[New-Poetry] Re: belated Happy B-day

[David Baratier]

Our largest number so far was from late 1999 to 2003, when "we" was around 8 people regularly working not including cover production, judges, and deputy psaws. We had folding parties and sent out a few thousand letters twice a year and thousands of books, chapbooks and journals. We made rubberstamps suitable for envelopes. We made a graffiti spraypaint template. We had readers in from throughout the US. We had state grants. We had corporate sponsorship. One was a caffinated mint company that gave us boxes full of mint filled tins. We got a lot done that year. 

Three colleges donated interns, we even had an economic study done by an OSU economist to determine whether we should accept an offer to be distributed by Publishers Group West or (I forget, another large place starts with C). Interiors were all done in house except for the first book, the ninth journal(a special collaboration journal, John M. Bennett did interiors), and one asemic / handwritten by Bob Grenier (with me handwriting all of the page numbers, which I do not recommend). Covers for chapbooks and journals, except for five of them, were done in house. Book covers are often done out of house by Lance King or various others but sometimes I am "the man."

I married in 2002, the birth of my daughter in 2004 slowed us down from 7 to 8 titles a year to 4 for the last two years. Our interns and associate editors either went to grad school or prison and in August of 2007 I moved to a remote location far from humanity. The nearest shopping mall is one hour and five minutes away. The second nearest is one hour and ten minutes away. 

Things are loose now, here we are in the second American depression cooking up a new deal at the Pavement Saw labs, shenanigans are expected. Our website designer is out in San Francisco, a cover artist in Columbus, a few reader helpers elsewhere, mostly me with the signal flags keeping the pavement saw helium filled duck from snaring the branches of the expected poetry parade.

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

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--- On Thu, 1/8/09, jforjames at aol.com <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> From: jforjames at aol.com <jforjames at aol.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: belated Happy B-day to Carl Sandburg
> To: editor at pavementsaw.org, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 10:31 PM
> David,
> So by 'We' it's you and how many people? Do you
> outsource graphic design, typography, fullfilment or is it
> all homegrown?
> 
> Finnegan