Winter Solstice, Spring Fever Comes Early

Last night was the winter solstice, and even if I can't exactly see the days growing longer yet it helps to know that they are. Little by little spring will arrive, even up here in the frozen Keweenaw.

Likewise, little by little we are inching our way towards making our magazine about the Keweenaw a reality. Optimistically, we had planned to launch the first issue in January, but now (optimistically?) we are aiming for February and a Valentine's Day premiere. What can I say...we aren't Time, Inc. We just have to do the best we can to set deadlines (uh hum, goals) and meet them, or at least give them a nod in passing.

The name has been decided, Further North, and the feature articles for this first issue are in the works. We think it will be an issue work the wait, showcasing local talent and the creative spirit of the Keweenaw.

In the meantime, we have started a children's magazine called Adventures in the U.P. which was inspired by my current obsession with the family hound dog, Jack. Adventure #1: Jack-o'-lantern In the Snow is currently available for sale online at MagCloud--a marvelous print-on-demand magazine publishing site. We hope you'll check out and preview this new kid's magazine and send the link on to anyone who might like to share the quirkiness and beauty of the U.P. with a child in their life.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday season and a fruitful, joyful New Year.

About Work

Slowly, but surely, we are making progress on our first volume in the Words Work series. About Work: Poems for Life's Labor is starting to take shape and we still hope it can see the light of day this winter.

Do you have a favorite poem that fits the theme? We are always open to suggestions as we pull together poems we think will be both accessible to a wide public and representative of imaginative and powerful language. Art is work, and work can be art. Here the two will meet in print.

In Search of the Perfect Name...

for our new magazine, that is.

In January, 2010, we will launch a quarterly magazine devoted to the people, places, and things that make Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan, both past and present, so compelling. But what to name this magazine?

A dear friend calls the Keweenaw Peninsula "Brigadoon" after the 1950’s musical about the enchanted Scottish village preserved forever in a simpler, idealized past. Well, my friend should know. Having grown up here, moved away for his career, and returned again he jokes that the veil of mist lifts as you cross the lift bridge into Hancock.

The Brigadoon of musical theater literally disappears into the mists of time only materializing one day every 100 years. Today's Keweenaw Peninsula is certainly not frozen in time (although some may argue about that come February), and while this place does derive a lot of its energy and mystique from its colorful copper mining history--a history that made the Keweenaw a national and global destination at one time--it is also powered by the people living here today who are meeting its contemporary challenges while minding that history and the natural beauty of the landscape.

We are launching our magazine with a keen appreciation for the hardships and enchantments of this isolated, rugged, whimsical, sometimes cranky, always surprising and beautiful place. We will profile ex-urbanites who belatedly discovered the Keweenaw, woodsmen who hunt, fish and keep pigs, high-tech professors, artists, and entrepreneurs. There will be creative non-fiction by local (and non-local) writers, photography by local and regional photographers, articles on history, plants, wildlife, articles on art, business, hunting, sports, the climate (how do we survive 25 feet of snow?), the plethora of writers, artists and crafts people who live and work here...a young people's page, you name it....

No, really, you name it. And if we choose your name for the magazine you will receive (along with fame, if not fortune!) a year's subscription to the magazine.

Here's all you have to do:
1. Come up with a perfect name.
2. Click on the Comments window at the end of this blog post.
3. Type a quick note with your name, email address, and your idea for the magazine's name. (Or if you'd rather shoot us an email you can send your idea to Laura Smyth at lsmyth@thimbleberrypress.com.)

We hope to hear from you, we hope you will share this blog post with friends, family, co-workers and anyone you think might be interested or who shares our love of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Daily Life and Sacred Space

Reverence is a word I don't use very often, and when I hear it used, too often I find my nerves jangled by the hollowed-out religious meanings that attach to it. To revere something or some one or some place is to, according to my Oxford English Dictionary, give it "deep and due respect." And while the old Presbyterian church on Fifth Street in Calumet, Michigan is no longer a house of worship, it is a revered space being reshaped to give deep and due respect to the community, to the creative process, and to the heritage and future of this region.

The Calumet Art Center is just getting started and with continued community support and a lot of hard work the old church is becoming a place where people of any age and any background can bring art into their daily life. The art reading room is being set up now and the Center is accepting contributions of art books. Fund raisers are in the works. Drum circles are already taking place in this wonderful old church's basement every month. Music lessons are being scheduled (the church retains a beautiful pipe organ, but piano, flute and voice lessons are also happening this fall). Concerts and lectures in this space will be memorable not only for their content but for the space itself with the polished wooden pews surrounded by intact, ornate stained glass.

