We are very happy to be moving along in the world of publishing as an indie press and trying our best to keep our voice alive and well during the pandemic. Many of our authors decided to delay their book launches during the onset of COVID-19 a year ago. We have a slew of books coming out this spring—and what a great list! Click the link below to find out more!
Our Calendar is a 100% donation to 350-Vermont! Thanks to all our photographers who donated their work! Conceived by Nancy Braus, GWP advisory board and owner of Everyone’s Books in Brattleboro. Our paper is Reincarnation, made from 100% recycled content waste, bleached without the use of chlorine compounds and printed locally in Vermont by Springfield Printing Company, using soy-based ink.
We are Vermont! is a calendar created to benefit 350Vermont. Our goal is to share the creativity, passion, diversity, and progressive activism of Vermonters through beautiful color images donated by talented photographers. We will feature images of organic farms, farmers’ gardens, protests for climate and migrant justice, renewable energy, our outspoken and brave progressive elected officials, the women’s march, the 2016 pipeline protests, and more. Continue reading
What I took from my 5 Days at ALA Chicago Conference
by Lydia Golitz, GWP Summer Intern
Thanks to the incredible Dede Cummings, I was able attend the American Library Association’s annual conference from June 22 to June 27. This summer, it was held in Chicago, where I live and intern remotely for GWP. I was sent to do many things, among them: to learn how to be in conversation with libraries and educators, to spread the word about one of GWP’s upcoming release, Salamander Sky, and explore all the fun things ALA has to offer. I had a blast, all while gathering information and inspiration left and right.
Of all the incredible people I encountered at ALA, two really, genuinely, impacted me. One was Gene Luen Yang, and the other was Hillary Clinton. They were both featured speakers who really encapsulated what I feel is so important about what—and how!—we read. Continue reading
2017 Green Earth Book Award “Long List” Announced — Brattleboro, Vermont
indie publisher has 3 titles on the list!
Geen Writers Press has recently been notified that three of our children’s books from the Sprouts for Kids Children’s Book line have been long listed for a national award for environmental stewardship in publishing, the 2017 Green Earth Book Award. The Nature Generation created the Green Earth Book Award to promote books that inspire children to grow a deeper appreciation, respect, and responsibility for their natural environment. This is an annual award for books that best raise awareness of the beauty of our natural world and the responsibility we have to protect it.
The Green Earth Book Award recognizes books in five categories – Picture Book, Children’s Fiction, Children’s Nonfiction, Young Adult Fiction, and Young Adult Nonfiction. In each category, the author/illustrator are awarded $1,500. The winners will be announced on Earth Day, April 22, 2017.
1. Broken Wing
Green Writers Press has recently published Broken Wing posthumously by celebrated Vermont poet David Budbill. Broken Wing is the story of one man’s love for birds and efforts to save a rusty blackbird that can’t fly south for the winter. The author worked closely with publisher Dede Cummings in order to finish the book before he died in late September of this year. The publisher enlisted local artist Donald Saaf, who illustrated the pages with stunning black and white collages that bring the book to life. The book is appropriate for young adult readers and adults. In Broken Wing, David Budbill has composed a monumental love letter to the natural world, an astute and minutely observed portrait of the avian inhabitants of a mysterious hillside orchard. The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, a reclusive keeper of the earth whose soul is devoted to one injured rusty blackbird, embodies a narrative voice compelled to witness, in the rhythm and brutality of the seasons, the intimate patterns of the wild creatures surrounding his home. Budbill’s lyrical storytelling effortlessly transports the reader into his realm with a rare and poetic beauty.
2. KABOOM!
KABOOM! is the candidly comical and dynamic story of Cyndie and Ashley, two spunky and spirited teens from coal country West Virginia, who become activists overnight when their beloved mountain is threatened by Big Coal. This expertly crafted coming of age and rise to activism novel tracks the girls’ experience as they start their own club, Kids Against Blowing Off Our Mountaintops, as they explore the power of grassroots activism, and even as they both begin to fall in love for the first time. KABOOM!, published on Earth Day (April 22, 2016) by Green Writers Press, utilizes humorous narration and the lively dialogue of impassioned characters to make serious environmental issues more accessible for adolescents. This Young Adult novel can be categorized as a Romantic Comedy “Cli-Fi” (Climate Fiction), one sure to inspire teens to evoke positive change in the world around them.
The author, Brian Adams, is a recently retired professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at Greenfield Community College in western Massachusetts. His first novel, Love in the Time of Climate Change, was a Foreword Reviews IndieFAB Gold Medal Winner for Humor. He is active in the environmental movement and now devotes his time to writing romantic comedies centered on environmental activism. Brian lives with his wife in Northampton, Massachusetts.
2. Did Tiger Take the Rain?
Charles Norris-Brown was born in the small town of Warren, Pennsylvania. He completed a PhD degree in Social Anthropology and Sociology at Lund University, Sweden, in 1984, based on fieldwork in the inner hills of Uttarakhand, India. His other research his took him from India to the rainforest of Borneo, and to forest communities in eastern Canada and the Appalachian region of the USA. While visiting the Corbett National Park in India, he decided to combine his art, anthropology, and concern for the environment to focus on writing and illustrating children’s books. In time, he would visit western Nepal in 2011 and 2012, and develop what would become his first children’s book, Did Tiger Take the Rain?, an exquisitely told and illustrated tale of a Himalayan land without rain, of frightened farmers, and of courageous girls who go into the forest seeking an answer from the tiger they believe has stopped the rain out of anger. As one of the girls, Anjali, learns, ‘We all live under the same sky.’ The combination of gorgeous watercolors, a forest adventure, and the notion that children can act to make life better, creates a vibrant emotional message that welcomes multiple readings.
