Translation Progress, Overworked Computer, and The Caravan Project


Byron is halfway through transliterating our first tier of poets for "Translations and Remixes: Contemporary Korean Writers Beyond the DMZ." (Is that the title?) He has told me that I will have the first glimpse on Thursday. I am very excited. I even offered to type all his notes I was so gung-ho.

"I can do it," I told him.

"No," he smiled. "I is good at typing."

"Good," I laughed. "I is not."

Although we might have a healthy spectrum of poets for the book, I will still have to query various fiction authors for short story submissions. I am not sure whether I will go through Korean publishers or authors directly. Time will tell. It will also be the factor for the poetry-films I have started animating.

Last night, I managed to animate the first half of Tao Lin's A Poem Written by a Bear, only to find my computer crash on me when the file exceeded its limitations.

"Why?" I asked my computer. "You can do three-way iChats. (See pic above of my brother dueling an imaginary Darth in L.A., while The Patron Saint in Seattle, and yours truly in Seoul, admire his tenacity and skills.) You're too good to operate in this fashion."

"I can't help it," my computer replied. "I need more ram."

As Kaivon is a computer guru, I will see if he can bring me some external hard drives when he visits this weekend from Hong Kong. Something tells me he will come through. He usually does. Of course, he isn't the guru of publishing, that title would be held by Peter Osnas and the fine folks at Caravan.

The Caravan Project, "a partnership of six non-profit publishers, the nation’s largest book wholesaler, and a group of independent and chain bookstores...will offer buyers of serious non-fiction books a "menu” of formats, both print and digital, from which to choose how they read a book..." (TCP)

I contacted Peter Osnas, Executive Director of this "new breed in publishing" to see what possibilities his company would hold for fiction or poetry titles. He informed me that non-fiction would be there concentration for the time being. He also hinted at the potential for other publishers to take the reins once Caravan takes off.

"Our hope is that once our system becomes well known others wlll adopt it," Osnas wrote.

If you are curious about the future of publishing, visit The Caravan. It just might be the guiding light for all publishing houses to adopt within the coming year.

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