Boys In The Woods: The Pleasures of the Hand-Bound tiny Edition

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - June 28, 2016 - PRLog -- ~ A visceral account of the soul-scraping initiations faced by boys

growing up in the woods and waters of New England.

Title: Boys in the Woods Author: Marc Zegans
Category: Poetry
Publication Date: June 14, 2016 Pages: 40

Retail Price: $22.50
Binding: Hand-Bound Hardback
Available exclusively through Crane Maiden Books http://cranemaidenbooks.com

Crane Maiden Books is proud to announce the release of Marc Zegans', Boys in the Woods, a hand-bound collection of poems, with photographs by Daniel Barnhill, and a downloadable musical component written and performed by Peg Simone, with original lyrics by Marc Zegans in a numbered, limited edition of fifty.

Boys In The Woods takes readers through the darker spaces in the lives of boys growing up amidst the woods and waters of New England. This gathering of poems and related images is a gritty and visceral account of the cruelty and the soul-scraping initiations faced by young adolescents on the cusp of entering adult realities.

Says publisher, Peg Simone, "My aesthetic veers toward the darker gothic-something that feeds the imagination, that's got a little bit of the underbelly, like a Nick Cave song. When I was reading Boys in the Woods, it reminded me of being a kid and scraping my knees and palms. In these poems there's a sense of brutal innocence that doesn't exist when you get older. I wanted to publish Boys in the Woods because it cuts through to the place that begins to shape who and what you are as an adult."

Says Marc Zegans, "I loved the books they were making at Crane Maiden-these beautiful, old world, old school, hand-pressed, small- scale volumes with a sound element integrated into each one. Even more than that, I reveled in the process; it was a true artistic collaboration between the poet, the photographer, the publisher,the bookbinder, and the recording artist. As a writer, I've never had an experience quite so satisfying."

What People Are Saying about Boys in the Woods

"This petite volume holds multitudes: the innocent brutality of growing boys, the pull of nature, the awakening of conscience."

~Author, Carol L. Skolnick

"Boys in the Woods is an elegant little volume of poems, interspersed with evocative photographs, about discovering and yearning for the wildness and grandness of nature and about the sometimes harsh nature of growing up

~ Rebecca Berlant, Managing Editor, Random House Publishing Group

I find all that I need to survive childhood and adulthood here; I accept what I already know, that the line between man and boy which permeates this little book, dedicated to his own son, dissolves, because nothing is greater in darkness than love.

~ Susannah Melone, Actor, Poet, Playwright-Gilding the Lily

The Experience of a Crane Maiden Book

" If people could have access to these books, if they were just a normal part of life, people making them and reading them, physically, not online - life would be better."

~Award winning novelist and author of The Mare, Mary Gaitskill

Each Crane Maiden book is a hand-printed and bound, numbered, limited edition with its own custom downloadable, soundtrack.  All Crane Maiden titles are uniform in size. Think of them as trading cards for story- hounds.

"I like the possibility of someone owning something I made, possibly for the rest of their life, and looking back at words they will have written, and making a connection across time. It's this deeper view that gives objects meaning."

~Vince Curtis Bookbinder

Marc Zegans recalls, "Vince Curtis, the bookbinder, had been documenting the process of production, but when I saw Boys in the Woods for the first time, I was blown away by his craftsmanship. When people see a copy they just want to pick it up and hold it. Their eyes turn bright; their faces light up, and they caress the cover, saying how good it feels in their hands. "

About the author

Marc Zegans is the author of two previous poetry collections, The Underwater Typewriterand Pillow Talk, and two spoken word albums, Marker and Parker and Night Work. He has been the Narragansett Beer Poet Laureate, and a Poetry Whore with the New York Poetry Brothel-which Time Out New York described as "New York's Sexiest Literary Event." Marc lives near the coast in Northern California.

About the photographer

Daniel Barnhill is an artist and musician currently chasing the light on the back of a motorcycle somewhere out along the smaller roads of America-exact whereabouts unknown.

About the publisher

Crane Maiden Books began as an idea over coffee, as many good ideas often do. In 2014, Peg Simone sat down with bookbinder extraordinaire Vince Curtis (Vers Libris) intending simply to purchase several of his beautifully crafted books as gifts. Whether it was the caffeine surge of high-octane brew or a thirst to combine talents to make something cool, their conversation took flight and Crane Maiden Books came to be-a series of beautiful, hand-bound, limited edition books soon followed.

For Editors:

About Peg Simone and Vince Curtis

Veterans of the Pittsburgh, PA punk scene, Vince played in the seminal punk rock band Half Life; Peg was in Wormhole; the threads of steel, coal, punk rock music, The Electric Banana and Iron City Beer runs thick through their veins, and fuel their collaboration as Crane Maiden's publisher and bookbinder.

Music From Boys in the Woods
Click twice to hear Peg Simone's recording of "Connect the Dots," music by Peg Simone, Lyrics by Marc Zegans

https://soundcloud.com/peg-simone/connect-the-dots