A Midsummer Night's Press

Welcome to the temporary home of A Midsummer Night's Press, while we re-build our website.

Please link to our permanent URL http://www.amidsummernightspress.com

A Midsummer Night's Press is an independent poetry publisher, primarily publishing under two imprints: Fabula Rasa (mythic poetry) and Body Language (LGBT).

We accept unsolicited submissions to our thematic anthology projects (we are not currently reading for any right now-check back in 2013) which is how we find new voices for possible book or chapbook publication.

Thanks in advance for ordering books directly from us--your support helps us afford to print more books of poetry!

We offer free shipping in the United States on all our titles. Please email us for shipping rates to other countries.

DIALECTIC OF THE FLESH a Lambda Literary Award Finalist!

Congratulations to Roz Kaveney, whose collection DIALECTIC OF THE FLESH is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award!

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/foundation-updates/03/06/llf-announces-finalists-of-the-25th-annual-lambda-literary-awards/

A Queer Guide to AWP

Deleted Names by Lawrence Schimel

                        There is

no gap on the shelves:
other books have filled its space.

Other men have filled your space
in my bed.

                        From "Metonymy"

Mournful, playful, witty and wise, the poems in Deleted Names showcase Lawrence Schimel’s poetry at its best: reflecting on contemporary gay life. Widely published in periodicals and frequently reprinted in anthologies, at long last these poems are available in a single volume.

Deftly mixing free and formal verse (especially villanelles and sestinas, often in variant forms), Schimel's work distills crystalline moments from everyday experiences. Whether filled with longing and loss or celebrating sex or romance, the poems of Deleted Names will resonate with readers of all orientations.

 

Lawrence Schimel writes in both Spanish and English and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, including the poetry collections Desayuno en la cama (Egales) and Fairy Tales for Writers (A Midsummer Night's Press). His poems have appeared in diverse periodicals, ranging from The Christian Science Monitor to Physics Today to Gay Scotland, and have been widely anthologized, including in Gay Love Poetry, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Book of Dreams, Chicken Soup for the Horse-Lover's Soul 2, and The Random House Treasury of Light Verse. He has won the Lambda Literary Award (twice), the Spectrum Award, and the Independent Publisher Book Award, among other honors. He divides his time between Madrid and New York City.

DELETED NAMES
by Lawrence Schimel

Body Language 10

ISBN-13: 978-1-938334-03-0
ISBN-10: 1938334035

Poetry/Gay Studies

40 pages/perfect bound
Publication date: 15 March 2013

US: $10.95
UK: £6.99
Europe: 8,50€

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

Fortunate Light by David Bergman

 

                  But happiest
of all must be this fortunate light

that tonight has, through open windows,
fallen on the closed lids of the one
who lies asleep and still beside me.

            From "Fortunate Light"

 

 

Each poem in Fortunate Light is an exquisite construction: sharply observed, carefully written, transcendent, and transformative. Bergman is one of our best poets, working at the height of his powers.

As poetry editor for The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, Bergman has helped innumerable queer poets find an audience for their work, but his real gift to readers, however, is his own poetry.

Bergman’s poems alternate between tenderness and sexuality, nostalgia and humor, delight and surprise. Fortunate Light will captivate Bergman’s current fans and win him many more.

 

David Bergman's previous poetry titles include Heroic Measures (Ohio State University Press) and The Care and Treatment of Pain (Kairos Editions). He won the the George Elliston Poetry Prize for his poetry collection Cracking the Code and the Lambda Literary Award for his anthology Men on Men 2000. His poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The New Republic, Poetry, and The Yale Review, among other journals. He is Professor of English & Cultural Studies at Towson University in Maryland.

 

FORTUNATE LIGHT
by David Bergman

Body Language 09

ISBN-13: 978-1-938334-02-3
ISBN-10: 1938334027

Poetry/Gay Studies

40 pages/perfect bound
Publication date: 15 March 2013

US: $ 10.95
UK: £6.99
Europe: €8.50

FREE SHIPPING ON US ORDERS!

 

What If What's Imagined Were All True by Roz Kaveney

 

We are all Orpheus. We try to get
back loves we lost. We fight our way through Hell,
singing to our regrets. We might as well
accept that love is done, and just forget

because it is the act of looking back
that loses things.

                        From "Orpheus"

 

Magic, aliens, nightmares, and dreams are among the many muses that have inspired Roz Kaveney's poetry. What If What's Imagined Were All True brings together a sampling of her poems with mythical, fantastical or science fictional concerns, and also features two sonnet sequences: one retelling the Orpheus legend and one exploring the worlds of Steampunk.

Roz Kaveney is a middle-aged trans woman living and working in London as a writer, critic, and activist. A regular contributor to The Independent, The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, she is the author of many books on popular culture, including Reading the Vampire Slayer, Teen Dreams: Reading Teen Film and Television from ‘Heathers’ to ‘Veronica Mars’, Superheroes! Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films, and From Alien to the Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film.
She was a co-founder of the Midnight Rose Collective, whose other members included Neil Gaiman, Alex Stewart, and Mary Gentle, which produced shared world anthologies including Temps, Villains!, and The Weerde. She has also edited Tales from the “Forbidden Planet” and More Tales from the “Forbidden Planet”. She recently published her first novel, Rituals.

