Apple Computer thinks Jon Appleton is pretty cool, and so do we at Phoenicia! For their celebration of the Mac at 30, Apple produced a major publication on their website, featuring one person per year -- artists, designers, musicians, scientists and more -- who have used the Mac in innovative and creative ways that moved computing and culture forward.

Jon Appleton was their choice for the year 1985. Here's what they said:

"Pioneering Electronic Music: Electro-acoustic composer Jon Appleton established one of the first digital music studios in the world, and it was built completely around the Macintosh. With his Appletones software, he developed a revolutionary new way to teach the principles of composition to his students, inspiring musicians for years to come.

Phoenicia congratulates Jon on this well-deserved recognition. Check out his electro-acoustic music at Amazon and iTunes, and his more recent classical compositions here at Phoenicia!

Phoenicia had its best year ever in 2013, and we'd like to thank every single person who contributed: the readers who bought books, the authors who wrote them, the artists whose work graced the book covers and interiors, and the craftspeople who ran the presses and binderies or shipping departments. A lot of minds and hands go into the making of a book, and no matter how advanced our technology becomes, this is still the case.

And we're excited, looking ahead to 2014! The first release will be a new CD of music by Jon Appleton, brilliantly performed by Minkyung Oh. Then there will be a large-format book of photographs of the 60s and 70s: turbulent years of protest, change, and the back-to-the-land movement by Jonathan Sa'adah, with essays by several excellent writers; and later in the spring, a book of prose poems by Luisa Igloria.

So, thank you again for being interested in us, and for your support of independent publishing. It is greatly appreciated!

The weather may be cold, but these holiday savings are hot!

From now until December 16, paperback editions of all our full-length poetry books will be on sale for the price of $12.00 rather than the usual $13.95. Hardback editions of Thaliad and Ancient Lights are also offered at $23.00 instead of $26. The sale price will be applied when you visit the e-store, or any Amazon.com site; for customers in the UK or Europe, the sale prices have been converted to local currency.

Titles included are:
Thaliad : paper and hardcover
70 Faces: Torah Poems
Angels & Beasts
Ancient Lights : paper and hardcover
Mercy Island
Brilliant Coroners

Take advantage of the excellent prices as a gift for yourself or someone special, and support poetry and independent publishing at the same time. The authors and publisher thank you!

Phoenicia is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of Night Willow, a collection of prose poems by Luisa A. Igloria. Like much of Luisa's work, Night Willow employs memory and associations as well as the ingredients of the everyday, but goes beyond the narrative and the purely lyrical to create a dream-like atmosphere that contains beauty, bewilderment, anguish, and hope.

In writing Night Willow, Igloria said she wanted to stretch both herself and her craft, asking her prose to do "the same hard muscle work I expect in every poem that I write."

"It was an experience that felt almost like trying my hand at musical composition," she said. "I wanted to create mood, tone, networks of memory and echo so that the poems could speak to each other across and within the collection - but at the same time achieve a level of language that is also precise and thoughtful."

At Phoenicia we feel she has achieved this goal, and much more besides, and expect that the readers who come to our press for the highest-quality contemporary poetry -- poetry that also pushes boundaries -- will agree.

Readers may be familiar with Igloria's poem-a-day project, published on Dave Bonta's blog, Via Negativa; what they may not realize is that she was the first Filipina woman of letters installed in the Palanca Literary Hall of Fame in the Philippines, and is an eleven-time winner of that country's highest literary award, the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (in poetry, non-fiction, and short fiction) as well as having a very long list of American poetry awards to her credit.

Sabine Murray called Igloria "a singular and revelatory voice in American poetry," and Kristin Naca said that in her poems, "measured, intuitive music splendidly unleashes the bewildering in the everyday."

I still remember reading, with admiration and that sense of surprise editors always look for, the first poem Luisa sent to an issue of qarrtsiluni that I was co-editing. Carlos A. Angeles has said: “[Her] poetry inhabits the heart first, then the mind, and the soul…her work contains some of the most extraordinary and most polished poetry written by a Filipino poet in English today.” I agree, but think there is no reason any longer to limit Igloria's strength to one country's poetic output; it is extraordinary and polished poetry by any standard, and we're proud to be publishing this collection.

Claudia Serea, author of Angels&Beasts, read from her work recently as part of the surreal reading at Bowery Art + Science. Congratulations, Claudia!

Marly had a wonderful Carolina book tour in late August, frolicking with painters and poets, novelists and composers along the way. In the photo above, at Malaprop's Books in Asheville, NC, Marly laughs and talks with her favorite teacher from high school, to whom Marly's novel "Catherwood" was dedicated. She read with debut novelist Nathan Ballingrud. (Photograph by Paul Digby, who came with his wife Lynn all the way from Ohio to hear Marly read!)

Marly Youmans with poet Jeffery Beam after a poetry reading at Flyleaf (Airport Road bookshop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.) Marly also read poetry and fiction at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, McIntyre's in Fearrington/Pittsboro, and Malaprop's in Asheville. Her readings featured poetry from her most recent books, Thaliad (Phoenicia) and The Foliate Head (Stanza:UK).

Marly Youmans is on a mini book-tour in North Carolina this week. If you're anywhere nearby we hope you'll stop in, say hello, hear her read, and, of course, get an autographed copy of one of her books! Here's the schedule:

August 20 Tuesday FLYLEAF, CHAPEL HILL

August 21 Wednesday QUAIL RIDGE, RALEIGH

August 24 Saturday MCINTYRE'S, PITTSBORO

August 28 Wednesday MALAPROP'S, ASHEVILLE


But if you can't make it to North Carolina, we're celebrating Marly's tour with a special sale on books ordered directly from us:  paperback copies of Thaliad are available for only $12.00, and the beautiful limited edition hardcover is deeply discounted at $23.00. So please take advantage of this sale, which will run only to the end of August!

(Note: sale not available on Amazon orders.)