Accents Publishing

On this day, 14 years ago, Accents Publishing was launched. Happy birthday to us and many more. Over 100 books later, I can honestly say that working for Accents has been one of the biggest joys and privileges of my life. Next year we will have a 15 year celebration. Today I'm just sharing the date with you all, since it's so important to me.

Check out our books here: https://www.accents-publishing.com/books.html

Welcome to another year of the Accents podcast on WUKY! The first episode of 2024 is a deep conversation Cecilia Woloch and I had about her current projects, published books, teaching, traveling and more! Give it a listen!

Cecilia Woloch Katerina Stoykova interviews poet Cecilia Woloch about her writing, travels, teaching and more.

A 90 minute workshop, brought to you by our friends at Apex Publications. Not too late to sign up.

You have put together a collection of poems and now you’d like to find a publisher. This session will focus on the steps you need to take to achieve this goal.

We will discuss questions such as:

Where to meet publishers in person?
Where to submit your manuscript?
What to look for in a publisher?
How to make a good first impression?
What factors work in your favor and what doesn’t help?
What to look for in a contest?
Should you self-publish or not?

Bring your questions, ambition and curiosity!

Date: Monday, January 9th, 2024

Time: 6:30PM ET

Click here to sign up:
https://reachyourapex.com/product/publishing-your-book-of-poetry/

Happy new year, everyone! Let me tell you about two upcoming events at Carmichael's Bookstore that I'm thrilled about! Richard Lawrence Taylor with his memoir, FATHERS on 1/10 at 7pm, and Frank X Walker, Greg Pape, Upfrom Sumdirt and myself on 1/13 at 4pm. I hope to see some of you there, Louisville friends!

When was the last time you read a truly funny poem?

UDDER UPROAR is Catherine Perkins's debut collection of humorous poems. Courageous, b***y at times, but always unapologetic, the poems in this book surprise and entertain the reader with their mixture of frankness and vulnerability.

Currently at the printer! Ships early to mid January. Order your copy at the link below.

https://accents-publishing.com/udderuproar.html

One of my joys this year: the Accents podcast on WUKY! Check out the page where all the episodes live. Listen to one, listen to all! In order of appearance: Kathleen Driskell, Frank X Walker, Ada Limón, Maurice Manning, Alexandra Mendez, David Grise, Erin Keane, Silas House, Shawn Pryor, Gwenda Bond, Renee Rigdon, Margaret Verble, Mariama Lockington, T. Crunk, Susan Mills, Jay McCoy, Lubrina Burton, Marianne Peel Forman, Toni Ann Johnson, B Elizabeth Beck and Kevin Nance.

Expect new episodes starting 2024!

Accents Host Katerina Stoykova is a poet and publisher who talks about all things writing. Stoykova interviews writers about their works and about the process of writing. The show airs monthly.

The class of 2023, thus far…
Check these books out, they are all brilliant!

Each of the men in our lives can at once be a father, a son, a husband, a brother, a friend. In this biographical trip through history described in a collection of essays, Richard Taylor explores the interconnections between fathers and father figures in his life and his family, from the Civil War through the present.

Shipping now! Brought to you by Accents Publishing!

https://accents-publishing.com/fathers.html

If you liked Frank X Walker's first poetry collection, AFFRICACHIA, you will love LOVE HOUSE—a book highlighting family life with its joys and challenges, with special attention to social justice placed in historical context.

Accents Publishing is proud to bring this book to you!

Currently at the printer! Shipping soon!

https://accents-publishing.com/lovehouse.html

From the founder and senior editor of Accents Publishing! Now available for preorder:

The Poet's Guide to Publishing: How to Conceive, Arrange, Edit, Publish and Market a Book of Poetry The Poet's Guide to Publishing: How to Conceive, Arrange, Edit, Publish and Market a Book of Poetry

Accents Publishing is one lucky press! We have published ALL of Andrew Merton's poetry books. The fourth one is at the printer! Attached is the cover and an order link is below. His signature humor and wit, as well as his penchant for the absurd are brought to a new level in these irreverent poems of intrigue and depth.

What Others Say About Andrew Merton's work

This poet pinpoints the extraordinary in the day to day; he makes the reader see things anew, and even when they appear ta**ry and tough, they are rich and sweet. The calm and gentle voice of these poems is nevertheless fierce in its focus on life, aging, disappointment and death, and that makes for the tremendous tension that keeps each poem taut with drama, inviting from the very first line, and powerfully moving until its conclusion.

