With a bevy of authors and a relatively low demand for material, writing poetry is one of the most difficult ways to break into the literary world.

Imagine the surprise, then, of Sierra Nevada College professor June Saraceno and her former student, Allison Hilborn, when they learned two poetry manuscripts would be published this fall by Pudding House Press.

"We had no expectation of this whatsoever," said Saraceno. "Pudding House was a target publisher for us because it is an independent press with a great reputation, not a vanity or subsidy press.

"They (publish) nationally recognized poets such as Annie Finch, C.B. Follett, Virgil Suarez and Ilya Kaminsky. We wanted to be included in that company."

In her acceptance letter to Saraceno, editor Jennifer Bosveld commented that "hardly a trace percent" of poets who submit their manuscripts are accepted for publication, making the dual publication genuinely exceptional.

The manuscript submitted is in chapbook format. The books are short and soft-covered, generally shorter than 40 pages.

Due to their size and low production cost, chapbooks are a popular medium for poets, and are the sole product of Pudding House.

"We used (the chapbooks) to try to keep ourselves writing because we were both spending so much time working on the business end of publishing our full-length collections," Saraceno said.

Hilborn and Saraceno collaborated on each project.

Hilborn's "Crooked" is part of a full length manuscript of confessional poetry composed in free verse that she produced as an undergraduate at SNC.

"I grew-up in Incline, so publishing this genre is kind of frightening," said Hilborn. "You never know who is going to pick it up."

Saraceno's "Mean Girl Trips" is a collection of prose poems inspired by her experiences as an au pair. Prose poetry is considered something of a controversy within the poetry world since it does not conform to any of the traditional tenants of poetry such as rhyme, meter or line breaks.

"It feels akin to verse because of the lyricism of the language," Saraceno said. "It's a blurring of the line, but that's why I like it."

Hilborn and Saraceno collaborated on the entire process, from initial writing ideas and exercises, to editing and revising, to finally locating markets for submission.

"Crooked," is already available at the SNC bookstore and online for $8.95. "Mean Girl Trips" will be available shortly.



Staff Writer Tom Meyer can be reached at (775) 831-4666 or at tmeyer@tahoebonanza.com.