National Endowment for the Arts supports Farmington endeavor
FARMINGTON – The leader of Farmington’s Alice James Books is waxing poetic about a grant recently received from the National Endowment for the Arts.
April Ossmann, who heads up the poetry press, said she was thrilled to receive word Alice James Books was getting $24,000 in federal money.
It’s the fourth year in a row the press has received NEA money. In 2000, $5,000 was awarded, in 2001, $15,000, and last year there was $25,000.
The publisher’s average operating budget is about $200,000 annually as the nationally acclaimed press puts out six single volumes of the hottest contemporary poets.
About half of the income that supports the press is earned through book sales, manuscript submission fees and permission fees. The remainder is made up through donations.
Several years ago, a private donor chipped in $250,000, to be spread out over three years. The donation allowed Alice James Books to increase its visibility both at home and in the literary world by doubling its advertising budget. That award ran out in 2003.
This year’s NEA award will go a long way, Ossmann said.
Alice James Books was created in 1973 in Cambridge, Mass., by five women and two men who were frustrated with publishing prospects for poets. The press moved to Farmington and settled into the University of Maine at Farmington’s Look House in 1994, starting an affiliation that benefits both parties, Ossmann said.
“UMF really was ahead of the curve and smart to take this on,” Ossmann said. “It’s a really rare and wonderful opportunity and the feather in the cap of the college’s BFA (bachelor of fine arts) program.”
In exchange for free housing and technical support provided by the university, the press trains 15 to 17 UMF students annually by providing internships that teach the inner workings of the publishing world.
Alice James Books also co-sponsors an afternoon reading series at the college and supervises the design and production of the college’s literary journal, The Sandy River Review.
Poets are selected from two contests a year. The winner of the Beatrice Hawley award gets $2,000 and publication. Another manuscript sent in for that contest will also be published.
For the 2004 edition of the award, more than 800 manuscripts representing poets from each of the 50 states have been sent in, and are piled high in boxes on the floor of Ossmann’s office. Four manuscripts sent in for the New England/New York contest are also published.
Each semester, the press has an average of seven interns, who help Ossmann, managing editor Aimee Beal and part-time editorial assistant Kim Roberts.
The press prints around 1,500 copies of six different volumes of poetry a year, with printing costs running about $3,000 per volume. The books are sold across the nation from the wooden shelves of independent booksellers and the stacks at chain book retailers.
A poet herself, Ossmann lives in Jay but came from California by way of Vermont and New Hampshire.
“Being a poet was why I got into publishing. It lets me be as creative as I am in my writing. I just have a different way to use that energy. It’s a fabulous job,” she said of writing at night and publishing poetry by day. “I joke that I am sleeping with the enemy and the enemy is me.”
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