Fast Books

I inaugurated my press by publishing my long poem “American Baby” in 1983. I taught myself bookbinding out of a book and hand-made 100 copies, most of which I gave away. I typeset Melisande Potter’s play “On the Ball” at Zuckermann Harpsichords and put the Fast Books name on it although Dan Potter did all the work. My poem sequence “A Sojourn in Paris” made a sweet little book; I wish I had made more of them. Dan Potter sent me the poems he wrote after Melisande left him; I made a book of them, “Up Scaffolding,” as a present to him. My early novel “Near the End” is the first book I had professionally designed, printed, and bound; the cover is the George Washington stamp Johnny Dodd used for his lost collage in my apartment on West Third Street in Greenwich Village; the book turned out beautifully except that the designer neglected to remind me to put anything on the back cover, which came out blank white. I made 500 copies and still have several boxes of them. My friend Gary Zarr wrote “The Flight of the Great Red Bird,” a long sequence of haiku in memory of his brother, and I was pleased to publish them for him. John Labovitz designed “Automatic Vaudeville” and provided the cover photograph. His expert collaboration was vital in producing “Yes Poetry.”

Our latest publication (June 2008) is “Jesse & Elvis,” a novel by Vere McCarty.

Forthcoming Fast Books include “Visions of Cuba: An Artist Remembers,” paintings and texts by Ignacio José Fernández Morales; a second printing of my poem cycle “A Sojourn in Paris”; and a new dream narrative, “Not This.”

Fast Books Plays is a series that began with several of my own plays; I have now put many of them on the web, but the playbooks remain useful as scripts.