UB Spectrum Profiles Alums in Publishing, Foundlings' Max Crinnin and S. James Coffed
The Spectrum today ran a nice featurea nice feature on UB alums S. James Coffed and Max Crinnin, editor-at-large and editor-in-chief of Foundlings Press, respectively. I also talked with the Spectrum's Benjamin Blanchet about working with these two impressive individuals to launch a magazine that became a press.
On the name:
“We were going to look for funny quotes in it and there was this one passage, Canon Law #1115: ‘Foundlings are presumed to be legitimate until the contrary is proved.' We liked that word, ‘foundlings.’ It spoke to finding poetry where it’s hiding in plain sight, writing some poems, too, and tying it all together.” - Max Crinnin
On publishing in print:
“[Ryan] and I have a nostalgia for reading as children, reading books specifically. We spent years as undergrads reading literature, reading physical books. For me, it’s always more impressive to combine the creative design work that someone like [Canham] is able to do with words on a page and be able to flip through it, having it all together. For me, I don’t get the same effect when I’m scrolling down a browser.” - Max Crinnin
On 'winging it':
“There’s no roadmaps to this, and we’re sort of winging it. ... I’m happy we’re not coming from the New York City publishing world. I don’t want to subscribe to anyone’s stamp of influence. We’re making it up as we go along ...” - Aidan Ryan
On the Foundlings West Coast-Buffalo connection:
“I'd like to see more West Coast talent, especially from a more diverse group of writers. We're always looking for people from new backgrounds. Buffalo has proven to be a petri-dish for poetry and literature, but it's still a small, tight-knit community that can benefit from a few new bastards on its doorstep.” - S. James Coffed
On the next Foundlings projects:
“Stanford’s work is amazing and in his own timeline it got some recognition for being amazing but because he died so young, I don’t think he ever took off and became famous. Our work, our idea, is to publish a collection of people who have been influenced by Frank Stanford and people, if we pull everything off, who knew Stanford.” - Max Crinnin