Gina Myers, NewPages.com

click here to read full review!!

Kore Press Monthly Newsletter 2009 Archive

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2009 Kore Press First Book Award winner now available!

Congratulations to Heather Cousins! Her book, Something in the Potato Room, was chosen for the 2009 Kore Press First Book Award. Heather's book is now available through Kore Press and distributed to the trade by Northwestern University Press! Thank you to all of our entrants!

Judge Patricia Smith says: " . . . this addictive cinema unwinds with lyrical and dramatic certainty. I thank the poet for twisting my perspective and shoving me outside my comfort zone, for showing me how poems can enter the body and take root."

Heather Cousins' new book

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Winner Announced for 2010 Kore Press First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine

Congratulations to Laura Newbern and thanks to all our entrants, our judge and readers. Laura is an Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing at Georgia College & State University since 2005, and teaches graduate and undergraduate poetry workshops, poetics, and other Creative Writing and literature courses. Laura is also the Poetry Editor of Arts & Letters.
She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Laura returned to Warren Wilson when she was awarded their first Joan Beebe Graduate Teaching Fellowship. Laura also holds an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from New York University, and she earned her B.A. at Barnard College at Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Oxford American, TriQuarterly, and Stand (U.K.), and in the anthologies Best New Poets 2007 and Urban Nature.

Laura Newbern

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2009 Kore Press Short Fiction Award winner

Congratulations to Teresa Stores! Her short story, "Frost Heaves," was chosen by judge Tayari Jones as the winner of the 2009 Kore Press Short Fiction Award. “Frost Heaves” is the title piece of her nearly completed collection of twelve linked stories set in a small Vermont community over one year. She will receive $1000 and publication of her chapbook in winter of 2010. You can read more about the contest results here. Thank you to all of our entrants!

Teresa Stores

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2007 Kore Press Short Fiction Chapbook Winner Anthologized!

Tiphanie Yanique's short story "The Saving Work," selected by Margot Livesy for Kore Press in 2007, is anthologized in Best African American Short Fiction. Edited by Gerald Early, Random House published the book in January 2009. Her story appears alongside others written by such notables as ZZ Packer, Junot Díaz, and Amina Gautier.