SMALL PRESSES UNITE

Over the weekend, hundreds of independent publishers gathered at the landmark General Society of Tradesmen and Mechanics Building, inviting Christmas shoppers and Midtown tourists to peruse titles they might overlook in their local superstore. No Dan Brown or James Patterson here. Instead, Akashic Books’s “Anti-Capitalism Reader” and “Hairstyles of the Damned” tempted browsers, as did Gingko Press’s handsomely designed collection of “street art” books, including “Vinyl Will Kill” and “Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing.”

The Small Press Center, which has its headquarters in the 19th-century building, hosted the 17th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair. It also offered several associated events, including a discussion on Afghanistan and Iraq with journalist Christian Parenti, readings from Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” and a post election debate between writers from The Onion and writers from The Daily Show. There was even a discussion about how one could start a small press or literary magazine of one’s own.

Fair exhibitors ranged from independent publishing stalwarts like Grove/Atlantic Inc. and Seven Stories Press to smaller operations like the Farmer Museum Printing Office of Cooperstown, N.Y., which publishes facsimile editions of 19th-century pamphlets. The price for exhibiting at the fair ranged from $108 for members willing to share a table with another publisher on the third floor to $375 for a center table in the middle of the library on the ground floor. But to qualify for the fair, a press need only have published one book.

The Ndowe International Press, for instance, claims only “Ndowe Tales I,” a compendium of the folk tales of the Ndowe people of central Africa. These were gathered from his ancestors by author and publisher Enenge A’Bodjedi, who offered the simplest mission statement: “Unless someone writes this down,” he said, “It’s going to the grave.”

In a market dominated by corporate mega-publishers, presses like Philadelphia’s Paul Dry Books have found their own way to survive. “It’s hard to get attention for any single book,” said Paul Dry, whose titles include “The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy,” by Jacob Howland, and “Boston Boy,” a memoir by Nat Hentoff. “You have to be energetic and it can be disappointing. With a small publisher you have to get word of mouth and have other people push it.”

While the book fair offered its exhibitors varying degrees of exposure, there was some debate on whether it stimulated profit. Mr. Dry’s main concern on Saturday was the lack of browsers around his third-floor table. “It’s a crap shoot.”

– Arthur Vaughan

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NOTES

Finnish poet Helena Sinervo has won the 2004 Finlandia Prize for Literature and 26,000 Euros ($35,000) for her first novel, “Runoilijan talossa” (“In the House of the Poet,” Tammi). … Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes has won the Royal Spanish Language Academy prize for literature for his autobiographical work “En esto creo” (to be published by Random House in February as “This I Believe: An A to Z of a Life”). The honor carries a 25,000 Euros ($33,660) cash prize…. The Guardian First Book award, awarded by the Guardian newspaper in London, and L10,000 ($19,440) goes to Armand Marie Leroi for her work of nonfiction, “Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body” (Harper-Collins). … The 2004 John Llewellyn Rhys prize, Britain’s second-oldest literary award, which is given annually to the best work of literature by a writer under the age of 35, has gone to British author Charlotte Mendelson for her second novel, “Daughters of Jerusalem” (Picador). The prize is worth L5,000 ($9,720). … The Duncan Lawrie First Prize Winner of this year’s Arvon International Poetry Competition and L5,000 ($9,720) is the ceramicist Joe Kane for “The Boy Who Nearly Won The Texaco Art Competition.” … Scottish author Andrew Greig has won the Saltire Book of the Year Award, sponsored by the Faculty of Advocates, Royal Mail, and the National Library of Scotland, and L5,000 ($9,720) for his novel “In Another Light” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).

– Kolby Yarnell