The Carolina Fiber
and Fiction Center is pleased to announce the inauguration of The Octagon House Press.
The rise of digital book production has changed the
landscape of publishing. While commercial and university presses are publishing
fewer and fewer books each year, a new age of self-publishing has flooded the
marketplace with books of all sorts.
Commercial and university presses use a
process of anonymous readings--called ‘blind readings’--to decide on the
publication worthiness of manuscripts, but self-publications do not rely on
this process.
The Octagon House Press will fully vet books by local
writers who are part of the Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center writing community
by providing a rigorous assessment process using blind readings by a series of
literary experts.
The first book to be published by The Octagon House Press
will be Small Moments by Narragansett
writer Patricia Pierannunzi. A collection of short fiction that explores
pivotal moments in the lives of suddenly awakened characters, it will be
available in a reasonably-priced paperback at the Carolina Fiber and Fiction
Center during next fall’s HopArts Studio Trail.
The Octagon House Press, through its editor, personally
invites a Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center writer to submit a manuscript for
blind readings. No unsolicited manuscripts are acknowledged or accepted.
The Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center announces its next
ten-week writing session beginning on Tuesday March 28 and running through
Tuesday May 30 from Ten to Noon at the Octagon House in Carolina.
The sessions are led by Grace Farrell, Ph.D in English from Brown
University, author of five books, and an award-winning teacher of writing and
literature in universities for 35 years. Grace, co-founder of the Carolina
Fiber and Fiction Center, is both a writer and weaver who has developed a
process of writing as weaving; writers double weave, layer in and change
threads. “We
spin yarns out of memory and imagination and develop craft without damaging
creativity.”
An Amherst Writers and Artists International Affiliate, sessions include
prompts, craft exercises, and manuscript reviews in a creative and relaxed
atmosphere. Members write for pleasure, self-discovery, and/or publication.
Limited to 8 writers.
Contact gfarrell@butler.edu to
pre-register.
The cost is $250 for the full session or $150 for any 5 weeks.
The Carolina Fiber and Fiction Center is located in the Octagon House on
Rt. 112 in the Carolina Mill Village. Parking is in the field north of the
house, at the corner of Rt. 112 and Shannock Hill Rd.
We have been asked not to
park along the driveway to the house.
Join our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CarolinaFiberAndFictionCenter