UNCW’s literary imprint Lookout Books received another grant from the N.C. Arts Council following last year’s grant of $7,000. The grant will send two more authors, poet John Rybicki and memoirist Ben Miller, on book tours in April 2013.

“I’m thrilled by the chance to tour the great state of North Carolina on behalf of Lookout Books and ‘River Bend Chronicle,'” Ben Miller said. “Every writer dreams of reaching readers far and wide, and this generous grant makes that wish a sweet reality.”

Miller’s tour of “River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boy Idyll and the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa” will share his unique perspective of the Midwest in the 1970s. Lookout Books describes the memoir as an “evocation of an eccentric family’s tangled connections-between themselves, an unlikely cast of locals, and a seldom-documented urban Iowa.”

In conjunction with his readings and workshops, the book debut events will include a special treat-exhibitions of Robert Campagna’s vintage photograph series of 1970s urban Iowa.

The launch of John Rybicki’s “When All the World is Old” will be especially distinctive, venturing beyond the normal book tour destinations. Rybicki will journey to cancer support centers and traditional end-of-life care facilities to share his soulful poetry collection written in commemoration of his wife’s sixteen-year battle with cancer and the love they shared. Lookout and Rybicki will host healing arts workshops on the tour that will illuminate the message he shares.

With the newly awarded $9,000 grant, each author will voyage to five unique events across the state. The ultimate goal of Lookout Books is to reach as many readers and audiences as possible to share their publications and represent their authors.

In the past four years, Lookout Books has published the work of four authors who have all previously been featured in UNCW’s sister publication, Ecotone, a semiannual journal founded in 2005.

“I think what makes Lookout so great is that we have close relations with our authors,” said Emily Smith, co-founder and publisher of Lookout Books. “By pulling authors from Ecotone, we already know it’s a good partnership.”

Whatever they’re doing, it works.

Lookout sent suthors Steve Almond and Edith Pearlman on book tours in 2011 with last year’s grant from the N.C. Arts Council.

Edith Pearlman’s book “Binocular Vision” won an impressive amount of awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was the first small press publication in history to grace the front cover of the New York Times Book Review.  

“The North Carolina Arts Council is proud to be one of the funders of Lookout Books, which has made such an incredible impact on the literary world in a very short period of time,” said David Potori, the N.C. Arts Council literary director. “And we’re thrilled that the National Endowment for the Arts has also recognized their great work.”

Potori agrees with Smith that Lookout Books benefits from pooling authors whose sky high writing quality is already established in Ecotone.

“In a single year Lookout leapt to the forefront of independent small presses, and doing so, elevated our university and the program,” said David Gessner, editor and founder of Ecotone.

And there’s much more to come from this small yet roaring publishing imprint.

Smith teaches a publishing practicum class at UNCW that doubles as an internship in the creative writing department’s publishing laboratory. The class works with Smith to put out two carefully chosen books each year.

“Working with Lookout for the past year has been one of the most worthwhile things I’ve done since I’ve been at UNCW,” said MFA creative writing student Ethan Warren. “In a program where we focus so much on our creative work, Lookout and the publishing laboratory gives us a chance to get practical experience in the editorial world.” 

The collaboration with Ecotone, creative writing students and the UNCW faculty has very quickly made Lookout Books a prosperous and nationally accredited small press imprint.

“This is real-world book experience,” Smith said.