Review copies available upon request by contacting the publisher or distributor. Authors and artists are available for interviews (David Budbill’s daughter, Nadine Budbill, is the spokesperson for her father).
Upcoming spring titles include: Horse-Drawn Yogurt: Stories from Total Loss Farm by Vermont legend and communard, Peter Gould; One Man’s Maine by environmental essayist, Jim Kroschell; A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing by fiction writer Tim Weed; Walking Through the Seasons: Observations and Reflections by Marilyn Neagley; Learning to See in Three Dimensions by Pamela Spiro Wagner; Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry edited by Chard deNiord and Sydney Lea with an introduction by Dan Chiasson; Last Correspondence poems by Leland Kinsey, edited by Howard Frank Mosher; Clothesline Religion poetry by Megan Buchana; and for Children: Josie Meets a Jaguar, Book 2 in the Josie Goes Green Series by Beth Handman and the Bruno family of Brooklyn, NY. 
April 7th, at Next Stage Arts in Putney, Vermont, the press will be featured at the annual Earth Day celebration and reading.
OF NOTE: Our children’s picture book, Ralph Flies the Coop, will be “flying” to the Bologna International Children’s Book Fair this spring.
All titles are distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, New York and Tennessee and available wherever books are sold.
Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based, global publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal. Read more at http://www.greenwriterspress.
Thank you for helping us spread the word!
GWP SPRING BOOKS 2017 … a few great covers to share/sneak previews …
Nonfiction:
One Man’s Maine, Essays on a Love Affair by Jim Kroschell
Walking Through the Seasons, nature essays by Marilyn Webb Neagley
Why I Ride: Because a Bike Pedal Lasts Longer Than a Gas Tank by Holly McNish and Inja
Wild Play by David Sobel
Fiction:
A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing, stories by Tim Weed
Horse Drawn Yogurt, Stories from Total Loss Farm by Peter Gould
Poetry (with Sundog):
Learning to See, poetry by Pamela Spiro Wagner
Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry, edited by Sydney Lea and Chard deNiord with a Foreword by New Yorker staff writer, Dan Chaisson
Clothesline Religion, poems by Megan Buchanan
The Hopper Poetry Prize Winners with chapbooks to be published:
LongLeaf by John Saad
The Dark Edge of the Bluff by Ellene Glenn Moore
For Children:
Josie Meets a Jaguar, by B.K.A.B. Bruno, illustrated by Janet Pedersen
Fall books, 2017 are being assigned right now…
They include a picture book for children entitled Salamander Sky written by Katy Farber with illustrations by Meg Sodano …. another picture book called Janey Monarch Seed by Julie Dunlap … We are also publishing a new book of poetry entitled The Long Correspondence by the late Vermont poet, Leland Kinsey, a novel entitled Wild Mountain by Nancy Kilgore, a collection of short stories by Teresa Stores called Frost Heaves, and more!
We are a low-profit publisher based out of Brattleboro dedicated to telling stories that will make the world a better place. Specifically, Green Writers Press is uplifting regional and national voices that embrace the natural world and interrogate the destruction of it.
PARTNER WITH US:
GWP is an L3C or a “low-profit limited liability company” which is a for-profit business that holds a charitable or educational cause as its main purpose. The business embodies our mission from our choice of printers (US printers that utilize renewable energy, forest stewardship council-certified papers, and soy-based inks) to our donation of a percentage of profits to national and Vermont-based environmental organizations.
Our vision is that collectively, our books will become a chorus of voices of writers and readers, artists and photographers, who care about the fate of the earth and want to do something about it.
If anyone knows of a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization you think would like to partner with us as an L3C company, please tell them about us! It is tax-free for them to work with us on publications/books.
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AND NOW . . . SUMMER NEWS:
Green Writers Press is growing, but we are still primarily a VOLUNTEER RUN ORGANIZATION. We could not do what we do without our dedicated cadre of freelance editors! Please welcome our newest freelancer/volunteer staff members.
MARGARET SWEENEY, Assistant Editor and Publicity
Margaret Sweeney is a native of Brattleboro, Vermont and a recent graduate of Bennington College, where she studied literature and writing. While at Bennington, she interned for the literary organizations Poets House and the Center for the Art of Translation and served as co-editor-in-chief of plain china, the first national anthology of undergraduate student writing. She now lives in Western Massachusetts and works as a part-time bookseller at Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley.
JAMES CREWS, Assistant Editor
James Crews’ work has appeared in Ploughshares, Raleigh Review, Crab Orchard Review and The New Republic, among other journals, and he is a regular contributor to The (London) Times Literary Supplement. His first collection of poetry, The Book of What Stays, won the 2010 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and received a Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award. Other awards include residencies from the Sitka Center for the Arts and Caldera Arts as well as two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prizes. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in Writing and Literature from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he worked for Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper column and grew to love the Great Plains. He now lives on an organic farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont just a few miles from the Robert Frost Stone House.
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VISIT US AT BOOK FESTIVALS COMING UP!
Green Writers Press has a BIG presence at BOOKSTOCK-VT, one of Vermont’s premiere literary festivals. Please join us! http://bookstockvt.org/2016-presentations/
Left to right: Leland Kinsey (Galvanized), Sheila Post (The Road to Walden North), Cardy Raper (An American Harvest), Brett Stanciu (Hidden View), Tim Weed (forthcoming, A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing), Sara Dillon (Planning for Escape), and Vermont State Poet Chard DeNiord (co-editor, with Sydney Lea, of the forthcoming Contemporary Vermont Poetry) . . . what a lineup!
Burlington Book Festival, Brattleboro Literary Festival, and more!
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STAY TUNED FOR THE HOPPER PRIZE ANNOUNCEMENT AUGUST 1st!
