We are excited to announce that we now offer Et Alia Press gift cards! Click here to send instantly to your recipient’s email or schedule for a future date. Suggested amounts are $25, $35, $50, or $75, or choose a custom amount.
Perfect for . . .
Birthday
Holiday
Graduation
Housewarming
Friend looking for inspiration
Friend experiencing injury or illness
Child who loves to read and learn
Or any occasion when good books are in order. Isn’t that . . . ALWAYS!?
The schedule for the 2019 The C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference is up! Et Alia is a proud sponsor once again this year.
Hope you'll attend and head to the "Women and Publishing" breakout session with Eliza Borné, Jo McDougall, Crystal C. Mercer, Katy Henriksen, and Et Alia director Erin Wood. Erin is also offering publishing consultations for the conference and you can sign up for those as well, info in link if you hunt around a bit (or if you can't find, let us know and we’ll make the connection).
Hope to see you November 8-9 in Conway!
Breakout Session I, 9:15–10:30 am
1. Women and Publishing
(Erin Wood, Eliza Borné, Jo McDougall, Crystal C. Mercer, and Katy Henriksen)
Location: Fireplace Room, McCastlain Hall
Small press leadership and publishing, New York publishing houses, academic presses, book and textile arts, magazine publishing, manuscript editing, and writing—these women have done it all and have each shared their stories in Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives by Erin Wood (Et Alia Press, 2019). The five will discuss how to land internships and jobs in publishing, how to break through barriers, self-publishing versus large press versus small press, tips to keep publishing and editing jobs from killing your own writing, and how to avoid potential pitfalls along the way.
Congratulations to Brenda Clem Black, author of Black & Kiddo: A True Story of Dust, Determination, and Cowboy Dreams
WINNER of the Ozarks Writers League BEST BOOK of 2019
Finalist for the 2019 INDIE Book Awards
Finalist for the 2019 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in the Biography and Cover Design categories
Finalist for the 2019 Will Rogers Medallion Award
Black & Kiddo was also a finalist for the 2019 Indie Book Award and the 2019 Rogers Medallion Award.
About Black & Kiddo: Hear the music of a singing cowboy—who almost becomes Roy Rogers—as he finds love with a hat-wearing, quirky lady. Their coming-of-age stories converge, revealing lives honed by life-threatening hardship in the flatlands of Texas, the high plains of New Mexico, and the green hills of the Arkansas Ozarks. In an unlikely “Land of Opportunity,” their young sons rise, and Black & Kiddo turn weathered hands to new work, heartened by the long arc of dreams.
Image by Lindsey Jolly Sullivan
EXCITING BOOK CONTRACT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Women, have you felt the finance industry leaves you out, drawing a curtain of confusion between you and your money with lots of incomprehensible jargon? Do you worry about saving for retirement, but feel so frustrated and overwhelmed that you keep putting it off, or feel ready to do something but aren’t sure what? Do you look around for financial advice, and find that it is all coming from men telling you what you’re doing wrong and how they can fix it for you instead of helping you take charge of your own money? What if, instead of putting your hard-earned dollars into financial products that you, for good reason, have trouble understanding, in an effort to “beat the system,” you first focused on saving? What if the financial industry isn’t built for us and it’s time to consider rebuilding it together, by means that aren’t as complicated as you may think?
Perhaps you’ve already felt empowered by Sarah-Catherine Phillips Gutierrez through one of her speaking engagements or movements (SAVE10, Ladysplaining Money). Now, her work to transform the finance industry by helping women draw back the curtain of unnecessary confusion and demand control of their financial futures will continue through her first book, Et Alia’s spring 2020 title: But First, Save . . . subtitle TBD! Mark your calendar for its March 10 release date, and meanwhile find SC at Aptus Financial and ladysplainingmoney.com.
You’re going to feel so Gouda about this evening book soiree from Sweet Freedom Cheese and Et Alia Press on Saturday, September 28! ! Get ready to stack some cheddar and head to Sweet Freedom Cheese, Arkansas’ only cut-to-order cheese shop founded by #womanmakerofarkansas Jessica Keahey, in Bentonville’s 8th Street Market.
BOOK POP-UP SHOP: From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., enjoy a pop-up shop of award-winning Arkansas books from Little Rock-based Et Alia Press, “a small press for big voices."
WOMEN MAKE ARKANSAS BOOK RECEPTION: From 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., melt and mingle with wine, cheese, and the women featured in Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives by Erin Wood, released by Et Alia Press in April 2019. Get your signed copy and meet fifty Arkansas women who will challenge the way you think about identity, entrepreneurialism, community, and what it takes to lead a creative life.
