{"id":1326,"date":"2012-02-14T16:37:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T20:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2013-10-23T17:58:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T21:58:42","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-july-3-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-july-3-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: July 3, 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-07-03-1979-Page-1\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-07-03-1979-Page-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

3 July 1979<\/p>\n

Wes McNair
\nBox 43
\nN. Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Thank you for that good letter. If I have been a help, I am
\ndelighted. And I don\u2019t mean to be false
\n[Written in margin<\/em>: ly modest]
\nabout it: I have<\/span> been a help!
\nBut I am<\/span> delighted to have been, and want to continue to be.<\/p>\n

I like that cartoon. But I don\u2019t think that your situation
\nis quite<\/span> so desperate!<\/p>\n

I think your saturation-bombing approach is excellent. And I
\nwould indeed submit to all of these places. Including the Walt Whitman.
\nThe University of Illinois is getting its books around. Princeton
\ndoes a very good job. Carnegie-Mellon makes very attractive books,
\nand mails them to people. I don\u2019t think it would be a bad deal.
\nHeaven knows, Houghton Mifflin would be the best deal. And I will
\nmention things to Jon Galassi. But that means little. They will get
\nat least a thousand manuscripts.<\/p>\n

So will most of the places. Which always makes it a lottery.<\/p>\n

I have been doing some more thinking about small presses, not
\nwith you in mind, but just in general. That phrase covers so many
\ndifferent things. I would not publish with Ithaca House. I\u2019m not sure,
\nreally, that I would publish with New Rivers – but more likely. I would<\/span>
\npublish with Sheep Meadow. Or with Alice James\u2026 First of all, I
\nwould publish with Greywolf. Do you know of that? They publish Tess
\nGallagher, and do lovely books. \u201cThey\u201d is a young man named Scott Walker,
\nwhom I met at the NBA thing about small presses, where Jane read her
\npoems. A terrific, energetic young man – who makes his living by
\npublishing poetry! Obviously, the secret ingredient in such a \u201cliving\u201d
\nis, as Pound would put it, low overhead<\/span>. But he does, doing everything
\nhimself – editing, designing, overseeing the printing, distributions,
\nsales, wrapping packages\u2026<\/p>\n

I liked him enormously, his vigor and intelligence. He does not<\/span>
\nthink of himself as some sort of bush league. He just wrote me a letter,
\nsaying – freshly, cockily – that if established poets really liked small
\npresses, how come they never made small presses their major publishers?<\/p>\n

I think<\/span> I was being solicited, but I am not certain.<\/p>\n

I told him that I was very fond of Fran McCullough, and would stay
\nwith her out of loyalty – something which I think will shock him; I think
\nthat will sound to him like being loyal to General Motors. But he is not
\nprepared to be some sort of farm system. He wants to be the continuing
\npublisher of terrific poets who never leave his stable. Tess Gallagher
\nhas had opportunities to go elsewhere, but she will stay with him.
\n[Written in margin<\/em>: So far, anyway.]<\/p>\n

Distribution for small presses is getting better and better. It is
\nprobably not quite so good as big presses, but in many ways it is less
\nfrustrating. The thing about a small press, when it is expertly run like<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

this one, and a few others, is that the author benefits from the
\nabsolute, total, undivided attention and commitment of the publisher.
\nI cannot say that for Harper & Row! Fran McCullough cares, but she
\ndoes not handle marketing, distribution, remaindering, advertising,
\npromotion, and wrapping packages, the way Scott Walker does.<\/p>\n

All I am doing – with you, and I will do the same thing with
\na few other people – is to recommend re-thinking the notion of
\nthe big publishers and the little ones.<\/p>\n

Best as ever,<\/p>\n

Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n\n
\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click image to view] 3 July 1979 Wes McNair Box 43 N. Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Thank you for that good letter. If I have been a help, I am delighted. And I don\u2019t mean to be false [Written in margin: ly modest] about it: I have been a help! But I am delighted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803,596,42965,35504,42971],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9402,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions\/9402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}