Poets & Writers – July-August 2019

JULY AUGUST 2019 14

“Even in death the boys were trouble.” The Nickel Boys (Double-

day, July 2019) by Colson Whitehead. Ninth book, seventh novel.

Agent: Nicole Aragi. Editor: Bill Thomas. Publicist: Michael

Goldsmith.

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“Just two years shy of thirty, Patsy has nothing to show for it

besides the flimsy brown envelope that she uses to shade her-

self from the white-hot glare of the sun.” Patsy (Liveright, June

2019) by Nicole Dennis-Benn. Second book, novel. Agent: Julie Barer. Editor: Katie Adams.

Publicists: Cordelia Calvert and Michael Taeckens.

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“When I was a boy, my father, during our weekly phone conversations, used to tell me

stories about the mythical kingdom of Camelot.” Roughhouse Friday (Farrar, Straus and

Giroux, June 2019) by Jaed Coffin. Second book, memoir. Agent: Betsy Lerner. Editor: Colin

Dickerman. Publicist: Chloe Texier-Rose.

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“the blood is red the blues is red the blues / is blood the red is dirt the dirt is brown”

& more black (Augury Books, July 2019) by t’ai freedom ford. Second book, poetry collec-

tion. Agent: None. Editor: Kate Angus. Publicist: Joe Pan.

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“By the time we find him, he has been lying in a small pool of his own shit for several hours.”

Notes to Self (Dial Press, June 2019) by Emilie Pine. First book, essay collection. Agent:

Amelia Atlas. Editor: Whitney Frick. Publicist: Carrie Neill.

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“No matter which way we turned the girl, she didn’t have a face.” Song for the Unraveling of

the World (Coffee House Press, June 2019) by Brian Evenson. Fourteenth book, eighth story

collection. Agent: Matt McGowan. Editor: Chris Fischbach. Publicist: Daley Farr.

Where New

And Noteworthy

Books Begin

One

Page

F

or more than twenty years

Greg Kosmicki and a tire-

less crew of volunteers

shaped the Backwaters

Press into a well-known

haven for poets and writ-

ers in Nebraska and beyond. Under

Kosmicki the nonprofit press won

several Nebraska Book Awards and

published 115 books by writers such

as Lola Haskins, Denise Low, and

former Nebraska State Poets William

Kloefkorn and Twyla M. Hansen. So

when Kosmicki decided last year to

step back and focus on his own writ-

ing, he wanted to find a publisher to

continue the press’s well-regarded

work. Poet Kwame Dawes, editor of

Prairie Schooner, suggested he talk

to Donna Shear, the director of the

University of Nebraska Press (UNP).

When Kosmicki approached Shear,

she didn’t hesitate: In March, UNP

announced it had acquired the Back-

waters Press as its newest imprint.

“Our feeling was that it is something

here in Nebraska, it has a good rep-

utation and a lot of history, and we

wanted to be able to continue that,”

Shear says.

Kosmicki is happy with the deci-

sion, noting that it’s difficult for small

presses, even those that are nonprof-

its, to keep going without a steady

income stream and dedicated staff

of volunteers. “We’re really excited

about the legacy of the Backwaters

Press continuing on,” he says. “People

throughout the United States have

known about the press for years, so

we’re happy to hook up with UNP to

keep it going.”

Those familiar with the Backwaters

Press won’t see a lot of changes. The

logo remains, as does the popular an-

nual Backwaters Prize in Poetry and

New Home for the Backwaters Press

TRENDS