Foundlings

UB Spectrum Profiles Alums in Publishing, Foundlings’ Max Crinnin and S. James Coffed

/ Aidan Ryan / Leave a comment

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

Read the article.

Advertisements

Foundlings Launches Publishing Collab With The Public, and New Collection of Essays From Bruce Fisher

/ Aidan Ryan / Leave a comment

On 6 April Foundlings Press unveiled a new website and announced a publishing collaboration with The Public: The Public Books. This historic joint venture — which brings together Buffalo’s hottest new publisher with the region’s premier weekly source of news, arts, and commentary — is both an imprint of Foundlings Press and the publishing arm of The Public, producing full-length books on culture, economic policy, local history, and the arts.

Justin Karcher reads poetry from his forthcoming collection, Those Who Favor Fire, Those Who Pray For Fire
Bruce Fisher discusses the genesis of his book, and various economic/policy issues shared by Rust Belt and Great Lakes cities.
In a J. Peterman collarless chambray shirt and a brown corduroy vest, I tried to cobble together a costume appropriate for our fickle April weather.

The Public Books launch coincided with the release of the imprint’s first title, Bruce Fisher’s Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust: Essays From America’s Broken Heartland, Vol. 1. The release party featured poetry from Justin Karcher, music from DJs Shane and Tone, and remarks from Bruce Fisher — and also offered guests an advance look at the new Community Beer Works Brewery at 520 Seventh St. in the city’s Lower West Side.

Copies of the book are available for purchase at Buffalo’s Talking Leaves and directly from FoundlingsPress.com.

 

Foundlings Enters ‘Next Phase’ with Lytton Smith’s My Radar Data Knows Its Thing

/ Aidan Ryan / 1 Comment

Buffalo News Art Critic Colin Dabkowski Traces the Transformation of a Magazine into a Press

“Foundlings Press Enters New Phase”

From the outside, the past few days might have seemed like a startling explosion of growth for Foundlings Press. Last Wednesday we announced our formal publishing partnership with The Public, Western New York’s alternative weekly newspaper, and teased the cover of our first title under the “Public Books” imprint, Bruce Fisher’s Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust: Essays From America’s Broken Heartland, Vol. 1, to be officially released Friday 6 April at Community Beer Works’ new Jersey Street location. This Friday, 16 March, at Hotel Henry, we’re releasing our first poetry collection, Lytton Smith’s My Radar Data Knows Its Thing, winner of the 2017 Foundlings Artist Residency and Chapbook Contest, designed by guest book artist Stephen Fitzmaurice. Meanwhile, we’re nearing the end of our open submission period for an upcoming release celebrating the life and work of the poet Frank Stanford.

These projects may all have come to fruition within the same short time frame, but, as Buffalo News Art Critic Colin Dabkowski explains in today’s paper, all are the products of a long period of gestation, as Foundlings gradually transformed from a biannual print publication with a modest circulation into what it is today: an independent literary publishing house with a national audience and roster of writers.

“With this book launch, a planned second residency, and another book on the way,” Dabkowski writes, “the fledgling Foundlings is off to a good start.”

More About My Radar

Book Launch Reading and Reception

Hotel Henry

444 Forest Ave, Buffalo, NY 14213

100 Acres Restaurant and LBAC Gallery

6pm: Cocktails

7pm: Poetry (Noah Falck, Janet McNally, and Lytton Smith)

8pm: Book sales and signing (plus more cocktails)

 

Lytton Smith’s My Radar Data Knows Its Thing, winner of the 2017 Foundlings Press Artist Residency and Chapbook Contest, is a deeply sensitive, wide-ranging, and lyrical exploration of human connection, technology, proximity, the past in the present, and the natural environment.

“With each poem that begins with his namesake’s classic line, Lytton Smith’s chapbook tests the limits of language just as it tests the limits of human relationships,” the poet Anthony Caleshu writes.” Words hold us together even when we’re questioning their validity. Our linguistic (and so our human) scale has just gotten bigger and bolder.”

The book features illustrations and conceptual design from Philadelphia-based artist Stephen Fitzmaurice.

Lytton Smith is the author of two books of poetry from Nightboat Books and the translator of several books from the Icelandic. The novel Öræfi—the Wastelands, from the Icelandic of Ófeigur Sigurðsson, will be published by Deep Vellum in spring 2018. He is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at SUNY Geneseo.

Foundlings Chapbook Contest and Artist Residency at Hotel Henry

/ Aidan Ryan / Leave a comment

English-language poets of all styles have an opportunity to win an artist’s residency at Hotel Henry in Buffalo, N.Y., where they will collaborate with a guest illustrator on a limited release chapbook of their poems, to be published through Foundlings Press, a Buffalo-based literary arts organization, in early 2018.

