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Deborah Emin is the founder of the publishing company, Sullivan Street Press (www.sullivanstreetpress.com). She is also the impressario of the Itinerant Book Show as well as the program director of the REZ Reading Series in Kew Gardens, NY. Her novel, Scags at 7, is back in print as well as available as an e-book from Sullivan Street Press. In addition to writing for OEN, Deborah has a blog on the Sullivan Street Press website where she writes about her experiences on the road, i.e., writing about anything that has to do with the Itinerant Book Show. She is currently at work on Scags at 18, due out fall 2010. And she travels back and forth to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where she is writing a book about the aftermath of the 2008 flood there. To keep up to date with all she is involved in, please go to her website www.deborahemin.com
Friday, May 7, 2010 Free E-Books, Why?
When you believe that this is the age of the e-book and that for all kinds of environmental and artistic reasons that is all we should be reading, then you have to put your money where your heart is.
Thursday, March 18, 2010 I suspend all party allegiances
The other day I wrote about not wanting to be part of any party. I re-affirm that today. Yet if there is no party, what to do to register disgust and frustration with a system that is too dysfunctional to respond to its citizens' needs?
Monday, March 15, 2010 Cheneys' Lies for Profit
If it were not so sick, I would truly applaud the family work the Cheneys do. But their efforts to terrorize this country are not to keep us safe, but to increase their own net worth. Never has such an unappealing group of looters fed so profitably at the public trough.
Saturday, March 13, 2010 Please, no more invites to any parties (11 comments)
I would never be invited to a Tea Party convention, but have been invited to many Coffee Party and other so-called anti-tea party meetings. I respectfully refuse to go. This is no time to be partying. If we dance in the streets while the world is dying, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Monday, March 1, 2010 All they want is my money and time
The rate at which I am bombarded with requests for donations and time is unbelievable and in my case, I am unable to deliver on any requests. Too many good causes, too many people to write to and where is this money and time supposed to come from? I work all day and night for a new company I have started. No income, no time, yet that is all that is asked of me--they want my money and they want my free time. How did we get to this point?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 Women, Murder and Madness
Reading the news reports about Dr. Amy Bishop it seems to never be mentioned that Dr. Bishop maybe insane. Maybe not in the legal sense but certainly something went terribly wrong inside her. Why do we never want to discuss mental illness and murder?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Best time ever to be a reader
I just read a glowing opinion piece in the Hufffington Post about why this time is the best time to be a reader. In many ways, I agree. Though for lots more reasons than were given. For one, this is a parallel lesson we are learning about corporate greed and control.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Getting the word out about jobs and poverty
No matter how much time we spend bashing each other over certain policy issues, the bottom line is this--too many people live in poverty in this country and around the world and too much money is being handed over to people who seem to be morally bankrupt.
Thursday, January 28, 2010 Howard Zinn and J. D. Salinger, RIP
The older guard is leaving us and the younger one is now being asked to take up the reins. Yet, when we think of these two masters of very different genres, the facts remain, reading is one of the most important parts of our lives and we need to be fed the good stuff or our Democracy will die.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Say it--The Plague of Poverty
The problem is not the lost middle class, the problem is there is no middle class left. We have a plague of poverty sweeping across the country but no one in government has the guts to address that issue. It is not about color but about shame.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 We want our culture back--Jobs for Book Lovers, 10
While many rightly want their money back from the banks that stole it, we also want our culture back from the same corporate models that stole it from us. We are fed a poor gruel of bad films, derivative books, unimaginative music and at the same time told to pay for it. Well no more.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Working for us all--Jobs for Book Lovers, 9
We had originally wanted to call the Itinerant Book Show, Reading for Democracy, but that sounded not at all like what we were doing. Yet in terms of the concept, it is precisely what we are doing.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Jobs for Book Lovers, Part 8
A new year means a new dedication to the tasks we at Sullivan Street Press have set up to recruit and train a national sales force of Bookies. These are the people who will travel throughout their communities in order to sell the books of the independent presses they know and love and to talk about the new publishing paradigm.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 We received lots of responses to our Jobs for Book Lovers
But we are not finished yet. We want to encourage as many as possible to see the value in becoming a Bookie. Selling books in your community is not just a job but a way to keep this very fragile democracy alive. While the right wing tries to dumb everything down, we need to make sure the independent presses and the voices they support are able to survive.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 Offering jobs to book lovers is not an empty promise (1 comments)
We would love to have the problem that 15 people a day write to us asking how they too can become a Bookie and sell books, talk about books and make money. That is a problem we would like to have.
Sunday, December 20, 2009 It is getting very scary these days (3 comments)
The world as we may have known it 20-30 years ago has changed in many violent and radical ways that are not about to be altered soon. Yet, for all of that change, none of it good, there is one thing I am so happy about but makes me even more concerned: Having married my partner and being out in a society that now talks about killing gays as if we were some kind of pest or weed in the garden.
