WEBVTT

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We're really happy that
you're all are here.

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Thank you again for coming.

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This is the near-beginning of
our spring season at the Poetry

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Center.

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The Poetry Center
has an exciting slate

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of offerings that are happening
throughout the spring season.

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If you have not
yet picked up one

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of these beautiful calendars
that tells you everything

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that we're up to this
season, I wish that you will.

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And it's over there, available
on the table on my right side

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as you leave.

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So grab one of these.

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They look beautiful
on your refrigerators,

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and we would welcome
them into your homes.

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You may have noticed that
you have something lovely

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on your seat in front
of you, and this

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is a card from Ander Monson.

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And so just be excited
about what this is.

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And I think Ander will say
more about what this is when

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he's up here talking about it.

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But this is a piece of the book.

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It's in addition to, I think,
some of the things that--

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I think it's an extra essay.

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Is that right?

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It's in the hardcover.

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It's in the hardcover.

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Right.

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But it also exists in
this format as well,

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and you'll be able
to take it with you.

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And so that's a gift
from him to you.

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So please be excited.

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I will quickly introduce--

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or not.

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But be excited.

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Why wouldn't you be excited?

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It's a gift.

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[LAUGHTER]

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From Ander.

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And he makes beautiful things.

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It's actually in
beautiful pieces.

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So enjoy, please.

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I will introduce the two editors
who are here visiting us,

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and then I will
get out of the way,

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and they will introduce the
two writers that they both

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publish on their presses.

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And it's an exciting
thing for us

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to welcome them into this
space who made an effort

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to be here for this and
to connect us to, I think,

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that other half of
what writing is.

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We have writers who
often come and read here.

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We don't always have publishers
who are here presenting,

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and it's an exciting thing for
us to connect both sides of it.

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All sides of it.

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The book ecosystem
includes a lot of people,

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and it's more than just writers.

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And so we're very happy
to have publishers

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who are doing significant
work in the publishing sphere

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to help introduce and
talk and be with us

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and think about books
and how they happen.

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Kate Dublinski is here.

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She serves as an associate
editor at Graywolf Press, where

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she considers titles for
Graywolf fiction and nonfiction

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lists.

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She's worked with such authors
as Robert Boswell, Alyson Hagy,

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and someone named
Ander Monson, and she's

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been with Graywolf since 1997.

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Chris Fischbach is
here as well, and he

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is a publisher-- the publisher
at Coffee House Press

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and an acquiring editor.

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He started as a letterpress
intern there in 1994,

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and he has acquired and edited
Ben Lerner, Valeria Luiselli,

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Eimear McBride, Kate
Bernheimer, Eleni Sikelianos,

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Patricia Smith, JM Ledgard,
Anne Waldman, Laird Hunt,

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and many more.

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Along with Milkweed Editions, I
think that these three sort of

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represent the great northern
literary publishers,

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the triumvirate of the North,
doing really important work

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in that part of the country in
significant and in marked ways

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that matter--

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that have mattered to us
as collectors of great work

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at the Poetry Center, but
I think matter to readers

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and to writers all over.

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And you can tell we're happy
to have them represented

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in the house tonight,
but each of them

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both also have titles that
are up for the National Book

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Critics Circle Award this year.

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Coffee House has Saeed
Jones, who's up for Prelude

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to a Bruise, and Graywolf
has Claudia Rankine,

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who's up in two categories
for her book Citizen.

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This is exciting.

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These are people who are doing
work that matters in continuous

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and sustained and exciting ways.

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I was excited that
both of these editors

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had started working at these
presses in the mid-1990s.

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And in particular, I
was excited to go back

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to archive.org and look at
the Wayback Machine, which

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will give you, if you go
there, what websites looked

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like back in earlier times.

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So it's archive.org, and it's
called the Wayback Machine.

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And you put in the
URL of the website,

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and you can see
what was happening.

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And so amazing things
were happening.

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In 1994, it appears Coffee
House was still thinking

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about its internet presence.

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But by 1999--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--they came to the fore.

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And again, let's think
about that this predates

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most of the phones in our
pockets and some of the sites

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we maybe visit
regularly, and certainly

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most of the internet efforts
we maybe make daily about how

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we connect with the world.

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This was a different era.

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But Coffee House's site
back then, even then,

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included the iconic coffee
cup with its steaming ephemera

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coming out of it in
GIF or GIF format.

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So you could see the steam
coming out, which is beautiful.

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And that activity
maybe doesn't continue,

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but the logo is still there
in a beautiful way as well

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as the tagline "where
good books are brewing."

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And I appreciate
that that endures.

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And that's one of the, I think,
the themes of these two presses

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is that the good work that
they do endures and it matters.

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Graywolf was a different
thing, in many ways.

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In 1997 their site included
these wonderful section titles,

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including-- and this
is Graywolf Press--

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Pick of the Litter, Making
Tracks, The Food Chain, A Rare

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Breed, Join the Pack, and
Books to Sink Your Teeth Into.

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And we can smirk and laugh,
but also, again, these

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are two presses that have
done beautiful things that

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have endured.

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They have come a really long
way, both of them, as presses.

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They've done a lot of work
over an extended period of time

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that I think we can all
celebrate and be excited

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about both enduring
and in innovating

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and in challenging and
doing exciting things.

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I'll let each of them
introduce the writers that

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will be reading here
tonight themselves,

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but we'll start with Katie,
and please help me welcome her.

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This is Katie Dublinski
from Graywolf Press.

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[APPLAUSE]