—John Skoyles

In Andrew Merton's view of poetry, brevity is the soul of wisdom. His poems are compact. He likes plenty of white space around some image or pithy utterance … Merton is like some elderly neighbor, someone we pass on the street for years without a second look, someone who—when we finally exchange a few sentences—seems to be thinking and worrying about many of the same things we have, someone we would like to spend more time with from now on.

—Charles Simic

Merton mixes a playful surrealism with the knack of capturing both the hilarious and the deadly, and pulls off the visual psychologist's trick of making the familiar strange and puzzling. All of this is delivered in that most serious of all modes, a graceful sense of humor.

—Rory Brennan

Echoing the work of Kenneth Koch, Billy Collins and Albert Goldbarth, here comes another poet primed to tickle and provoke. Simultaneously wise and hilarious, Merton somehow plumbs issues like depression, selfloathing, regret, grief and finds its funny lining.

—Julia Shipley

If Andy Merton's poems were baseball caps, they wouldn't say "Make America Great Again," they'd say "Make America Sane Again."

—David Rivard

http://accents-publishing.com/killerpoems.html

As of today, a fresh selection of Accents Publishing books can be found at Third Street Stuff & Coffee! Check it out!

"Boney-Fingered Reach for God is a remarkable debut, a testament to Mark Brown's striking imagination, energetic vocabulary, and devotion to intense love relationships. This three-part work is fueled as well by the poet's appreciation for the bizarre in historical situations, culminating in poems that literally radiate around the life of Marie Curie. Brown's vulnerable investigations of love and his wacky narratives are made all the more vibrant by the poet's metaphorical skill. It is bittersweet that the gracefully sequenced Boney-Fingered Reach for God is also Mark Brown's posthumous signature, the life of a poet cut short."
—Molly Peacock, author of A Friend Sails in on a Poem

Mark's fellow writers called him the poetry god. This book reminds me why. He was a master of image and of crushing despair as well."
—E. Gail Chandler, author of He Read to Us

"What do the characters in Mark Brown's Bony-Fingered Reach for God have in common? An abused boy, a gay man in Kentucky, a Southern granny, a brilliant woman scientist, and Dracula, that icon, that ultimate terrible boyfriend: What connects them? Loneliness, sure, but also fierce individuality, a kind of boldness even in regret, definitely regret. The poems are like that too. They're sad but funny, traditional in form but unique in subject and voice, full of unexpected descriptions and surprising half-rhymes. They're confident: not swaggering but sure of themselves, like the characters in them who claim space for themselves even if they're not accepted, even if they regret some of what they've given up to be exactly who they are."
—Amy Watkins, author of Lucky and Wolf Daughter

Preorder here:
http://accents-publishing.com/boneyfingeredreachforgod.html

Reminding everyone about the Accents Publishing's LOCAL ACCENT POETRY CONTEST. Free to submit.

Prize

The winner will receive $150.00. The winning poem will be published on the Accents Publishing Blog and the author will be interviewed on the Accents YouTube channel. A list of the finalists may be posted and celebrated, as well.

Eligibility

Kentucky residents and those with strong ties to the state are welcome to submit.

Price for participation

None.

How to submit

Email one unpublished poem of any length or style along with a bio of fifty words to [email protected]. Note that only the winner and the finalists will be contacted about the results.

Deadline

Poems must be received by the 30th of April, the end of National Poetry Month.

Judging and results

Judging will be performed by the Accents Publishing staff and the results will be announced in May.

Have a pile of poems you don't know what to do with?

Accents Publishing Our mission is to promote brilliant voices in an affordable publication format, and to foster an exchange of literature among different world cultures and languages http://www.accents-publishing.com/ [email protected]

LOCAL ACCENT POETRY CONTEST

Prize:

The winner will receive $150.00. The winning poem will be published on the Accents Publishing Blog and the author will be interviewed on the Accents YouTube channel. A list of the finalists may be posted and celebrated, as well.

Eligibility:

Kentucky residents and those with strong ties to the state are welcome to submit.

Price for participation:

None.

How to submit:

Email one unpublished poem of any length or style along with a bio of fifty words to [email protected]. Note that only the winner and the finalists will be contacted about the results.

Deadline:

Poems must be received by the 30th of April, the end of National Poetry Month.

Judging and results:

Judging will be performed by the Accents Publishing staff and the results will be announced in May.

