Mountain Water Press Novel Selected for Kirkus Review's 100 Best Indie BooksR

The owners of Mountain Water Retreat also have a small, interdependent press publishing works of fine writing & fine art that celebrate the enspirited land — in books and magazines. We call it an interdependent press because we are fashioning a new collaborative model of publishing with artists, authors, and printers and exploring what that means.

Our latest publication – and our first novel – is the inimitable Quarry by Meredith Ann Fuller, illustrated by Joan Anderson. We are pleased to announce that Quarry was selected as one of The Kirkus Review's 100 Best Indie Books of 2017; and 1 of only 8 fiction works selected!

If you are in Boulder on February 28, 2018, Meredith and Joan will be at Boulder Bookstore for a reading and book signing. You can buy your copy of Quarry at Boulder Bookstore during the event, or purchase online directly through Mountain Water Press. 

Below are a few of Joan's illustrations that appear throughout the novel.

BOMBERS, BOOKS, and BUGS: New and Old Work from Robert Spellman

A favorite among websites to visit is Trend Tablet, the site founded by Lidewij Edelkoort, who, as the site claims, is “a trend forecaster, curator, publisher, and educator who constantly lives in the future.”

A circuitous amble across the site links me to the work of the Piecework Collective, and from there to the Mississippi-based quilting workshop, YaloRun Textiles. At the YaloRun site you can find packs of pre-cut quilt scraps curated by Susan Cianciolo.

Using scraps dawned on Robert Spellman, too. Look closely at the surface of his paintings and you’ll see them.

A ladybug’s carapace, the fuselage of a bomber, the elements of a sofa (or davenport if you are from Ohio). Many of his paintings present one thing. It helps us see, as he seems to, the beauty of what we forget to notice. Since I’ve written the word forget, it occurs to me that Spellman’s paintings startle recollection and seem to portray what has happened to these things in the time that elapsed since we last noticed them—they’ve become iconic, wizened, perhaps a little melancholic and ghostly.

Paintings by Robert Spellman.

For the optimists among us, the paintings give us another chance for sweet regard, before old things disappear altogether in the constant renovation of the future.

BOMBERS, BOOKS, and BUGS: New and Old Work from Robert Spellman

January 16—March 2, 2018   

Opening Reception: January 26, 5-8pm

Naropa University, Nalanda Gallery, 63rd & Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder CO