The Gang Was All There! Hail, the Indies!

This weekend I attended the Nineteenth Independent and Small Press Book Fair. Housed in the Small Press Center in mid-town Manhattan, the Fair was more like a Festival. The spirit of congeniality and mutuality, the trade talk that deflected itself from profit for more creative issues, the vast array of personalities-- all bibliophiles & bibliophages but all with their "independent" sensibilities intact--greatly impressed me and my Tempest Press cohort, Luchy Edwards.

On Sunday, Johnny Temple of Brooklyn's divine publishing imprint, Akashic (akashicbooks.com), introduced a question and answer session with Amiri Baraka, who just published a collection of short stories with Akashic, TALES OF THE OUT AND GONE), and Colin Channer, another Akashic author (HOW TO BEAT A CHILD THE RIGHT AND PROPER WAY). It was an amazing encounter/session. Baraka still radiates as the arch polemi-lyricist of our time and he possesses the finely scuplted mind of the culturally and politically engaged artist he has always been. Hail, hail, the organizers and participants of this fine, fun fair! jc