Accents Publishing just launched a Patreon page. Take a look if you are interested in learning how you can support the work we do, while receiving some very cool benefits.

Accents Publishing | Independent Press for Brilliant Voices | Patreon Become a patron of Accents Publishing today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for artists and creators.

Accents Publishing is proud to bring to you LeTonia Jones's brilliant debut. The poems in BLACK GIRL AT THE INTERSECTION speak from the intersection of social justice and personal heartbreak. Past, present and possible future interact and dare to hope for a better world. Read these poems. They will speak directly to your heart.

"Here is a revelatory debut collection that moves seamlessly from the width and breadth of racism in this country to the intimate complexity of Black family rooted in Kentucky." -- Crystal Wilkinson

"It's remarkable, a deeply moving debut." --Toni Ann Johnson

"Arising from deeply lived experience, this poet's words wield a gravitas that is to be reckoned with." -- Gail Straub

Cover image by Lakshmi Sriraman!

For more info, a sample poem or to order you copy please visit:
http://accents-publishing.com/blackgirlattheintersection...

Great review of James Kates's Places of Permanent Shade (Accents Publishing, 2022)! Take a look, Friends!

Poetry Review: "Places of Permanent Shade" – The Work and Echo of Creation - The Arts Fuse This staunchly eclectic collection is also fiercely focused, unified by the fact that regardless of the subject, the poet never blinks, never looks away, never hesitates to name the pain.

Accents Publishing brought to you EIGHT books this year! Two novellas, one mixed genre, one book of translation and four poetry collections. Summary below:

A Hollow Muscular Organ by Meg Files immerses the reader in the process of dissolution of a long and loving marriage. Accents Publishing is thrilled to bring to readers this psychologically complex and linguistically sophisticated love story.

http://accents-publishing.com/hollowmuscularorgan.html

Bardo of Becoming by Pat Williams Owen takes us on a journey through the pages of a decades-old journal, a worn address book, and old photos of ancestors, as she revisits the memories of youth. From the sad loss of the family dog to the heartwarming recollection of riding in the car with her father, there is something in each of these moments that every reader can relate to.

http://accents-publishing.com/bardoofbecoming.html

Places of Permanent Shade, the latest poetry collection of poet, editor and translator J. Kates showcases work by a mature person who has spent decades honing not only his craft, but also his values. Accents Publishing is proud to bring forward the work of this remarkable poet.

http://accents-publishing.com/placesofpermanentshade.html

Strictly From Hunger by Jennifer Litt is a powerful debut collection by a poet who has spent decades mastering a diverse set of literary skills, including writing fiction, poetry, teaching and consulting. The voice is playful, yet fearless, and walks us through events personal yet relatable. We love this book and are proud to share it with the readers.

http://accents-publishing.com/strictlyfromhunger.html

Accents Publishing is honored to bring to you the latest poetry book by the beloved Kentucky poet, writer and teacher Richard Taylor. In this new and selected collection, we can read poems spanning nearly five decades and hear the strong and memorable voice of the author.

http://accents-publishing.com/snowfallingonwater.html

Girl is a mixed-genre family story, told through the innocent perspective of a young daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend. Stories and poems propel the narrative both in action and in emotion. Triumphs, tragedies, mysteries and cooking recipes work together to add their flavor into this full-bodied world. This book is Wendy Jett's debut as an author, and we're proud to bring her work to you.

http://accents-publishing.com/girl.html

Packed with humor and memorable characters, Cheeseburgers is a delightful love story set in the American Wild West. This novella is the fiction debut of Kentucky-based writer Dean Crawford and Accents Publishing is thrilled to bring it to you.

http://accents-publishing.com/cheeseburgers.html

Accents Publishing is proud to bring to you an English language collection by Jordanian-Bulgarian poet Khairi Hamdan, selected and translated by Katerina Stoykova. In these poems you will find the sand of the Sahara Desert, the Bedouin, the Dervish, and unmediated conversations with God.

http://accents-publishing.com/invisiblearmofpeace.html

Accents Publishing > Books > Khairi Hamdan's The Invisible Arm of Peace

Fresh selection of our books at Third Street Stuff & Coffee!

Packed with humor and memorable characters, Cheeseburgers is a delightful love story set in the American Wild West. This novella is the fiction debut of Kentucky-based writer Dean Crawford and Accents Publishing is thrilled to bring it to you.

Currently at the printer!

http://accents-publishing.com/cheeseburgers.html

The Senior Editor sends you her greetings from London.