Foundlings Press welcomes submissions for its first annual chapbook competition. Submissions will close on October 1, and editors will announce the winner at the end of that month. The editorial staff will accept and review poetry of any style and subject matter. Poets must pay a $3 entry fee before submitting work; but all who submit will receive a complimentary digital download of Foundlings Magazine Vol. 3. All proceeds will directly fund the production and promotion of the winning chapbook. Interested parties can find further information on http://www.FoundlingsMagazine.com, or contact the editorial staff directly.

The winning poet will enjoy an artist’s residency at Hotel Henry, the boutique hotel, urban resort, and conference center in the Richardson Olmsted Complex, one of Buffalo’s landmarks and architectural treasures. There, from November 17-19, 2017, the poet will collaborate with guest illustrator and designer Stephen Fitzmaurice on a final manuscript of the chapbook, making full use of the center’s facilities and inspiring grounds. Foundlings Press will publish the chapbook in January 2018, with a launch party and reading back at Hotel Henry.

 

About Stephen Fitzmaurice:

Born in Buffalo and residing in Philadelphia, Stephen Fitzmaurice’s skills include illustration, graphic and industrial design, video and photography, and downhill skateboarding. Fitzmaurice graduated from The University of the Arts and has freelanced for Valkyrie Truck Company, Emgee Events, Community Boards and Bikes, and many other events and manufacturing companies. He now works as a graphic designer for Fuji Bikes.

http://www.sfitzmauricedesign.com/

 

About Hotel Henry:

Hotel Henry Urban Resort Conference Center is an innovative 88 room full-service hotel and conference center with modern purpose, designed to fuse with the architectural legacy of the National Historic Landmark Richardson Olmsted Campus. Throughout the building, Hotel Henry’s uncommon spaces invite guests to explore, gather and tuck away in the unique character of Richardson’s masterpiece. Interior and exterior spaces invite guests to find their own corner and make their own experience. This is the distinct Hotel Henry experience.

Hotel Henry’s Urban Resort Neighborhood offers a cosmopolitan Buffalo adventure that begins within steps of the hotel grounds. Situated amongst 42 acres within the city of Buffalo’s cultural corridor, the Urban Resort Conference Center is surrounded by parks, lake, museums, and connected to the fun and curious Elmwood Village. The Urban Resort Neighborhood is a borderless destination.

Henry Hobson Richardson, who is one of “The Recognized Trinity of American Architecture,” constructed this Richardson Romanesque-style campus of buildings more than 140 years ago. America’s landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York City, as well as Buffalo’s beautiful park system, designed the grounds and gardens throughout the campus alongside architect and landscape designer Calvert Vaux.

Hotel Henry is the first phase and 1/3 of the redevelopment of the Richardson Olmsted Campus. Alongside and intertwined with the urban resort hotel and conference center will be the Buffalo Architecture Center. Future phases of renovation and landscape improvements are continuing and will be directed by the Hotel Henry’s neighbor, the Richardson Center Corporation.

https://www.hotelhenry.com/

 

About Foundlings Press:

Officially launched in May 2016 with the release of its first semiannual magazine, Foundlings Press has gone on to publish three magazine volumes containing poetry from emerging and established artists, including Don Berger, Jason Irwin, Noah Falck, Justin Karcher, Lytton Smith, George Guida, Gerry LaFemina, and George Wallace. The Press has established a reputation for carefully crafted publications that play with language and imagery, including “found” text and images, provoking their materials into radical dialogues. The Press has welcomed visiting poets to Buffalo, helped to bring Buffalo poets to towns and college campuses throughout Western New York, and orchestrated other events, including 2016’s “Whistle Stop” tour of political poetry, with appearances in Rochester, Fredonia, Syracuse, and Toronto on the nights of the televised American presidential election debates. The inaugural chapbook competition and residency marks Foundlings’ transition from a magazine into a press, scheduled to release several other books in 2018.
http://www.foundlingsmagazine.com/

Foundlings Vol. III Available in Stores and Online

/ Aidan Ryan / Leave a comment

Foundlings Vol. III launched on a bright day June, and poets and readers packed Nietzsche’s, a venerable Allentown bar and music venue for the party. The other editors and I were very happy to host visiting poets George Guida and Gerry LaFemina, who grabbed a righteous lunch with us at Gabriel’s Gate before heading over the party to perform.

Foundlings Vol. III also featured beloved writers from Buffalo and beyond, including Gerry Crinnin, Nathanael Stolte, George Wallace, and Joey Nicoletti. This volume also holds the honor of being poet Lilly Perry’s first ever publication. Pick up a copy and read her powerful poem “What We Make.”

You can buy the book from our Gumroad store or find it in Buffalo’s Talking Leaves or Ro Homeshop.