Press/Media
April 2008, Lemonhound
On Dies: A Sentence by Vanessa Place
“Not since The Waves have I been compelled to read an experimental novel through. Not just to appreciate the concept but to actually read it through…” Read
April 2008, Carp(e) Libras
Reviews Voice of Ice by Alta Ifland
“[Ifland’s] made a beauty of what we have all struggled to understand about ourselves, trying to figure out where we fit into this very imperfect world.” Read
March 2008, Gertrude’s Basket
Les Figues = Monstrous Women of the Avant-Garde
March 2008, Giver
On God’s Livestock Policy by Stan Apps. Read
February 2008, Pantaloons
On God’s Livestock Policy by Stan Apps. Read
November 2007, LA City Beat
Michael Silverblatt of NPR’s Bookworm highlights Les Figues Press as one of three LA presses publishing interesting fiction and poetry in this interview in LA City Beat. Read
November 2007, The Agony Column Book Reviews and Commentary Read
“Ifland describes her work as prose poems, although these days they might be tagged as “flash fiction.” Forget the label; the work is dark, rather frightening and very surreal. “Drinking Oblivion”, “The Louse” and “The cat, the mouse and the Merlot” seem to coalesce out of nightmare into the written word.”
November 2007, Dust Jacket Review Read
“The book, a side-by-side French/English publication of prose poems and their translations, found a ready audience of high expectations. I was not disappointed. For the past few months I’ve been looking for a book that I, in my cynical attitude toward the publishing industry, thought could not find a publisher smart enough to put it to press.”
November 2007, The Brooklyn Rail
Review of Wertheim’s +|‘me’S-pace Read
“+|’me’S-pace’s task is to unravel language before our eyes. It is the first in a series of CalArts feminist/critical studies teacher Christine Wertheim’s open notebook investigations of the atomic elements of language…”
October 2007, Ifland’s Voice of Ice — SPD October Bestseller
Congratulations to Alta Ifland, whose book, Voice of Ice (Voix de Glace), is a Small Press Distribution October poetry bestseller. See the complete list here
Summer 2007, How2
Review of Inch Aeons by Nuala Archer. Read
“Using forms of Haiku, Archer balances themes of time, distance, and consciousness with those of unity and fragmentation, whether in solar systems, or in the human psyche. The mind mimics the planet, the planet mimics the mind. In ‘In That Grainy Lapse,’ the internal is a reflection of the external and the external, then, is reflected back inward: ‘In that grainy Lapse/The Catastrophe-the slow/No-End of Cooling‘” (p. 7 ).
April 2007, Fruitful
Gayle Brandeis interviews Jennifer Calkins. Read
March 2007, Publisher’s Weekly
“Indies Group at AWP Meet” — showcasing Les Figues’ unique model. Read
March 2007, Andi Lit
Review of Requeim by Teresa Carmody. Read
February 2007, L.A. Lit
L.A. Lit interviews Vanessa Place. Listen
Jan/Feb 2007, American Book Review
Review Inch Aeons by Nuala Archer
“There’s a tough, tart brightness to the poems in the collection, consisting entirely of haiku” Link
December 2006, Good Magazine
Michael Silverblatt recommends books by Les Figues and other independent publishers. Read
November 2006, L.A. Lit
L.A. Lit interviews Teresa Carmody. Listen
August 2006, The Compulsive Reader
Review: of Inch Aeons by Nuala Archer
“The capricious capitalization and the pell-mell and dizzy flight of these expressions create new and improbable beings of considerable splendor. In all her work, however concealed may be her meanings, there is a constant search for precise form on a plane of being that did not before exist.”
August 2006, The Compulsive Reader
Review: of A Story of Witchery by Jennifer Calkins
“To set words down and to take exceeding care of which words to use and how to place them is an activity that requires bravery and endurance of heroic proportions.”
July/August 2006: American Book Review
Review: Requiem by Teresa Carmody
“Like the difficult and necessary theological propositions embedded within the works of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, Requiem suggests that perhaps, in the end, all we can do is see until we can’t anymore. Carmody’s darkly poignant illustration of this advocates that seeing—despite our fears, limitations, and distractions—may be one of love’s most sincere gestures.”
April 1—April 29: Poets House Showcase
Les Figues Press participates in the Poets House showcase
2 Spring Street, Second Floor | New York, N.Y. 10012
Admission Free
March/April 2006: American Book Review
Review: Dies: A Sentence by Vanessa Place
“...one comma leads to another in this delightful tour de force of a hopelessly grim predicament.”
March 2, 2006: Too Beautiful, the blog
What Are You Working On?
Mark Pritchard Interviews Teresa Carmody
February 22, 2006: Too Beautiful, the blog
What Are You Working On?
Mark Pritchard Interviews Vanessa Place
Series: Writers on their works in progress
February 16, 2006: Seattle, WA
OseaO, Worldwide Internet Radio
A Leg To Stand On: A reading of new work
Recorded reading of Jennifer Calkins, Pam Ore and Stokley Towles
February 3, 2006: The Great American Pinup
Review: Pam Ore’s Grammar of the Cage
“How does one write about an imperfect world, a sick and tired and poisoned world that sets up numerous cages for its inhabitants? Indeed,...”
January 2006, The Compulsive Reader
Review: of Grammar of the Cage by Pam Ore
“There is variety. The bane of many chapbooks is a relentless sameness of tone. Ore in ‘Pop Quiz’ invites the reader to join her in play, to see…”
October 28, 2005: Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA
[Article on Noulipo Conference at Redcat, with LFP author Vanessa Place]
“When the professionals get to playing with constraints, however, the going gets considerably weirder. For instance, a 117-page book that consists of a single sentence, which occurs in the mind of a critically wounded World War I soldier. That’s ‘Dies: A Sentence,’ published in July by Los Angeles writer Vanessa Place.”
October 20, 2005: The Olympian, Olympia, WA
Small books, big ideas
“If poetry and zoology seem an unlikely combination, you haven’t met Olympia poet Pam Ore…”
October 3, 2005: Los Angeles, CA
Dies: A Sentence selected by KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt as an October Bookworm Library Title.
September 7, 2005: Stockport, UK
Across the Atlantic and onto ReadySteadyBook
August 10, 2005: Portland, Oregon
An Interview with the Women of Les Figues Press
Invisible Insurrection interviewed the women behind Les Figues, calling Les Figuges “one of the most original, inspired, and coherent visions for a small literary press we have seen in recent years. Please do investigate their website and subscribe. The books are beautiful and thought provoking, especially for…”