BRATTLEBORO — Writer, poet, and environmental activist Dede Cummings is inviting everyone to a party celebrating the launch of Green Writers Press (GWP), a new Vermont-based publishing house that she founded earlier this year.
Cummings says that the mission of GWP is to publish books about how places shape and are shaped by the people who inhabit them.
“GWP wants to show how poetry and art are a means of engendering empathy, illuminating interconnection, prompting new ways of imagining and living, and by doing all of these, helping birth cultures of conservation.”
“For instance, we strive to build awareness to stop global warming,” Cummings says. “We also plan to publish books that sync with our mission that also includes other subjects that speak to quality of life and the beauty of nature.”
On Nov. 1 at Next Stage Arts in Putney, the press's launch party will include readings from acclaimed writers, book signings, a slide show, live music, libations, and - of course - a cake.
The press will celebrate its flagship publication, The Bird Book, a children's alphabet book by artist and educator Brian D. Cohen with rhyming couplets written by Holiday Eames. The book, created for the Westminster Station couple's son, David, features the letters of the alphabet in both uppercase and lowercase, one per page, each corresponding to a bird illustration.
Other GWP authors will also include fiction writer Howard Frank Mosher and poet Leland Kinsey, both from the Northeast Kingdom; southern Vermont nature writer Patti Smith; social worker and ordained Buddhist chaplain Claire Willis; and poet and climate activist Greg Delanty, the poet-in-residence at St. Michael's College in Winooski.
Also on the bill are Vermont photographers John Willis, Catherine Dianich, Zachary Stephens, Evie Lovett, and Lynne Weinstein, as well as Cummings and GWP's editor, Robin MacArthur, of Marlboro, who also writes fiction and essays.
Publishing with values
GWP takes the “green” in its name seriously. In its goal to spread a message of environmental activism through its words and images, the press will use only post-consumer-waste recycled paper and not virgin timber.
Furthermore, unlike most publishers that ship their work to places like China to take advantage of low-cost printing, all the books published by Green Writers Press will be printed in Vermont by Springfield Printing Corporation, a family-owned company that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which ensures that the paper used ultimately comes from forests managed with environmental sensitivity.
The press will use printing-on-demand technology, which lets books be manufactured as needed, thus minimizing waste.
“We strive to preserve and protect the natural resources of the earth,” Cummings says. “Our books will be printed with soy-based inks on paper made from pulp that comes from post-consumer waste paper, made with a chlorine-free process.”
GWP is also exploring printing on other fibrous-plant-based materials as well, such as organic hemp from Canada; kenaf, and arundo donax (similar to bamboo).
“Our goal is to never use virgin timber fiber for our paper used to print our books,” she says.
A percentage of GWP's proceeds will be donated to the environmental activist group 350.org.
“The term 'localvore' applies to our mission,” Cummings adds. “We will also give a percentage of our profits directly to Vermont-based environmental organizations and other groups.”
Spreading the word
Cummings calls herself “a shameless promoter.”
“I sold all my books!” she exclaims, referring to the recent Brattleboro Literary Festival, where she staffed a table introducing both her publishing house and The Bird Book.
Although GWP is publishing its first five books this season and will unveil an additional eight titles next month in its spring list, The Bird Book will always be something very special to Cummings.
In fact, the book inspired Cummings to found GWP.
Cummings, also a literary agent, had been working on getting a book deal for The Bird Book for almost two years, often coming very close to a sale. But in the end, major publishing houses like art book publisher Abrams backed off because they didn't know how to categorize it. Was it a children's book? An art book? A collector's item?
“I think how the book as presented confused publishers,” explains Cummings. “I mean, the beautiful prints in this book were shown in [the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center]. We went around to the publishing houses showing these amazing prints in a special wooden book that made the whole thing a little foreboding for publishers who couldn't see it having a wide market.”
Then Cummings realized that it was she who perhaps best understood the value and market for this particular book, and she could publish it herself.
“I said to Brian and Holiday, 'Look, I know what to do with this material. Let's promote what they say it wasn't. With my experience as a book designer and editor, I know how to make a book, and I love social media,'” Cummings recalls.
“'If established publishers don't have the chutzpah, passion, and vision to promote it, we do,'” she told the author and illustrator.
She originally was planning to publish a deluxe edition priced at $35, but she found that her price point was simply too high for national distribution.
“The children's-book market is really tight,” says Cummings. “I was advised to cut the price to around $20, to put a bright color on the cover, to forgo the slip jacket, and to have the image printed right on the binding. We wanted to make the book very accessible for kids.”
With the success of The Bird Book, GWP also intends to publish Bird Book greeting cardsand Bird Book posters that can be custom-printed to include a child's name.
Cummings also intends to return to her original vision and publish a deluxe limited edition of the book, with slipcover and fine binding.
Looking to 2015
GWP is planning in 2015 to publish Personal Devices, another book by Bird Book illustrator Cohen. This limited-edition volume will be modeled on medieval emblem books and include 80 etchings.
“We also are about to publish the first collection of short stories by Vermont writers,” says Cummings. “That should be a literary major event and will include many major writers who have lived and worked in Vermont.”
GWP plans to be selective in what it publishes.
“We can't grow too fast,” says Cummings. “We do not want to take on too much so that we won't be able to honor our commitment to the authors we already have.”
“Being new in this game, we are still on our way to establish ourselves as a publisher, and we intend to be responsible not only socially but to the wonderful talent we represent,” she says.