Indie Book Buzz: Rose Metal Press

We're trying to bring back the Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. If you are a small press publishing house and want to spread the word about some upcoming titles you are most excited about releasing, you know what to do!

This week's pick is brought you by Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney, 

co-founders and editors of Rose Metal Press

In the Circus of You: An Illustrated Novel-in-Poems 
by Nicelle Davis and Cheryl Gross

Release Date: March 25, 2015

What It’s About: The poems and their accompanying images take a circus freak show as the lens through which to view and understand both the self as an individual and its place in the world. As Nicelle and Cheryl put it in their note on the making of the book: “In the Circus of You is an intimate view of loss—the loss of love and the prescribed narrative. The images and poems were created spontaneously and simultaneously through a yearlong email exchange—the art became a sort of conversation between two women who were rummaging through the wreckage of their failed marriages. Together we discovered what remains after hopes and dreams are demolished. We created dreams and hopes unfettered by others’ expectations of ‘normal’ and ‘correct’—we

found our own story (strange as it may be).”

Why You Should Read It: Because as Liz Bradfield, the editor of Broadsided Press who teamed Nicelle and Cheryl up in the first place, writes in her introduction to In the Circus of You: “The parallel stories of destruction (of a marriage, of a self ) and creation (of a grotesquerie of inner figures, of a new self ) drive the book and amplify it. While the poems might move toward reconciliation, the art never backs off; the frisson of presentation and deep self are exposed. As Davis writes, ‘Conjoined with twine, bones of the first arrange with this new / pigeon. Two heads. Four wings. Gorge- /ous arrangement of lines. I make from them a necklace’.”

Plus the beautiful combination of poetry and art and imagination and reality will both delight and haunt you. For a preview of those many dualities at play, check out the book trailer for In the Circus of You here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney are the cofounders and editors of Rose Metal Press, a non-profit publisher dedicated to the publication and promotion of hybrid genres. Find out more about each of them and Rose Metal Press here.