Peter Conners | The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map cover art

Peter Conners | The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map

Peter Conners | The Deadhead Running the Poetry Press That Put Rochester on the Map

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 Before Peter Conners ran one of America's most respected poetry presses, he was following the Grateful Dead across the country in a van.

Conners is the Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions — a Rochester-based nonprofit that has quietly won Pulitzer Prizes, national awards, and the respect of the entire literary world for 50 years, while most Rochesterians have no idea it exists. He joins Fitz at ROC Vox to talk about how a self-described troublemaker from Sutherland High School ended up running an institution — and why, at its 50th anniversary, losing its federal funding isn't going to stop it.
In this episode: BOA's controversial first book by a Pulitzer Prize winner no one else would publish, why nonprofit publishers are the only thing standing between the world and the end of new poetry, the brutal economics of audiobooks (sell 1,000 copies, make $100), and what a decade of sobriety taught Peter about what publishing is really for.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Positive Blatherings
00:56 Meet Peter Conners and BOA Editions
02:18 The Founding Story: First Book to First Pulitzer
07:44 Why Poetry Needs Nonprofit Publishers
09:09 20 Years of Publishing's Digital Revolution
13:28 The Hard Truth About Audiobook Economics
18:28 From Troublemaker to Writer: Peter's Origin Story
22:00 A Family Defined by Service
25:20 How Peter Became BOA's Publisher
31:49 Going Public: Writing His Own Story
36:38 Sobriety, Recovery, and Giving Back
42:05 BOA's Future: Surviving the NEA Cut

CONNECT
BOA Editions → https://www.boaeditions.org
Peter Conners → https://www.peterconners.net
Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead → https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Dead-Hallucinated-Confessions/dp/0306817330
Merch Table Blues → https://www.amazon.com/Merch-Table-Blues-Peter-Conners/dp/1945665319
Box of Rain documentary → https://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-Box-Rain/dp/B0D19TCPPM
Writers & Books Rochester → https://wab.org
ROC Vox → https://rocvox.com

New episodes every Tuesday.

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