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OUR NEXT BOOK


PHOTO TAKEN OUTSIDE OF LOS ALOMOS IN 2024 by JENNIFER CARTRIGHT
PHOTO TAKEN OUTSIDE OF LOS ALOMOS IN 2024 by JENNIFER CARTRIGHT

The year has started with a lot of activity for auxarczen. Last month, we launched "Western Swing," a novel by Matt McGowan, and we are quickly approaching the release of our upcoming book, "Alchemy of Headwinds," a poetry collection by John Macker.


Both of these projects have been an absolute joy. The reason being; the creative fluidity that takes place between artists trying to move something closer to perfection is something that cannot be bottled, recreated in a PR lab, or monetized, yet.


Everyone on the same page, how often does that happen in modern day digitized planners? Bad example.


I have read every book, broadside, magazine and letter that John Macker has produced. This is, without exception, his finest collection. There is fragility, beauty, humor, stark desert realities, and truth behind this group of poems. For example:


CERRADO

 

Listening to Mingus’ Gunslinger Bird

in the living room when I heard a loud thump

coming from her studio. She was on the floor

holding her bent Quasimodo wrist. As ugly a

break as I’d ever been to. She had slipped and

landed on her hip and hand. She went briefly

into shock and stared at the ceiling.

She didn’t recognize me as her husband

thought I was playing live music from somewhere

in the Five Points of her imagination. After she

came around she swore the darkness tried to

close in around her. I took her to urgent care

on a hot smoky night, the drowse of August.

They determined she’d need surgery. They

determined older people slip and fall, right

before we begin to fade away.

We are too old to be gunslingers. Bird died at 34.

The nights closed in on him like carnivorous angels.

 

She now holds her bandaged wrist above her heart

and walks with a cane. Life doesn’t feel precious, it

resembles an open wound we spend a lot of our time closing.

Wildfire smoke fills the air, the sun has turned orange.

Another man of color shot in the back.

Who doesn’t want to close the book on this grievous year?

Who hasn’t gone into shock, eyes filled with ash?

 

Today, I played music so loud it emptied the neighborhood

of life as we know it. But it gradually returned.

The silent ambulance mercifully left the cul-de-sac

without the sick lady across the street.     Victor brought

in his recycling bin. I read: some words die in cages.

I thought about what breaks us, what mends us, the border,

separations. What closes our hearts for good.

I thought about hair trigger America,

smoke is the summer language of ghosts.



and the hits keep coming, one after another, in Alchemy of Headwinds. It is an unstoppable force, in our opinion. With a few more tweeks, color corrections, and a little more love, this collection will assist in setting our minds somewhere closer to lyrical perfection.

 

 
 
 

EYES ON BOOKS


Western Swing cover
Western Swing cover

How do we get eyes on the books we have published? It is an age old question and the answer is aways changing. The art is complete or is it?

The market is currently so challenging that even small indulgences are being affected. Honestly, how many of us truly consider books as essential as oxygen? The number can't be that large.

In doing market research we learned that short videos are the way that most people are consuming social media content.

We felt like the content we created with excerpts from each section of Western Swing would make interesting videos. Matt was on board and we worked back and forth to have him read his work for the voice over. I am just learning our software and that was soon scrapped and Michael did all the voice recordings.


Sit back with a good cup of coffee and watch our book trailers all in one spot.



  • all photos by Jennifer Cartright except 2 photos of the California coast and 1 photo of Denali




















 
 
 

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Bit by bit, putting it together

Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art

Every moment makes a contribution

Every little detail plays a part

Having just a vision's no solution

Everything depends on execution

Putting it together

That's what counts

- Stephen Sondheim


Let's delve into auxarczen's (pronounced ozark zen) process of putting a book together. We will use Our latest project as our example because it is fresh in our minds.


We received Matt's manuscript for what would become Western Swing in November. Our first step is always a thorough read through and then let it sit for a bit. Often Michael catches his vision of what the cover will look like about a third of the way into that first read and starts sketching ideas in his big red journal. Jennifer wants to feel the book and researches the era through music and movies. Since Matt's book is set in 1992, we were familiar with what the research would look like but did it anyway. It was a chance to revisit our not so recent history.


The next step with the majority of the manuscripts is editing. Matt has an incredible in-house editor in his wife Janine. We are inspired by their relationship because some of our biggest fights have been about our critiques of the others art. They have taught us to be less precious with our art and be open to each other’s refining of such. When a manuscript does require editing both Michael and Jennifer will work separately and then bring their ideas together and prepare a mock up with notes for the author on the revisions they feel are needed. With the three works we have published of Matt's we have had total creative control of the book including covers. So this is where our creative juices really begin to flow. What is our vision of the authors vision.