We don't live in a very reverential time, and that is usually fine with me: there is nothing worse than someone or something or even some place being given undue respect. But taking an old space, saving it, respecting it, and reinventing its purpose in the community is truly an act of reverence that I am happy to participate in.

Community...A Business Plan, Part 3

One of the reasons we chose the name "thimbleberry" for our press is that the berry itself is so packed with seeds and the plant thrives is rough terrain. I'm not superstitious, but that seems like a good image to hold in mind when starting a publishing company during a recession: use every resource at your disposal to pack as much content into each bit of "fruit" you produce.

Summer is almost gone and the berry season is long past its peak, so it's time for me to get back to this company business plan I promised to write about. I haven't managed to tackle the portion of the plan that requires numbers yet (my partners have started that dreaded task but I'm keeping my head down for the time being). So, here is the first bit of our company vision statement...

Section 3.
B. Vision Statement:

Creativity drives economic development. Thimbleberry Press aims to combine the discipline of the arts with the discipline of commerce to flourish as a company, as individuals, and to help our community thrive. Our view is that high culture/low culture is a false paradigm depriving too many people of the richness of their own creativity and depriving the larger community of the potential fruits of that creativity. We envision contributing to the well-being of the community through the publication of books and downloadable educational materials that promote individual creative and intellectual development as well as cross cultural understanding.

That is a distillation (and I'm not happy with having used the word paradigm...where is my thesaurus?...) but it's a start.

We've also been developing the next group of publications (you can see some sample covers and learn more about these upcoming books at our website).

And if you know any teachers or parents who could benefit from downloadable, inexpensive materials about China for their children, send them to our web page for a free download sample of Draw On Culture.

Community...A Business Plan? Part 2

So they tell me we have to put an actual business plan (no matter what it includes) down on paper and not just in my head. They being my partners in Thimbleberry Press. You're probably thinking, "You've published two books, formed an LLC and don't have a business plan"?! Hey, stuff happens, and at Thimbleberry Press, LLC it literally did. We had the idea and the opportunity, through the generous auspices of the Chinese government, to create our first book so we took it. The official business plan would just have to wait.

Before you become too critical of our business acumen (that's the job of the several voices rattling around inside my head after all) to our credit we did understand the importance of a formal plan and we had a mission statement as well as the beginnings of a vision statement. But when opportunity knocks you don't waste time deciding whether or not you're ready to open the door, and you certainly don't take the time to replace the hinges and add a few deadbolts while you're at it. A book needed to be made and we had the chance to make it.

And there you have the kernel of our plan...books need to be made and we can make them. That sounds both simplistic and egotistical at the same time (and given the present state of the publishing industry it also sounds down right silly), but isn't that optimistic egotism at the heart of every artist or entrepreneur? Since I find the process of creating books exciting and the process of creating a business plan something akin to being dropped into a high school trigonometry class, I've decided to blog about our process and post bits and pieces of the plan as we finalize them. Maybe it will help me get through it, and also help some other none-business-oriented people out there find their own way through the maze that is A Formal Business Plan.

In the spirit of artistic freedom we started with Section 3 and are working our way backwards and forwards as inspiration strikes. So:
Section 3.
A. Mission Statement:
Bring thoughtful, beautiful and affordable books and web-based materials on culture, history, art and language to the broadest possible public.

Tada. I feel better already. Even I can see how having such a large mission will require some careful and detailed planning. So on to Section 1 or 5 or whatever gets finished next. I'll keep you posted.

Welcome to Paradise

I want to say up front that I don't truly believe in paradise. At least, I don't believe in it as a realistic destination in my lifetime. But Richard Dana of Kearsarge Glass Works and Museum in Calumet Township (shown here working a mass of recycled glass into a stunning vase right before our eyes) welcomed us to it, so I guess we have arrived without even trying. If this is paradise, it's the kind that might make me a believer--it works you hard and let's you take nothing for granted.

Twenty years ago Richard taught himself the craft of glass blowing and has been honing his skills every summer since. He works with the most difficult medium a glass blower could choose--and the cheapest--bottle glass that he recycles. The workshop and small, perfect museum (like stepping back to the turn of the 20th century) he made himself.

And roughly twenty years ago I began learning the art and craft of making books. With only temporary (and usually misguided) interruptions to earn a living in more "rational" ways, I've been honing my skills ever since. Lucky people have the time and money to let them fulfill their dreams in any chosen direction. But maybe the luckiest people find the work that fulfills them and the will to pursue it...all the way to paradise.