Turkey rings: a new publishing tool
I want to tell you about a new book I’m publishing in July. But first, I want to tell you about turkey rings. If you’re like me, you’ve never ever heard of turkey rings. And when you hear about them, you immediately conjure up some pretty terrible images. Not true for Chris Decker at Tisbury Printers. My new book is one called Star Child, coming out in August, and written by a part time Chilmark resident named Kay Goldstein. This book... Read More
Saying hello to a new season of books
Collins (left) my son Christian, and daughter Lily help move books into storage Last week 6,000 books, representing three new titles, arrived on the Vineyard. It was just like Christmas. Four pallets of books were shipped in a container ship from Hong Kong to New York, then trucked to Wareham, MA, for transport to the Vineyard by Cape Cod Express. All this takes about six weeks; another two and a half months were spent just waiting for the... Read More
The Island network
In my work as a local publisher, I try to use as much local talent as I can find. Sometimes that’s not always easy. Back in the winter I went looking for illustrators for two of my spring books. The books are very different – one is a children’s book that uses the Flying Horses as a backdrop for the story; the other is a collection of essays about life on the Vineyard. Yet both also had one thing in common: they needed creative art, the kind... Read More
The brilliance of a random conversation
It’s Saturday afternoon in a house Up-Island, and I’ve just stumbled onto one of the wonders of the Vineyard: the random conversation. This one is about art, and the person who initiated it is the founder and director of a wonderful outsider art museum in Baltimore. She was on the Vineyard in what is usually the god-awful month of January to evaluate the work of an artist who died three years ago. The art work she was looking at was beautiful... Read More
Writers and editors
I spend my days dealing with writers, who are a complicated species. They are usually very talented people who are often unsure how far that talent takes them. They alternate between being resentful of editing and grateful for it. They crave the undivided attention of an editor but fear what will come out of an editor’s mouth or computer screen. I love them. I also find them far nicer than I ever was to my own editors. (My husband, long before... Read More
A lighthouse revelation
I was thunderstruck one day last summer when I walked into Alison Shaw’s gallery in Oak Bluffs while she was preparing a new show. Glowing white against a dark blue wall was a huge picture of a lighthouse. It was instantly recognizable, even though I’d never seen anything like it. I knew a lust so great it hurt. It was 30 inches by 60 inches, so big and so bold that it dominated the space; Sue Dawson, Alison’s partner in both the gallery... Read More
When a man loves a woman…
No, this is not the Percy Sledge song. It should really be “When a Squirrel Loves a Feeder,” but who could ever release their soulful selves to that lyric? So, when a squirrel loves a feeder… Where I sit in my tree house, I look directly at the bird feeders. Fifteen times today I have shooed away a squirrel come to raid one of the feeders. Fifteen times I have watched the little birds flock back the minute the squirrel leaves. Fifteen... Read More
When a book begs to be printed
Work comes to me in many ways. I don’t really advertise what I do, so I have to rely on my books to be my ambassadors. And I need to evaluate each book to make sure I can do the story justice, as well as have the book further the Vineyard Stories’ brand. So it’s always surprising when I find myself saying “yes” to a book I know isn’t really a Vineyard Stories’ book. Such is the case for My Blue Butterfly,... Read More
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