Traveling poet promotes literacy from her back seat

Traveling through various towns and cities between New York and Iowa, a small yet determined book show is displaying how book publishing is changing for the better. Known as the Itinerant Book Show, the goal of this exhibit is to show the new publishing paradigm throughout cafes, performance spaces and anywhere people talk about books.

Deborah Emin works for Sullivan Street Press in Queens, New York, and runs the Itinerant Book Show parallel with the press. She is one of three staff members/owners at the press that works with authors who have written books and may need help spreading the word on their material. For the Itinerant book show, Emin loads up her Toyota Prius with select books from the Sullivan Street Press and heads west for Iowa, where she makes several stops along the way to discuss publishing and writing.

Emin will be visiting Toledo’s Ground Level Coffee House on Monday evening, Nov. 2. She will be bringing over 20 different books at reduced prices that have not received the attention that she feels they deserve. In addition to discussing publishing changes, Emin will talk about specific ways Sullivan Street Press is using cutting-edge technology to save forests, protect water supplies, use less land mass and reduce fuel consumption.

“We’re distributing for authors who may not be able to get into the Barnes and Noble type of stores,” said Emin. “The problem with current publishing is that it’s set up in a hierarchal fashion where the relationship between authors and the readers is lost.” Emin went on to say, “Modern publications have created an environment where authors receive millions in advances for a novel. Books are about sharing ideas and not about making money.”

Earlier this year, Audrey Niffenegger, author of the 2003 book “The Time Traveler’s Wife” received a $5 million advance for her second novel “Her Fearful Symmetry.” However, many of these books with large advances don’t even make the money back (A staggering 7 out of 10, according to a New York Times article). Emin said there is just no way to predict which novels will do well and which ones won’t. Author John Updike once created a character in one of his novels, which stated, “A respectable author never asked for an advance; that was strictly for the no-talents starving down in the Village.”

Co-owner of Ground Level Coffee House, poet and writer Jesse Lipman called a show like Emin’s important.

“It bridges a gap between writers and publishers while interacting with the community,” Lipman said. “The use of printed words is changing and the book show connects the artists with the readers in a new and creative way.”

Emin is an author herself who has worked as a writing teacher for a number of years. One of her books details the events of the June 2008 flood in Iowa, which devastated the state. She started the book show a few months after the flood to provide books to people who may have lost access to a library.

Taken from the Sullivan Street Press Web site, “More than the value of the books we carry is the message we bring about how publishing must change. It is our hope that this transformation of book distribution will alter our experiences as readers and writers…to open the doors to reading at all levels, with a wide array of books that are both old friends and new challenges for us to meet. Finally, we want to encourage others to do as we are doing: take the books they love on the road and meet the people in the next town, county or state.”

— The Itinerant Book Show will be held at The Ground Level Coffee House Monday, Nov. 2 followed by a poetry reading from Deborah Emin.