 

WHAT IF WHAT'S IMAGINED WERE ALL TRUE
by Roz Kaveney

Fabula Rasa 05

ISBN-13: 978-1-938334-01-6
ISBN-10: 1938334019

Poetry/Science Fiction/Fantasy

64 pages/perfect bound
Pub date: 15 November 2012

US: $14.95

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

 

Dialectic of the Flesh by Roz Kaveney

 

 

The day you change, like any other day,
is sunny or is rainy. You get up
and put your new clothes on, and brush your hair
and put that on as well. Your breasts are sore–
they still have stitches. And you drink your tea
like any other day, the day you change.
                        From "23"

 

Dialectic of the Flesh brings together Roz Kaveney's poems on queer and trans experience, poems which run the gamut of emotions, from exuberant and witty celebrations of the joy of sex to elegies of murdered friends, written for Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This collection showcases Kaveney's versatility, including both her carefully-constructed formal work as well as free verse poems, and also features two ambitious long poems: a commemoration of Stonewall and a poem addressed to her younger male self from her adult female present.

Roz Kaveney is a middle-aged trans woman living and working in London as a writer, critic, and activist. A regular contributor to The Independent, The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, she is the author of many books on popular culture, and recently published her first novel, Rituals. She helped found Feminists Against Censorship and is a past deputy Chair of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties). She was also active in the Oxford Union debating society, the Gay Liberation Front, and Chain Reaction, a dyke SM disco she helped run in the 80s.

“I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger.”

 

DIALECTIC OF THE FLESH
by Roz Kaveney

Body Language 08

ISBN-13: 978-1-938334-00-9
ISBN-10: 1938334000

Poetry/Transgender/Queer Studies
64 pages/perfect bound
Pub date: 15 November 2012

US: $14.95

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

The Last Selchie Child by Jane Yolen

 

My father's stories
were tightly held.
He was stingy
with the past,
coining what
he could not remember,
parceling out the rest
with the cautious philanthropy
of a miser.

From "Family Stories"


He unpacks his bag of tales
with fingers quick
as a weaver's
            picking the weft threads,
            threading the warp.
Watch his fingers.
Watch his lips
speaking the old familiar words:

From "The Storyteller"

Magical transformations, enchanted mirrors, talking animals, familiar tales in unfamiliar guises, all these and more are found in the pages of The Last Selchie Child.

Retellings of archetypal myths and fairy tales and the nature of storytelling itself are explored in this new collection of poems by Jane Yolen.

 

Jane Yolen has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the twentieth century.

She has published over 300 books, for children and adults, and her writing has won the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, the World Fantasy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Award, among many others.

Her most recent poetry collections for adults include Things to Say to a Dead Man (Holy Cow Press), The Radiation Sonnets (Algonquin), and the forthcoming Ekaterinslav (Holy Cow Press). She divides her time between Massachussetts and Scotland.

THE LAST SELCHIE CHILD
by Jane Yolen

Fabula Rasa 04

ISBN-13: 978-0-9794208-9-4
ISBN-10: 0-9794208-9-X

Poetry/Fairy Tales
66 pages/perfect bound
Pub date: 15 May 2012

US: $14.95

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry

 

In this land of Milk & Honey, poems flow. Contemporary Jewish, lesbian poets address an array of experiences – relationships between and among women, family relationships, politics, solitude, ethical responsibilities, history, solidarity, and community.

Milk & Honey features beloved poets like Ellen Bass, Robin Becker, Elana Dykewomon, Marilyn Hacker, Eleanor Lerman, Joan Nestle, Lesléa Newman and Ellen Orleans, as well as new and emerging voices.

With language and imagery that moves from the sensual and political to the tender and serene, Milk & Honey explores the vibrant, complicated, exhilarating experience of being Jewish and lesbian—or queer—in the world today.

Julie R. Enszer’s first book of poems is Handmade Love (A Midsummer Night’s Press). She has published also published the chapbook Sisterhood (Seven Kitchens Press). She has an MFA from the University of Maryland and is enrolled currently in the PhD program in Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland.

MILK AND HONEY: A CELEBRATION OF JEWISH LESBIAN POETRY
edited by Julie R. Enszer

Body Language 07

ISBN-13: 978-0-9794208-8-7
ISBN-10: 0-9794208-8-1

Poetry/Lesbian Studies/Jewish Studies
86 pages/perfect bound
Pub Date: 1 September 2011
US: $14.95
Europe: €11

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!

 

Fairy Tales in Electri-City

the fairies came to her yellow house
with orchids and sparkling lemonade
they sat in her living room and wrote with her lightning
and though she was happy
she wept because something was still missing
            From "Fairy Tales in Electri-city"

Elves and centaurs, nymphs and fauns inhabit this new collection of magical, erotic poems about a girl yearning for and searching for love in present-day Los Angeles.

Francesca Lia Block has described her work as “contemporary fairy tales with an edge,” where the real world and its trouble find solace through the magic of creative expression and love.

She has received numerous honors, including the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award and the Phoenix Award, as well as citations from the American Library Association, The New York Times Book Review, and School Library Journal.

Her many previous titles include the bestselling Weetzie Bat series (HarperCollins), the erotic fairy tale collection Nymph (Circlet), poetry collections How to (Un) Cage a Girl (HarperCollins) and Open Letter to Quiet Light (Manic D), and the mythological dating guide Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur (Bloomsbury), among many others. She lives in Los Angeles.

FAIRY TALES IN ELECTRI-CITY
by Francesca Lia Block

Fabula Rasa 03

ISBN-13: 978-0-9794208-7-0
ISBN-10: 0-9794208-7-3

Poetry/Fairy Tales

80 pages/perfect bound
Pub Date: 1 March 2011
US: $13.95

FREE SHIPPING ON U.S. ORDERS!