Four of our six fall 2018 Shockwire Chapbook Series authors reading at The Center for Art in Wood. Pictured (left to right): Norman Cain, Lauren Lowe, Briyanna Hymms, and Sarah Grey
Legacy partnerships
2017-2019 Partnerships
Swarthmore College’s Friends, Peace, & Sanctuary
We are honored to partner with Swarthmore’s Friends, Peace, & Sanctuary program to publish H&H’s first dual-language chapbook, featuring photographs of poems and blackout poetry pieces generated by workshops led by poet and H&H author Maryan Captan. This English-Arabic compilation of images of text will invite readers to consider the meaning of past and present homes while providing a multi-sensory window into the immigrant artist’s creative process.
Drexel University’s Writers Room
Our beloved chapbook vending machine’s current address is Drexel’s Writers Room and features writing from four of its members in our fall 2018 Shockwire Chapbook Series. Our Shockwire Series encourages writers to provide a snapshot of a time and place where expressions of inclusivity and curiosity shine a light on their absence in everyday life.
The Writers Room — a Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences initiative within the Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships, an urban extension center in West Philadelphia’s “Promise Zone” — is a program that creates authentic relationships between people from diverse backgrounds.
Building 21 Philadelphia High School
Inspired by the success of our pilot program at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), H&H has partnered with Building 21 Philadelphia to host a series of writing workshops and publish original student writing in chapbook form. Our goal is introduce Building 21’s emerging creative writers to the concept of a writing community. We believe that the benefits of this early experience—a sense of belonging, empathy, and the power of creative self-expression—will compel student writers who participate in the program to seek out and shape their own writing communities in the future.
GRAYSTONE FARM
The team behind Graystone Farm tends to look at life a little differently. They think that every moment holds inspiration, everyone you meet has a story, and that nearly any topic can become fascinating when wrapped up with a little fun. The Farm's fearless leader, Kai Miller, focuses on her own community and working with local small businesses, hosting youth writing camps, managing a farm for rescue animals, and coaching soccer and Girls on the Run.
The Head & The Hand is thrilled to partner with Graystone Farm to collaborate on their 2019 youth writing camps. The Write Path writing camp is for middle-graders who show interest in storytelling and to develop realistic characters and build a writing practice focused on their own goals as budding authors. H&H members will share their experience of what it's like to be a publishing company and will also publish The Write Path 2019 Camp Book.
Past Partnerships
FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA
One of our most rewarding collaborations to date, The Head & The Hand (H&H) partnered with the Free Library of Philadelphia to produce Honey Sequence, a poetry collection by Husnaa Hashim, the 2017-18 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Lauded by Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher as “a gift,” Hashim and her poetry reshaped our understanding of poetry’s impact, regardless of the creator’s age. We cannot wait to read Hashim’s future words and witness their profound ripple effects.
More praise from Raquel Salas Rivera, 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia and author of lo terciario/the tertiary: “These poems drip, stick, cluster around pain and then pull apart, leaving stains, slowly settling and turning over the earth as they bring in new, denser, and richer growth.”
The need to share stories is the basis of any writing community, and H&H’s chapbook vending machine is a vehicle for that impulse. We think of the stories published and displayed within as a kind of 3-D anthology to mark the time and place of their creation.
SCIENCE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
The Head & The Hand (H&H) and renowned Philadelphia magnet school Science Leadership Academy (SLA) established a creative partnership to publish student writing alongside established Young Adult fiction and poetry authors in the 4th Floor Chapbook Series. As with Building 21, the goal of the pilot program was to introduce students to the concept of a writing community by encouraging them to crave and value chapbooks as much as the snacks that used to fill the vending machine. H&H worked closely with the school’s 4th Floor Literary Magazine staff and students in the editing, designing, and promotion of the series to local and national media. A chapbook release party, featuring readings from YA and student authors Jennifer Hubbard and Melissa Sarno, was held at the school upon the collaboration’s conclusion. Based on the success of this pilot program, we believe this model can be replicated wherever students crave a good story.
PLEASE PLANT THIS BOOK
The Head & The Hand partnered with poet Francis Daulerio and Frightened Rabbit frontman and illustrator Scott Hutchison in publishing an expanded chapbook edition of their reinterpretation of Richard Brautigan's Please Plant This Book. The special edition featured photographs and a planting guide for all of the seed varieties that served as inspiration for Francis' poems and Scott's illustrations. All proceeds from the sales of Please Plant This Book benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.