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Bloof Books at SMOL Fair, March 3–7

Event graphic for Bloof + Action marathon reading, March 7 at 4 pm EST

This week we’re excited to be taking part in the alternative small-press book festival, SMOL Fair! Dozens of your favorite little presses are participating, most offering discounted book fair specials on their sites, and many hosting virtual readings and other events.

About SMOL Fair: “SMOL Fair is an alternative, virtual book fair that will be ‘live’ from March 3-7, 2021. It is 100% free for presses to participate.  For readers, we are hosting a reading, a keynote address, and a mixer.  We are coordinating an events calendar for that week featuring readings from participating presses as well as book give-aways and deals on work from your favorite authors.”

Hello from the ink slab. We carve, ink, and print our linocut chapbook covers by hand.

20% off at bloofbooks.com

NOW through Sunday, March 1–7, use the promo code SMOLFAIR at checkout to receive 20% off your order. We’ll be enclosing hand-printed postcards, bookmarks, and other surprises with your packages (while supplies last).

Bloof Books + Action Books Marathon Reading for SMOL Fair

On Saturday, March 6 beginning at 4:00 pm EST, a multitude of poets will perform via Zoom. Details are still being finalized, but the lineup is looking stellar. The event will be auto-captioned and include some visual materials by the performers, plus a multimedia intermission. Free registration via Eventbrite here.

The SMOL Fair logo, a smiling lavender animal
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RAT QUEEN by Katie Jean Shinkle is now available in our handmade chapbook series

The cover of Rat Queen, a hand-printed linocut in metallic gold ink on cream stock. The title sits above a large central crown, and a rat tail descends from the Q in Queen. The author's name, Katie Jean Shinkle, is below the image.
Stacks of printed interiors, unfolded. The title page and colophon page can be seen on the top stack, printed in black ink on cream paper.
Printed proof of Rat Queen by Katie Jean Shinkle with small hand-marked mockbook showing imposition notes. The book's two central poems can be partially seen: "Red Glow of Knowing" on the left page and "No Vacancy" on the right.
Black and white image, cropped, of the carved linocut block used to print the covers. The word QUEEN and a large crown graphic can be partially seen, with cut lino texture surrounding them.
Katie Jean Shinkle in a leather jacket against a red wall. She has long black hair and red lipstick.
The cover of Rat Queen, a hand-printed linocut in metallic gold ink on cream stock. The title sits above a large central crown, and a rat tail descends from the Q in Queen. The author's name, Katie Jean Shinkle, is below the image.
Linocut print cover of Rat Queen by Katie Jean Shinkle, printed in gold metallic ink on cream cardstock. To the right sits the linocut block, with the image—a large crown and rat tail descending from the Q in the title—in reverse.

RAT QUEEN Katie Jean Shinkle

$10.00

Dec 2019
6 x 9 |  24 pages

Handprinted linocut cover
Gold metallic Cranfield Traditional Relief Ink on cream 80 lb cover
Digitally printed interior on cream opaque 70 lb text
Hand sewn in natural twine

Note: Individually printed by hand in small batches, no two covers will be exactly alike. Expect minor variations across the edition.

Limited to 150 numbered copies

BLOOF BOOKS CHAPBOOK SERIES
Volume 4: Issue 4 (2019)
ISSN 2373-163X

The eighteen poems in Rat Queen luxuriantly explore transgression and intimacy, the various ways we take each other eagerly apart and taxidermy ourselves back together again. “My dear, what muscularly defines you?” the speaker asks, “When I pin you like insect wings, / corked-fog and iridescent-under.”

Rat Queen is the fourth chapbook in the 2019–2020 series from Bloof Books. Each chapbook in the series is released in a limited edition of at least one hundred numbered copies, followed by a digital release, and eventually in a combination volume called Bound. 

This is Katie Jean Shinkle’s fifth chapbook. She is an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing at Sam Houston State University. She is the author of three full-length works, most recently Ruination (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018). Her poetry, prose, and criticisms can be found in Flaunt Magazine, the Georgia Review, Denver Quarterly, New South, the Collagist, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She serves as associate fiction editor of ANMLY, co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM.

SKU: RAT Category: Tag:

Description

Excerpt RAT QUEEN Let me cry 1,000,000 tears of gold, weave tapestry-strands with vigor, douse your open heart with champagne, only the best, most expensive will do. Show me Benjamin Franklin, fanned out to cool, I will show people you forget along the way. Tell me, while at my feet, how the bank of booze is vampiric and fanged. The equation of who will perish first, (w)hol(l)y simplistic: You, knee-crouched, or me, hands in prayer, eyes transfixed? So funny what we cling to, not giggles or open-mouth hardy, but uncanny, filled to the brim.

Additional information

Author

Shinkle, Katie Jean

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