Bread for the event provided by Rockin’ Baker and Rockin’ Baker Academy. Founded by #womanmakerofarkansas Daymara Baker—a bakery on a mission to “breaducate” the community and enable self-sufficiency through on-site job skills training.
Daymara Baker and Jessica Keahey are both featured in the book, Women Make Arkansas.
Together, we camembert!
This includes our Literary Necklaces, a collaboration with Bang-Up Betty! Free shipping and local hand-delivery, as always.
We kicked off Memorial Day Weekend with the first-ever Women Make Arkansas Market at The Bernice Garden, sponsored by ESSE Museum & Store, featuring many of the makers in Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives by Erin Wood. These fifty Arkansas women will challenge the way you think about identity, entrepreneurialism, community, and what it takes to lead a creative life. 200 pages, 250 + images. Standard color paperback. 8.5 x 11. $28.95.
In June, we dropped the beet with Rooted: Central Arkansas Table & Farm by Lacey Thacker & Sara Mitchell. Committed carnivores and veggie lovers alike will more intimately understand and appreciate the locavore foodways of Central Arkansas as Rooted unearths the stories of two dozen farmers, artisanal food producers, and restaurants driving the food scene in the heart of The Natural State. 100 pages. More than 100 images and illustrations, recipes and resources. Premium color paperback. 8.5 x 11. $26.95.
We celebrated Christmas in July with the release of Christmas on the Tree by Claire, Leslie, Charlie, and Henry Wallace, our youngest-ever authors. You'll adore this holiday sibling collaboration, which reveals that being a Christmas ornament isn’t just about hanging out and spreading joy during the most wonderful time of the year. Reminding us that there are years that things don't go as planned and times when we just don't fit in, but that we can always find friends along the way, Christmas on the Tree is sure to become a Christmas-time favorite. 32 pages. 11 x 8.5. Premium Color. Available in paperback ($12.95) and hardback ($19.95).
Just ahead on September 1, we release our next children's title, Adam Gets Back in the Game. Author Greg Adams is Program Coordinator for the Center for Good Mourning and Staff Bereavement Support at Arkansas Children’s Hospital where he has worked with grieving children and families since 1991. Along with Adam, children experiencing the loss of a friend or family member can consider the costs of avoiding their pain and come to understand how grieving can help them more fully return to living. Illustrations by Paige Mason. Premium Color Paperback. 8.5 x 8.5. 34 pages. $13.95.
Submissions have closed, tough decisions have been settled, and 75 invitations have been extended for our Spring 2020 title, Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear by Megan Volpert. About Closet Cases, Volpert says, "We shape our identity as LGBTIQ people by what we put on our bodies. We signal to each other with our clothes in silent community on the street. Jean jackets can be armor. Bracelets can be spiritual totems. A belt can save your life, or take it. So this is not merely a 'fashion book.' It's a collection of artifacts that testify to the power of fashion as a verb, to the complex and lovely strategies that govern what we do in the LGBTIQ community to build authentic selves that are both comfortable and seen."
Plus, we're busy drafting contracts. Stay tuned for announcements about our stellar 2020 lineup!
Image by Alex Veliz
Kaylene is pursuing a BA in Rhetoric and Writing as well as Psychology at University of Arkansas at Little Rock where she dedicates her time to the University's Writing Center. Prior to becoming a UA Little Rock student, she served as the Student Life Editor for University of Central Arkansas’ yearbook, The Scroll. She is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Kaylene is a freelance writer. She enjoys poetry, trying new foods, and being outdoors in her free time.
Look forward to seeing great work from this editor!
Image by Joe Henry
Meet Et Alia’s latest author, Greg Adams!
Greg is Program Coordinator for the Center for Good Mourning and Staff Bereavement Support at Arkansas Children’s Hospital where he has worked with grieving children and families since 1991.
Greg graduated from Baylor University where he studied social work and religion and completed his masters in social work at the University of Missouri. In his time in Little Rock, he has been active in the community in a variety of volunteer and leadership roles. With any extra time, he enjoys keeping up with politics, reading other people’s books, and slow running.
Greg previously developed Lessons from Lions: Using children’s media to teach about grief and mourning and he writes a grief/loss e-newsletter, The Mourning News—both available for anyone at www.goodmourningcenter.org.
Adam Gets Back in the Game is his first children’s book.
