Sawaga River Press Starts 2024
Happy New Year, FB Friends and Fam! We acknowledge the fragility of this time. We join our voices against genocide and settler colonialism, and support the call for a ceasefire.
We thought we would slowly ease into this new year but January zipped by, just like that. So, before February leaves us the way January did, here’s our recap of the beginning of the year and an overview of what’s in store for us this year, so far.
EVENTS
Mill Valley Public Library Panel on Paths to Publishing
On January 20, 2024, Cindy Fazzi (author of Multo), Beverly Parayno (author of Wildflowers) and I (representing Sawaga River Press), participated in a panel to discuss various paths to publishing at the Mill Valley Public Library. It rained hard but that did not stop the approximately 30 people who showed up at the event. Cindy talked about traditional publishing, Beverly about independent small press publishing, and I about community-oriented publishing. It was nice to have a crowd composed of people with various interests, not just in children’s books but also in short fiction, novels, and non-fiction.
Also, a cool thing also happened. we met someone with ties to the Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco who encouraged us to contact someone else at the studio to talk about the possibility of putting together a play based on our children’s books! We’re going to admit this now- this is our dream of dreams! To put together a movement/dance or theater pieces that celebrate Agyu and Mungan and lolas and Filipino/a/x kids! Dare we pursue this dream? Of course! Let’s see where this leads to.
In the meantime, thank you to Jen for inviting us to the library. We will share their podcast link once we get it from them. And thank you to Cindy and Beverly for this collaboration.
Pinay Powerhouse Collaboration
Speaking of collaboration. Another exciting collaboration that has solidified a little more in the beginning of this year is the collab between Sawaga River Press and Pinay Powerhouse. It has been a year and a half since the publication of the Rooted in Practice reader. Now, the Pinay Powerhouse leadership intends to publish one reader a year focusing on the collective’s values. The plan is to work on a reader and aim to publish it by March, in time for the yearly Pinay Powerhouse conferences. We Pinay Powerhouses are that- powerhouses!- and I expect we will get this done. I’m all in. Accountable people hold me accountable!
Also, this March, there will be a Pinay Powerhouse sponsored kamayan dinner fundraiser in Oakland. This will be a celebration of the relaunch of the nonprofit and to introduce the Rooted in Practice reader to the community. The reader has been launched at different events before, in New York this year for the 6th Pinay Powerhouse March conference and in Washington, DC for the NFALA conference (in April, I think). This will be the first time the reader will be launched here in the local Bay Area scene. It’s going to be fun- come and join us if you’re in the area!
Center for Babaylan Studies Collaboration
Speaking of daring to dream. Another cool thing happened. We’re officially collaborating with the Center for Babaylan Studies! In November last year (2023), I contacted (Ate) Lily Mendoza who is the Executive Director of CfBS to ask if CfBS would support our press’ efforts. In our conversation, Ate Lily shared that she was looking for people who share the vision and values of CfBS. Then she asked me if I would consider joining the CfBS core team! I was honored because I have such deep respect and love for what CfBS stands for- “to uplift the wisdom of Indigenous living traditions of the Philippines towards the pursuit of Indigenous sovereignty, individual and community healing, justice, and liberation” (from the CfBS site). CfBS has been instrumental in my personal work to decolonize and indigenize. Even though my heart immediately said yes, I took a month to think about it to make sure. And now, I’m sure…and super excited to be taking charge of the children’s curriculum for the CfBS conferences and general children’s programming. Children’s books on kapwa (Filipino indigenous worldview that loosely translates to kinship, our self shared with others) will definitely be part of what we will be doing!
The core members of CfBS: Left to Right, seated to standing; Cisa, (Ate) Lily, Maileen; Drew, Danielle, Justine, Kurt; Eric, Jim.
During our core group retreat in Detroit in January, I talked about what brought me to CfBS a long time ago. I referred to my first letter to (Ate) Leny Strobel, founder of CfBS, in 2016 when I first met her:
“Here I pose some more questions: Now that I have young kids, re-connecting with my roots and (animist) spirituality has become even more important. How do I share this kind of spirituality with my young kids so that when the time comes and they start asking the big existential questions, they won't be coming from a vacuum? How can the Babaylan community help me raise young kids that are aware/conscious of this kind of spirituality? I'm not looking for something akin to what the Catholic church (or other religious institutions) has that facilitates indoctrination- I'm just wanting accessible community and resources. Additionally, how can this awareness of the Babaylan spirituality help kids in the diaspora thrive, especially in societies like the US where communities of color are still being discriminated against in various ways?”
