What does it take to get your book published in the youth focused publishing industry? Come hear about how three women conquered this hurdle with grit, perseverance, and a publisher dedicated to publishing the brilliant work of women over 50, Sibylline Press. And book lovers will enjoy the discussion about four fabulous books, three fiction, one memoir. Featuring:
Chick Singer: A Novel by Lorraine Devon Wilke
Tap Dancing at the Bluebird by Christine Walker
The Sunken Town by Karen Nelson
Foghorn: The Nearly True Story of a Small Publishing Empire by Vicki DeArmon (moderator and publisher of Sibylline Press)
For more information, please visit Bookshop West Portal’s events page
here.
About the featured books and authors:
About Chick Singer:
The glamor of ’80s rock & roll stardom is ancient history for Libby Conlin, whose focus is now on the unexpected arrival of her daughter Bridget, reintroducing the chaos of their fractious relationship. When Bridget’s application to an art school involves anonymously posting Libby’s old music online, it garners the attention of industry gatekeepers, uncovering dark secrets, and forcing Libby to confront her mysterious past.
About Lorraine Devon Wilke:
An accomplished writer in several genres, Lorraine Devon Wilke has built an eclectic library of expertly crafted work. After launching her “arts+politics” blog, Rock+Paper+Music (2010), she became a popular contributor to HuffPost and other media sites; her essays have been reprinted in literary journals, academic and nonfiction books. She maintains a column at Medium and a popular Substack, Musings of a Creative Loudmouth. Previous novels include After the Sucker Punch (2014), Hysterical Love (2015), and The Alchemy of Noise (2019). Landing in Los Angeles with an early rock & roll band, Devon Wilke lives with her husband, attorney/writer, Pete Wilke.
About
Tap Dancing at the Bluebird:
In an epic coming-of-age story, Mattie and Kip tap dance and ride the rails during the Great Depression. A perceived betrayal and a train crash separate the friends for a lifetime. Is it ever too late to love and forgive?
About Christine Walker:
Christine Walker has an MFA in Writing and Literature in Fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars and an MA in Creative Arts Interdisciplinary from San Francisco State University. A visual artist, she is also the author of “A Painter’s Garden: Cultivating the Creative Life” (Warner Books), a consultant in design and strategic visual facilitation with corporations and nonprofits, and a writing teacher.
About
The Sunken Town:
Lindsay never gave much thought to being adopted until she unexpectedly inherits her birth mother’s farmhouse in Maine, propelling her on a journey that reveals just how far her birth mother was willing to go to protect her.
About Karen Nelson:
Karen Nelson is a writer and the co-founder of the nonprofit Writing by Writers. During her long career in nonprofits, she has protected open space, funded cancer research, trained people to complete endurance events, and helped writers bring their work into the world. When not organizing writing workshops, she can be found hiking with her dog, reading traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and hosting dinner parties.About Foghorn:
The heyday of small press publishing in San Francisco lives again
This memoir that reads like fiction recounts the never-before-told story of the heyday of small presses in the 1980s and 1990s in San Francisco when Bay Area presses—armed with arrogance and personal computers—took the publishing field. This is the story of one of those presses and its intrepid publisher, Vicki Morgan (DeArmon).
At Foghorn Press, Vicki was 25, young, brash, and ambitious. She quixotically built a book publishing company from scratch with her eccentric brother to help with no book publishing experience but fueled by 100-hour work weeks, cheap beer, and irrepressible belly laughs. Over 13 years, they assembled a cast of often preposterous authors and resistant staff while outlasting a drunken ex-husband, a con artist, inscrutable distributors, a fleet of good ol’ boys, terrible cash flow, and their own differing aspirations. Books were brought to market and miraculously sold from their offices in the Boiler Room until Foghorn became a resounding success with sales, media, and acclaim. But of course, the story doesn’t end there.
About Vicki DeArmon:
Vicki DeArmon has been in the book industry for forty years as a respected publisher, bookseller, and innovator. She started her San Francisco publishing company Foghorn Press with a small advance on her credit card when she was twenty-five, growing it to a $2 million enterprise before selling it fourteen years later. She worked as the marketing and events director at Copperfield’s Books for eight years and as consultant to California’s independent bookstores. She’s also a writer whose short stories and essays have won awards and appeared online and in print. Vicki is one of the founders of Sibylline Press and serves as its publisher. She lives in California.