About Adam Gets Back in the Game
For ten-year-old Adam, happiness is being involved in a little of everything, including his favorite thing of all, playing basketball with his best friend Isaiah. But when he falls on a broken bottle, everything must stop for his big hurt.” Later, all that Adam learned in healing from his injured hand will be put to the test when Isaiah dies suddenly in an accident. Along with Adam, children experiencing the loss of a friend or family member can consider the costs of avoiding their pain and come to understand how grieving can help them more fully return to living.
Forthcoming this month! Book link HERE.
Congratulations to Brenda Clem Black and BLACK & KIDDO: A Story of Dust, Determination, & Cowboy Dreams for being a finalist in cover design in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a finalist in the Western Nonfiction - Biography and Memoir Category for the Will Rogers Medallion Award!
Being a Christmas ornament isn’t just about hanging out and spreading joy during the most wonderful time of the year. Actually, the job is quite complicated. Plus, there are fears, dangers, and years you just don’t fit in. Meet one endearing red Christmas ball and forevermore be filled with wonder about what really happens on the tree.
This sibling collaboration will be available to celebrate Christmas in July! Pre-order now and receive your copy in late July.
Meet the Wallace siblings on their author page and learn about their collaborative roles in this book.
Image by Novo Studios
During the launch of Rooted: Central Arkansas Table & Farm by Lacey Thacker and Sara Mitchell last week at Little Rock's Dunbar Garden, the authors suggested a donation amount for wine and water and together with attendees, raised $300 for the garden!
From page 63: "Students at Gibbs Elementary and Dunbar Middle School in Little Rock have something very unique: their own secret garden, hidden from the road on the edge of downtown. . . . Dunbar Garden is not only open to students, it is a nonprofit teaching garden, open to the public. The garden, which began in 1992, encourages 'planting ideas to grow minds,' and the goal of Dunbar Garden is to educate people on where food comes from and how to grow it oneself. The garden averages about 800 school kids per month when the weather is nice. When the garden began, it was in-school suspension students who were sent out to do the work to help build the garden. It has since taken off, unique in that this is an inner-city school with ample space for a garden to grow."
Thank you to all who contributed to helping this beloved garden grow!
Susan Boe, maker behind Boe Bowls
Chat with Susan Boe and you’re likely to walk away with her joyful smile and a sweet bit of conversation buzzing in your head, and perhaps a piece of reworked vintage in your hand. Considering herself a “rescuer,” Susan repurposes castoff fabrics into fabric bowls, unfinished needlepoints into pillows, memory-filled snippets of the past into quilts, and other estate sale items into objects to be loved anew (follow her on Instagram as @boebowls). For Susan, making is matrilineal—inherited from her foremothers and passed down to her own daughters as an essential part of everyday living.
Both of Susan’s daughters, Elaine Ruth and Vivian, are past Et Alia Press summer interns. Elaine Ruth now has a publishing position with HarperCollins and Vivian is a junior at Davidson College.
You’ve passed your desire to make down to your own girls. What did that look like in your home?
“When Elaine Ruth was very young, she made things to sell at Gallery 26. Vivian sewed over one hundred dresses for Little Dresses for Africa. My husband would spend entire weekends with the girls, painting huge discarded display boards, the patio floor, and even their bodies!
“I always felt, ‘the bigger the mess, the better.’ There were not rules. If they had an idea, we hopped in the car and went on a search for the supplies needed to implement their ideas. They had access and permission to create. I never cared how messy they got or the house got. At one point in life, our kitchen table was always so covered in craft supplies, paint, glue, and glitter that we could never eat on it. We were always working on something together: leaf rubbings in the fall, tissue paper ghosts, doily snowflakes . . . I could go on and on. Both girls took numerous classes at the Arkansas Arts Center, summer classes with the Holy Souls art teacher, classes with artist Laura Phillips, and, of course, sewing lessons with Barbara Steely. I was also their Girl Scout leader, so we did all sorts of cool projects, like sewing their own books. We have always been the happiest making stuff and making big messes.”
The curtains in the family sewing room are made from project remnants. “These curtains have slowly become my mood boards. They are covered in pinned-on needlework I’ve rescued, textile projects from my girls, patches, my mother’s master gardener name tag, and on and on.” Unlike her bowls, Susan can’t bring herself to sell her quilts—and certainly not her curtains—which are far too personal. “My quilts and curtains are my version of scrapbooking.”