I am marveling at the fact that I started answering my questions soon after I posed the questions to Ate Leny by creating Sawaga River Press and publishing children’s books that focus on kapwa. Now that it has become clearer what Sawaga River Press is called to do, we are here for it and realize that CfBS has been with us in this journey this whole time!
Learning About Distribution
In January, as part of the perks of being an Innovator in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s (IBPA) Innovative Voices Program, we learned about distribution opportunities with Simon & Schuster and with Ulysses Press. Though it feels like a distribution contract is several steps down the road for us, it’s helpful to have an idea of what it could look like, and for the whole process to be demystified. We now have a better understanding of that part of the publishing machine and we’re filing our notes for future use.
In the meantime, we are going to keep doing what we’ve been doing: create direct relationships with our community. If you’re reading this and have ideas on how our press can work with your organization or community, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Mentorship with Familius Press
Also as part of the IBPA Innovative Voices Program, we have been paired with Familius Press for mentorship. We met virtually with their founder for the first time in February and we are looking forward to this relationship! We will keep you all posted.
IBPA Publishing University Closing Panel
This April, we will be attending the IBPA’s Publishing University courtesy of the Innovative Voices Program. We have been wanting to attend this yearly event ever since Jack & Agyu won IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Children’s Book in 2020. The University was canceled that year due to the pandemic. This year, we have been invited to be part of the keynote closing panel! Denver, here we come!
BOOK PRODUCTION UPDATES
For this year, our press’ overarching goal is to increase our inventory of books. To that end, below is what we have lined up:
Mama, Mama, Do You Know What I Like? is out of stock. That means we finished our 1,000-print run. We will be restocking soon and expect to have the copies in May/June 2024.
Jack & Agyu is also almost out of stock. There are now 1,000 Jack & Agyu books out there in the wild, doing their thing. We have placed an order for reprints, and we expect the copies to be here in May/June. When that time comes, we will celebrate this book the way we should have when it first came out at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
Mungan and Lola’s illustrations are finally finished! We are now finalizing the design and aim to send the files to the printer by the end of February. Wish us luck! Copies should be here in May/June, along with Jack & Agyu. One amazing thing about this book that happened organically is the altar that we created to honor our lolas. We asked the community to join us in honoring our lolas and we received approximately 200 names of lolas from approximately 100 community members. Thank you so much to those who made their offerings!
A work-in-progress of the Mungan and Lola’s pages dedicated to our lolas and butterflies.
Know History, Know Self is underway. We finished most of the interviews and Albert is starting to illustrate. I can’t wait to start seeing this come alive!!! This is truly a collective book, with oral histories from diverse members of the community that also coincide with Fil-Am history. The target pub date is October 2024, in time for the Fil-Am History Month. Tune in for more details about the publication of this book in the next months.
The Salamat Book
As we hinted in our last post, we will be working on two more books. We recently hired Tin Javier to illustrate (tada!) The Salamat Book! This is all about the female body, our fil-am history, and our human and more-than-human ancestors. I am super excited about this one! I hope to share more next month. For now, I’m happy to just share The Salamat Book’s illustrator Tin Javier and its projected timeline (same thing as Know History, Know Self, in October this year).
Board Books: Beach Time; Party Time
We also recently hired Dionne Kong to illustrate two board books for us. This is a new territory for us as we’ve not published a board book before. One is tentatively titled “Beach Time” and the other “Party Time”. They will have the same projected timeline as the books above.
So, yes, if things go as planned, we will have our out-of-stock titles back in stock (2) and several (5) new titles by the end of this year. We might also include a couple of activity books in the mix, if time, bandwidth, and other resources allow. We will keep you posted.
LOOKING AHEAD: EVENTS
Nueva School in Belmont in March
We don’t usually go down to the South Bay but this March, we are, thanks to an invitation from the Nueva School in Belmont. We will be featuring Jack & Agyu and our other books. Once we get more info, we will share some more.
Bioneers
In January, we took part in a month-long women’s leadership course called EveryWoman’s Leadership facilitated by Nina Simons, co-founder of the Bioneers. The classes have been so empowering. In fact, Nina Simons and the classes have planted seeds in my heart of what may be another book project! We will not share any more beyond this, but we are inspired to look into collaborating with Bioneers, if possible.
What Gives Us Joy?
We will end this post by sharing our key takeaway from the Bioneers course: Be of service to that which makes your heart sing and dance. To do so is the most joyful way to live. Being in relationship with kapwa—our human and more-than-human kin—makes our hearts sing and dance. To be of service to kapwa by making books that celebrate it is the most joyful way to live. May it be so!
Until next time, friends and family! We leave you with some questions: What gives you joy? How do you live your life in its service?
#community #events