Matt McGowan and his editor Janine Perry
Matt McGowan and his editor Janine Perry

Michael wanted a long shot for the wrapped cover with the dividing lines on the spine. Mission accomplished. All the fonts we used in the design are inspired by highway graphics. In fact the page numbers are the actual font used on Utah's highway signs. The biggest challenge for Michael was color combinations, of which there were 20 plus. He wanted to stay with vibrant colors as a tip of the hat to the Route 66 signage that once dominated the landscape. Jennifer oversees the layout and design of the inside of the book. She bought in wholeheartedly to the road theme and wanted the chapter numbers to reflect highway sign numbers.



Michael recreated the perfect chapter headings for a book about a journey on the road.
Michael recreated the perfect chapter headings for a book about a journey on the road.

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When we started the press, we wrote down certain rules about our books, such as, no themed covers. In our hearts, we are rebels, so we break them. Occasionally a book just screams to be thematic and there is not much one can do about it; this is one such book. So, we went overboard with the road inspired theme.

The original idea for the cover was a large speed limit sign that would dominate most of the area, with the title replacing the speed limit text. Jennifer immediately thought of the area to shoot photographs. The road coming out of the gorge from Pilar was the perfect spot. In fact, Jennifer stood in one place and just had to pivot to capture all 7 of the images we used in the book.



Original image with green sky
Original image with green sky

One of the most interesting parts of publishing, for us, is seeing each author's process. Each one approaches their art differently, from how often they write, the time of day, the environment to the music that they listen to as they write. We delve into all of these questions in our meetings with the author. One of the topics we cover is how they arrived at their title, if they have. For us, design often springs from the title.

As stated, this is our third project with Matt McGowan, and he has always provided us with a list of possible titles to work with and also says or come up with your own. His list for this one included the following:

Missouri Runner

Outside, It’s America

Farther on Down the Road

Right Down the Line

Undiscovered Continent

All the News is Good

Our first choice was Outside, It's America. It might have been all the ninety’s movies that we had immersed ourselves in, because we pictured Harry Dean Stanton, in a bathrobe with a cup of coffee in his hand exclaiming this title loudly. That is a lovely image to sit with. But then Google screwed us over once we found out that the only person exclaiming anything was Bono, of course. (a bit of background, Michael thinks that Bono shows up in far too many music documentaries and frankly, too many places in life.) This was the title of a tour documentary that U2 had released. So, we ran from this title like it was Sunday Bloody Sunday through streets that had no name because we still hadn’t found what we were looking for.

Michael had started designing the cover. That was disrupted after the Google search. Then Matt and Michael began their favorite game, brainstorming titles or any idea. From this session we added to our list:

Best Western

Western State

Western Motif

Several Clicks West

Front Range

then we sort of settled on Long Way Home for a few days and took a breath.

We jumped back in with:

Map and Atlas

then Jennifer said, By Map and Atlas

getting close

Matt shot back with Western Swing

and our title was born.

Then Matt let us know that Janine Parry had come up with the title and the circle had completed itself.

The reason that it works so well is that it is a story about being on the road and the love that is found there. Western Swing sounds like the name of a motor court on Route 66 and indicates that the road we are on will be filled with all the obstacles that wild west entails. Love of the road, love of the friends you make along the way, and maybe the type of love the poets talk about. Grasping onto those blurry images from the road to investigate more closely.



The vision realized
The vision realized

Let's talk about proofreading...it is a constant. Something that we have discovered is that no matter how many people have proofread the manuscript on computers when you get the first proof you find tons of simple typing mistakes. So all hands are on deck for proofing.


When the author is satisfied with the editing and proofing process and is ready for their book to see the world we choose a publication date and start marketing. For Western Swing we wanted to entice readers with excerpts from the book. Matt divided the book into 7 sections for the seven areas that Ray the protagonist travels through. Jennifer took pictures of road signs that we used to break up the sections so we used those to make social media content.



photo from book
photo from book


social media post
social media post

As you can see, every project is a journey and another story unto itself. Creativity is the fuel, years of experience the oil, and the final product is hopefully a finely tuned engine. The intuition is to endlessly tinker, but at some point we let go and start accumulating mileage.


Now, for the ONLY closing music to this post..."Turn that sh*t up!"





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