Order a copy of Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives today to read more from Susan and 49 other lady makers ready to inspire you, your mamma, and all the ladies in your life.
Susan Boe in her home sewing room.
ABOUT: As a verb, "fashion" is exceedingly queer. Our queer community learns to fashion its identity out of the clothes we wear, the costumes we choose, the fabrics we desire--and the statements these make. No other community of people allows clothing to serve as such a primary, dominant marker of subjectivity, both individually and collectively. And we don't simply permit it; we rely upon it. Queers communicate through what we put on our bodies.
So this is not merely a "fashion book." It's a collection of artifacts that testify to the power of fashion as a verb, to the complex and lovely strategies that govern what we do in the LGBTIQ community to build authentic selves that are both comfortable and seen.
SEEKING 75 QUEER WRITERS, ANY GENRE. Each contributor will get a two-page spread with photo of their clothing and accompanying text explaining its significance. This full-color book will be published by Et Alia Press in spring 2020.
MORE DETAILS AND SUBMISSION PORTAL at meganvolpert.com.
A huge thank you to Arkansas Life for featuring hand lettered quotes to create by from six contributors to Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives! What a perfect way to share these women's wisdom. Check out the full issue here.
Et Alia Press proudly celebrates International Women's Day and Women’s History Month as a woman-owned company that seeks to equalize the publishing playing field by sharing more women’s voices.
In the past two years, ALL of our titles have been authored, co-authored, and/or edited by women.
Today, we celebrate:
Daniela Rose Anderson
Brenda Clem Black
Courtney Butler Robinson
Anita Davis (with Rita Henry + Laura Cartright Hardy)
Cheryl Lavers
Grace Vest
Erin Wood
Forthcoming this spring is Rooted: Central Arkansas Table & Farm by Lacey Thacker and Sara Mitchell.
Most of our books are designed by Amy Ashford at ashforddesignstudio.com.
Thank you for supporting these and more women authors through your purchases!
Order now and receive your book in a little over a month.
Are you ready fifty Arkansas women who will challenge the way you think about identity, entrepreneurialism, community, and what it takes to lead a creative life?
In these pages, Erin Wood shares conversations with women of diverse and dynamic pursuits who refuse to be bound by category, including the Arkansas Poet Laureate, a kombucha brewer, a fire performer, a film production designer, a hatter, a drag queen, an aspiring time traveler, the state’s first certified chocolatier, and a ceramicist who has made more than one hundred thousand blades of porcelain grass. Together, these women bravely reveal how they quiet negative voices (whether from critics’ mouths or inside their own heads), channel their intuition, and work hard as hell to bear out their visions.
As you consider your own expressive potential, let the failures, victories, and wisdom of these bold creatives open you to infinite possibilities and help you step into your own creative freedom.
TAH DAHHHH! We are SO excited about the cover for Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives by Et Alia Press Director Erin Wood.
Get ready to meet fifty Arkansas women who will challenge and change the way you think about making, identity, entrepreneurialism, community, and what it takes to lead a creative life!
The book is forthcoming in April and will debut at the 2019 Arkansas Literary Festival.
Thank you to Brandy Thomason McNair of Bella Vita Jewelry for sharing her top three tips for great small business social media posting! Look for more about Brandy, her creative process, wholesaling to more than 300 stores nationwide, and her loads of collaborations with other lady creatives in Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives, forthcoming in April 2019. Meanwhile, you can visit her in her gorgeous brick-and-mortar in downtown Little Rock's historic Lafayette building.
Share Beautiful, Well-Lit Images, often achieved with natural lighting on an overcast day.
Be Consistent in image appearance, content of copy, and posting schedule.
Be 100% Authentic. It can be hard to remember this while also maintaining a beautiful feed. I struggle with it but find that when I post something super quick and heart-felt, I get more engagement, which is what I am after.
Act now for your chance to win a copy of The Mud & The Lotus: A Guide and Workbook for Students of Yoga by Courtney Butler! (1) Like/follow Et Alia Press on Facebook and/or Instagram now through 12/31. (2) Tag a friend/friends in the comments who you think might also be interested in growing their yoga practice. Each new follow and tag give you one additional chance in the drawing ($29.95 value + free domestic shipping). Winner will be announced on New Year’s Day and will soon be on their way to deepening their yoga practice in 2019 with this book that is "highly recommended" by yoga veterans Larry Payne and John Kepner.
Congratulations to Courtney for the years of hard work and dedication that have led to her feature in the Winter 2019 issue of Yoga Therapy Today.
