I would read the book! I did the opposite to you. I cut my artistic teeth in community arts in the UK then moved to the US fourteen years ago and couldn't find any funding for community arts projects. I ended up working with a non-profit and doing some participatory projects but it wasn't community arts as I knew it - enjoyable all the same. I started an arts collective but funding was so difficult I ended up working with galleries just to make ends meet. I'm now completely out of the gallery system again and looking to return to community arts work but I just don't see how. I hope you find a publisher for this vital work.
I'd love to hear more about your story. It's a crucial one to give readers a sense of how complex this moment is. How does one survive as a creative in this time? In a sense, my story is not one that is accessible to subsequent generations. I had the good fortune of being offered a free MFA (paid teaching assistantship) courtesy of the Canadian government in the mid-1970s, so no debt. Rents were low when I moved to NYC. NSCAD networked me into a crowd of folks who connected me with jobs. Those advantages gave my early career more spaciousness, and allowed me to make choices that those with debt and high rents don't have. Let me know if you're willing to have a conversation via phone or zoom. bnaidus@uw.edu
Hi Beverly I don't have experience in approaching publishers but if Arts for Change is still in print it seems to me those publishers could see great benefit and continuity from publishing your second book? You'd bring your significant audience/readership from the FB page with you to them. It feels necessary and timely that you publish now, in these years... xx
I'm not an artist or an author so my feedback on how effective this would be in those arenas is limited. However, I'm an obligate proofreader/copy editor. I found two grammatical errors but don't know how to highlight those. Let me know what works best for you.
My overall impression is one of excitement for this book and the impact it can have on other artists in the movement.
Thanks for you continuing support, Chris. I'm going to be rewriting the query in multiple versions. Each publisher has their own questions that need to be answered in order to have a confident submission.
Beverly, hi. Reading this, just off the top, it seems as if it might rather "fall between 2 stools" (as Tim Ingold once observed about one of my essays) while being very pertinent. Routledge is not above publishing edgy things, and I am thinking here of their Earthscan series which was launched in 2016. But still traditional. What comes to mind also are university presses publishing in the Environmental Arts and Humanities, such as especially Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Eastern Canada. Perhaps Duke Uni Press, but they do seem to have become rather steeped in PM critical theory, rather than pragmatic things.
An edgier option might be New Society Press, which published Sharon Kallis' Common Threads. They have a good reputation and are also West coast local, being on Gabriola Island. I think too of the PUBLIC Access Collective in Toronto, which produces PUBLIC journal they are at publicjournal dot ca. It looks as if they might publish books as well. They are in part Canada Council funded, so there might be a CanCon thing, not sure. Sorry if so.
Iain McGilchrist published his massive 2-volume, mainstream narrative challenging opus, The Matter with Things, with Perspectiva and their Press in the UK. Perspecitva does interesting things. And having published McGilchrist, have a fair bit of attention. The press info is here: https://systems-souls-society.com/insight/perspectiva-press/
Here is what they say:
"Perspectiva is a community of expert generalists working on an urgent one hundred year project to improve the relationships between systems, souls and society in theory and practice.
We are scholars, artists, activists, futurists and seekers who believe credible hope for the first truly planetary civilisation lies in forms of economic restraint and political cooperation that are beyond prevailing epistemic capacities and spiritual sensibilities.
Our charitable purpose is therefore to develop an applied philosophy of education for individual and collective realisation in the service of averting societal collapse; and in the spirit of serious play and ambitious humility to cultivate the imaginative and emotional capacity required to usher in a world that is, at the very least, technologically wise and ecologically sound. ...
I would read the book! I did the opposite to you. I cut my artistic teeth in community arts in the UK then moved to the US fourteen years ago and couldn't find any funding for community arts projects. I ended up working with a non-profit and doing some participatory projects but it wasn't community arts as I knew it - enjoyable all the same. I started an arts collective but funding was so difficult I ended up working with galleries just to make ends meet. I'm now completely out of the gallery system again and looking to return to community arts work but I just don't see how. I hope you find a publisher for this vital work.
I'd love to hear more about your story. It's a crucial one to give readers a sense of how complex this moment is. How does one survive as a creative in this time? In a sense, my story is not one that is accessible to subsequent generations. I had the good fortune of being offered a free MFA (paid teaching assistantship) courtesy of the Canadian government in the mid-1970s, so no debt. Rents were low when I moved to NYC. NSCAD networked me into a crowd of folks who connected me with jobs. Those advantages gave my early career more spaciousness, and allowed me to make choices that those with debt and high rents don't have. Let me know if you're willing to have a conversation via phone or zoom. bnaidus@uw.edu
Hi Beverly I don't have experience in approaching publishers but if Arts for Change is still in print it seems to me those publishers could see great benefit and continuity from publishing your second book? You'd bring your significant audience/readership from the FB page with you to them. It feels necessary and timely that you publish now, in these years... xx
I'm not an artist or an author so my feedback on how effective this would be in those arenas is limited. However, I'm an obligate proofreader/copy editor. I found two grammatical errors but don't know how to highlight those. Let me know what works best for you.
My overall impression is one of excitement for this book and the impact it can have on other artists in the movement.
Send me your email address, and I will send you a copy where you can highlight the grammatical errors.
pmenzies48@gmail.com
Not only will I consume this book like good bread, I’ll volunteer to help in any capacity needed.
Thanks for you continuing support, Chris. I'm going to be rewriting the query in multiple versions. Each publisher has their own questions that need to be answered in order to have a confident submission.
Beverly, hi. Reading this, just off the top, it seems as if it might rather "fall between 2 stools" (as Tim Ingold once observed about one of my essays) while being very pertinent. Routledge is not above publishing edgy things, and I am thinking here of their Earthscan series which was launched in 2016. But still traditional. What comes to mind also are university presses publishing in the Environmental Arts and Humanities, such as especially Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Eastern Canada. Perhaps Duke Uni Press, but they do seem to have become rather steeped in PM critical theory, rather than pragmatic things.
An edgier option might be New Society Press, which published Sharon Kallis' Common Threads. They have a good reputation and are also West coast local, being on Gabriola Island. I think too of the PUBLIC Access Collective in Toronto, which produces PUBLIC journal they are at publicjournal dot ca. It looks as if they might publish books as well. They are in part Canada Council funded, so there might be a CanCon thing, not sure. Sorry if so.
Iain McGilchrist published his massive 2-volume, mainstream narrative challenging opus, The Matter with Things, with Perspectiva and their Press in the UK. Perspecitva does interesting things. And having published McGilchrist, have a fair bit of attention. The press info is here: https://systems-souls-society.com/insight/perspectiva-press/
Here is what they say:
"Perspectiva is a community of expert generalists working on an urgent one hundred year project to improve the relationships between systems, souls and society in theory and practice.
We are scholars, artists, activists, futurists and seekers who believe credible hope for the first truly planetary civilisation lies in forms of economic restraint and political cooperation that are beyond prevailing epistemic capacities and spiritual sensibilities.
Our charitable purpose is therefore to develop an applied philosophy of education for individual and collective realisation in the service of averting societal collapse; and in the spirit of serious play and ambitious humility to cultivate the imaginative and emotional capacity required to usher in a world that is, at the very least, technologically wise and ecologically sound. ...
Lots of great possibilities, Beth. Thanks!