Flying Object 2nd Anniversary Fundraiser and EPIC RAFFLE

There is this place called Flying Object. It looks like this:

It is located in Hadley, Massachusetts, in the old Firehouse. Amazing things happen there. Events, readings, music, art shows, letterpress classes, lectures, books, and other things. Workshops about pickling. Lectures explaining current linguistic research. Benefits for other local organizations and non-profits. It is a space that makes itself available to support many different communities. Over time, those communities form a larger and more connected community. This is a rare thing.

I got invited to a meeting about a month ago to help plan a party/fundraiser/raffle to help celebrate Flying Object's second anniversary. There's going to be a great party on Oct. 13, and everybody is invited. Information about said party is here and here. CA Conrad, Dorothea Lasky, and Ben Hersey are going to be reading/performing/fortune-telling. I have every confidence that it will be a wonderful event. At the meeting to plan this party, I volunteered to help out with the Raffle portion of the event, because I love raffles.

Raffle Donation from Flood Editions

Raffle Donation from Knopf/ Everyman's Library

                                       
Along with other raffle committee members, I started emailing presses to see if they might donate books, broadsides, chapbooks, ephemera, or anything else for this raffle. The response really amazed and surprised me: many of the presses I got in touch with responded enthusiastically and wonderfully. Presses both small and large were thrilled that a place like Flying Object exists, and wanted to help out. Soon, I began receiving 4 or 5 boxes of books a day. Presses have been sending rare things, beautiful things, surprising things.

Raffle Donation from Octopus Books

Raffle Donation from BOA Editions

Raffle Donation from Visual Editions (UK)

                                     
And I guess that brings me to the other part of this post that I wanted to write about, which is this larger community that also exists, the community of publishers and poets and artists and bookmakers and photographers. People are up to some really wonderful, smart, beautiful things, and their enthusiasm and generosity has reminded me how lucky I am to be a reader and writer and participant in this large, wild community.

Raffle Donation from Twin Palms

Raffle Donation from Cabinet Magazine

Raffle Donation from Anchorite Press

                                              
The local community has also stepped up to support Flying Object. We have received raffle donations from local organizations and businesses like Mass MoCA, Hungry Ghost Bread, Jackson & Connor, The Claw Foot Tub, Popcorn Noir, Hill Farmstead Brewery, Amherst Books, Pale Circus, and Green River Ambrosia. High & Mighty is donating beer for the event. If you live anywhere remotely close to Western Massachusetts, I hope you'll join us on Saturday, October 13 to celebrate and to get some amazing things from the EPIC RAFFLE. Even if you can't make it in person, you can still donate and have raffle tickets entered in your name to win prizes! Please go here to find out more.

Here follows a (still growing) list of the amazing publishers and organizations who have given us EPIC PRIZES to raffle in support of this event. A huge thank you to all of them!

1913, 2-UP, 2HB, 5X7, Action Books, Agnes Fox, Ahsahta, Alice James Books, Amherst Books, Amherst Cinema, Anchorite Press, Birds LLC, Black Ocean Books, BOA, Burning Deck, Cabinet Magazine, Canarium Press, Chelsea Editions, Coach House Books, Coconut Books, Coffee House Press, Content, Cuneiform Press, Denver Quarterly, Dexter Sinister, DoubleCross Press, Elk Books, Europa Editions, Factory Hollow Press, FC2, Flood Editions, Flying Guillotine, Forklift Ohio, Four Way Books, Futurepoem, Green Lantern Press, Greying Ghost Press, Green River Ambrosia, Grove/Atlantic, High & Mighty, Hill Farmstead, Hungry Ghost Bakery, Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Jackson & Connor, Jubilat, Kat Ran Press, Knopf/Everyman’s Library, Lay Flat, Loosestrife Editions, MASS MoCA, McSweeney’s, Mud Luscious Press, Noemi Press, O-Blek, O’Clock Press, Octopus Books, Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, Owl Press, Pale Circus, PEN America, Popcorn Noir, Propolis Press, Publishing Genius, Rescue Press, River Valley Market, Sarabande, Schematic Quarterly, Siglio Press, Slope Editions, Small Anchor Press, Sona Books, Spork Press, Tarpaulin Sky, Telephone, Thames & Hudson, The Caseroom Press, The Claw Foot Tub, The Physiocrats, The Sienese Shredder, Springtide Press, Tibor de Nagy, True Panther Sounds, Twin Palms Publishing, Typecast Publishing/The Lumberyard, Ugly Duckling Presse, Unit Editions, University of Chicago Press, University of Iowa Press, Visual Editions, Wakefield Books, Wave Books, Wesleyan University Press, Wonder