Thursday, December 17, 2009 Jobs for Book Lovers, Part 7
Everyday we are learning new lessons about what kinds of jobs people need. From the perspective of my new publishing company, I am trying to hook people up not just with the books we would like to see sold but with their communities. Responding to the needs of one's community is a valuable lesson and a way to help create a sustainable entrepreneurial base.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Take that boring job and make it--fun
The key to making a bad job into a good job is knowing how to capture what is good in the every day and turn it into a way to both make connections and make some money.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 Becoming a Bookie and Getting a Job, Part 5 (1 comments)
Meeting up with neighbors in the hallways of my building, I begin to realize just how many people right around me are unemployed. It takes its toll as one person describes sinking into alcoholism and the long climb back. Well, we have jobs for those who love books. We are here to help and to help those who publish as well.
Monday, December 7, 2009 More ideas about Jobs, Part 4 (1 comments)
There are so many reasons to be grateful when you can have a new business that can actually help others while at the same time putting some new ideas out there about the new publishing paradigm.
Saturday, December 5, 2009 We are hiring Book Lovers Now, Part 3 (1 comments)
To further describe what a Bookie does, I describe a typical show I did in Clarion, PA recently. This will give all of those who want a job a good idea of what this work is like. This is truly meant for those who love books, to talk about books and to read from books.
Friday, December 4, 2009 Jobs for Book Lovers, Part 2 (1 comments)
While unemployment may have dropped some, this is not a cause for rejoicing. With no plan in place to help this trend continue, no one coming forward to show how jobs can be created efficiently for people all over the country, the need for a job program such as the one at Sullivan Street Press becomes clearer.
Thursday, December 3, 2009 We are hiring Book Lovers Now (3 comments)
Sullivan Street Press is a progressive publisher that runs a distribution service for other publishing houses called the Itinerant Book Show. We have an answer to the jobs crisis: sell books for small presses and self-published authors. It is a great service and you can make some money too.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 Woke up in Bush Era II
I am certain the year is 2009 but somehow the feeling is the same as it was in 2000. I knew Gore had won but somehow Bush ended up as president. Now I know I voted for a Democrat and there is a Democratic majority in the Congress but the world is run by Republicans still.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 The real Obama emerges (2 comments)
Now we know who Obama really is, a chimera, a facade hiding in a corporate world where might equals right and where lies can parade through the world as truth because someone knows how to speak well. I am totally disgusted and hope you are too.
Saturday, November 21, 2009 David Sirota is right about the idiocracy (5 comments)
The know nothing pundits in DC are about as informed about life in the country as I am about life on Mars. Yet they constantly preach to us about what should be done, how things are going, etc. I would like to set them somewhat straight.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Two Jobs, Full-time College and No Health Care
An interview with a wonderful woman I met on this trip to Cedar Rapids who has all the determination to make it in terms of the American Dream and is working herself to exhaustion. This is the face of an American today.
Monday, November 9, 2009 ATTENTION WRITERS: You Win (4 comments)
The true end of the constricting role of the gatekeepers in publishing has occurred. We are now in the era of the new publishing paradigm. All we have to fear is the backlash.
Thursday, November 5, 2009 Lessons from the Road
Further experiences while taking the Itinerant Book Show to Toledo, Ohio.
Monday, November 2, 2009 From the Road, I
A report from the travels of the Itinerant Book Show.
Friday, October 30, 2009 Greta Christian vs Martin Luther King, Jr.
The anger and distrust of religious fundamentalists is understandable but the ways in which it is spilling over to all those who believe is incredible. Being lumped into one basket as if all religious believers were the same has become vexing.
Monday, October 26, 2009 A Hunger for Meaning (2 comments)
When faced with a feeling of severe spiritual hunger, the author was lucky to find a church that helped to feed the inner need. It has taken her on a quest that is changing her life.
Thursday, October 22, 2009 The Spirit in the Bible (18 comments)
Much has been made of the literal reading of the Bible. Apart from it not being meant to be read that way, it is however, one of the most important teaching tools when it comes to real spiritual development.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 Mountain Top Removal Makes Appalachia a Horror
Mountain top removal in order to take the coal easily from the gorgeous hills in Tennessee and Kentucky and West Virginia and Alabama and Pennsylvania means death and disease and destruction. The real 3-D world of Appalachia.
Friday, October 16, 2009 Biblical Distinctions (16 comments)
We are given an opportunity to read the Bible as a tract on violence to one another or as a peaceful way of life. It is our choice.
Thursday, October 15, 2009 Fair and Equal means less violence (4 comments)
Until the entire LGBT community is given equal legal status, we will be preyed upon and violently attacked by people who use our second-class citizenship as a justification.
Sunday, September 6, 2009 A True Labor Day Dream--Full Strike
The real celebration of labor would be to withhold it all until the people with money acknowledge they cannot live without the workers.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 What is debt and why it is hurting us (4 comments)
I had a talk with an officer at TD Bank today and it is amazing how some bankers get the reason we are all in pain and others do not.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 Unbelievable app from iTunes (4 comments)
With this application, the world of legislative voting is going to change.
