Happy holidays from Paloma Press!
From our catalog this year:
Diaspora: Volume L by Ivy Alvarez reclaims and engages past and current Tagalog idioms, and re-defines them “beyond the bounds and parallels of what we imagine translation can do.” Ivy travelled all the way from New Zealand to launch her book at Daly City Public Library and at the 5th Filipino American International Book Festival in San Francisco in October.
Elsewhen: pieces by Robert Cowan is an illustrated hybrid collection that blurs the boundaries between poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. This collection “leaps between raunch and high abstraction, sampling logos, allegory, politics, wordplay, philosophy, and history.” Elsewhen launched at Spoonbill Bushwick in Brooklyn in September, and at Bird & Beckett in San Francisco in October.
The Great American Novel (GAN) by Eileen R. Tabios presents a unique vision of visual poetry and multifaceted inquiries on the collision of English and colonialism.
GLIMPSES: A Poetic Memoir (Through the MDR Generator) by Leny Mendoza Strobel offers us a glimpse of the author’s life-long reflections on love, history, decolonization, healing trauma, finding belonging and purpose, and building community.
The Good Mother of Marseille by debut novelist Christopher X. Shade is the first ever book-length work of fiction we’ve released. Named one of the “Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2019,” TGMoM poignantly narrates the interwoven stories of Americans and French natives in the year of Marseille’s designation as the European Capital of Culture. The book was launched in April at Rizzoli in New York, followed by readings in Oregon, California, and Alabama, including a conversation with Paloma Press publisher Aileen Cassinetto at Book Passage San Francisco in June.
This year also we’ve raised money/donated to the Bideawee no-kill shelter, the California Immigrant Policy Center, the Center for Babaylan Studies, the Humane Society, and the Philippine American Writers and Artists.
Our highlights were the gatherings with Paloma Press authors Ivy Alvarez, Robert Cowan, Melinda Luisa de Jesus, Reme Grefalda, Christopher X. Shade, Murzban Shroff, and Eileen R. Tabios who convened in San Francisco to give readings from their books as well as the anthology Humanity.
So much gratitude to everyone who supported us, and special thanks to our authors who are some of the kindest people and most brilliant and creative minds we know. Here’s to a happy, book-plenty new year!
May 2020 read like a blank verse: unrhymed, unwavering, and awe-inspiring.
