What inspires someone to become a writer? For many, it begins with a private impulse—an urge to hold language as carefully as a newborn, to express something essential before it vanishes. Yet countless voices never find the space to be heard. In the rush of daily noise and competing demands, many aspiring writers are left without support, their words unheard and their potential unseen.

While these challenges remain daunting, some choose to act. Utah’s current Poet Laureate, Lisa Bickmore, is one of them. She founded Moon in the Rye Press, a mobile micro-press dedicated to helping writers share their work with the world by publishing chapbooks—condensed collections of literature from an individual artist. Moon in the Rye Press specializes in 50-page collections of an artist’s work, which may seem small, but the collections are dense with personality and creativity. Each chapbook is available to view for free on the Moon in the Rye Press website. As their website states, the press seeks to “highlight and support literary creativity and community across Utah.” In just a short time, it has already published 19 chapbooks, with more on the way.

The following is a short conversation with Bickmore about the project.

Wrapped up in words. Lisa Bickmore, Utah’s Poet Laureate, founded Moon in the Rye Press to help writers across the state publish their work in chapbook form. Image courtesy of Lisa Bickmore.

What was the influence to create short form poetry collections?

Prior to being appointed the poet laureate of Utah, I had articulated the project I would carry out if appointed, and I proposed what I called a mobile micro-press, styled after the Agnes Varda film Visages, Villages (Faces/Places), which focused on her late-in-life project of traveling with the photographer JR in a van, kitted out with a large scale photographic printer. I don’t travel around in a van, but I do work with writers living all around the state on chapbooks featuring their work, in micro-editions (50 copies). Chapbooks have a long and interesting history throughout the age of print. When I was a faculty member at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC), we had a chapbook project that has lasted, now, for a long time, producing chapbooks selected through a competition and launched in a public event. Through working with student publications of all sorts, I had a strong sense of how publication was a powerful experience not only for an author, but also for a community. It’s been great to see this same dynamic play out with the Moon in the Rye Press project.

How does the process of selecting an author, and then creating a small collection go? Do you have a selection process, then a team of editors, then an artist for the covers? 

I have presented and discussed this project in multiple settings, including when my appointment was first made and announced. Authors, from that point forward, typically find me. There’s a contact form on the Moon in the Rye Press website, which is one way I hear from writers, or often they speak to me informally. Once they send me a manuscript, I read it, make notes about it, and have a meeting with the writer, either in person or virtually. I offer my feedback, and we have a conversation about the manuscript. Sometimes, things stop there, depending on whether the author feels ready to proceed or not. If the author does decide to proceed, then they send me a revised version—the revisions are entirely up to them—and we move forward with design. I ask authors to either identify cover art that they have permission to use or that is open source, or to share a cover concept. I work with a designer, Jem Ashton. I do the initial rough layout in InDesign, and Jem then makes a more finished version, along with a cover design, which we present to the author for feedback and corrections. The process is iterative, so we go through at least two versions, typically. Once we are ready to go, I take it to print. We have a great partnership with Printing Services at SLCC, with whom we’ve come up with a nice binding style. Once the author has the books, they’re free to do as they see fit with their copies—distribute them, sell them, trade them, etc.

Do you consider this project as a responsibility as a poet laureate?

It’s not this project, per se, so much as that I have *a* project. My predecessor, Paisley Rekdal, developed a tremendously useful website that documents writers in Utah—Mapping Literary Utah—and also started the Utah Poetry Festival, which I have continued. Each poet laureate has a project that contributes in some way to the vitality of poetry and poets in Utah. Having designated this as my project, I feel a real responsibility for it, for making sure that I do the best that I can for the writers and writing groups I work with, making the most beautiful and well-designed books possible. Our website also holds a digital archive of all the books, which I’m proud of—I hope that this will make the writing of these poets visible and accessible for a long time to come.

How does the responsibility of being a cultivator of Utah’s poetry scene feel? Does it drive you to make projects like this? How does it feel to be such a factor in Utah’s literary culture?

I hope that this project is a factor in Utah’s literary culture! I think that it does, in its way, support literary culture, offering a new way for writers to circulate and share their work. I’m very happy when I hear about events and recognition that involves Moon in the Rye Press authors. And I’m also so happy when I hear from new writers. One thing I will say that has proven to be the case: I find deep satisfaction in the conversations I have with Utah writers—one on one, I love having the chance to hear from writers. Who do they read? How did they get started in poetry? Who comprises their literary community? These conversations, as much as the publications themselves, are a part of deepening and strengthening literary culture—and of course, I am not at all the only person doing this work, not by a long shot.

Moon in the Rye Press offers a growing library of chapbooks, each showcasing the voice and vision of a Utah writer.

You also manage the nonprofit Lightscatter Press. Is it difficult managing two press companies, along with your duties as poet laureate and your personal projects?

Well, yes, there are times of the publication year when things really come to a boil and there’s an endless list of things to do. If I didn’t feel like the work was worth doing, and if I didn’t derive some joy and pleasure from it, AND if I weren’t proud of it, it would all feel too much. But it is worth doing, I do derive joy and pleasure from it, and I am tremendously proud of it. So: difficult, yes, but worth it? also yes.

Why did you choose the press’s name, “Moon in the Rye”? 

I was casting about for a name for the press. Naming things helps to focus their identities, and also gives them more presence in the world. I wanted something that conveyed a wider boundary for poetry than is sometimes ascribed to it, since it was to be a public, community project. I decided to look at Ken Brewer’s work, partly because he had been a previous poet laureate, but also because he was a beloved teacher, someone who invited people in to poetry. I bumped into the poem as I was reading his work, and the image of moonlight on a field of rye grass really struck me, as well as the poem’s metaphors for the power of art to breach boundaries.

What would you consider success in this project?

As of this writing, the project has published 19 books, several of which contain the work of more than one writer. I have two years left in my term as poet laureate (if it doesn’t kill me first, as I like to joke). So I hope to publish many more chapbooks—there are five currently in active development, two of which are almost ready to take to press. And I have at least half a dozen more ready to advance through the process I describe above. I plan to feature several writers in an event during Utah’s Book Festival this fall. I think the project is already successful, and my goal is to continue its work until my term is up.

What challenges have you encountered in launching and running a mobile micro-press?

There is only one of me! I think I work pretty hard at it, but there’s a limit to how many conversations I can have in a week or a month or a year. That’s the challenge—I really love doing this work, and there’s only one of me.

How do you sustain or fund the project, and are there plans to expand the number of publications or scope?

The funds for this project are part of the state budget for the poet laureate, which has money set aside for honoraria (when I’m asked to appear, teach a class, give a reader, speak), and money set aside for the project. I try to spend every cent of the project money, by which I mean, get as many chapbooks in print as possible. I have also been the fortunate recipient of an Academy of American Poets fellowship for poets laureate (2023-24), which enabled me to fund the publication of irreplaceable: A Praise Poem for Great Salt Lake in a larger edition. That fellowship money also enabled me to pay my designer.

On a more personal level, what inspired you to pursue a career in poetry? 

I loved poetry from the time I was small. I had a Sunday School teacher when I was growing up, Ilse Brown (if you’re out there, hey!), who turned me on to Gerard Manley Hopkins. And I had a high school English teacher who loved poetry, in whose class I read the work of many of the great modernist poets, British and American. Between those two adults, who gave me that precious gift of knowledge, I found my own way into poetry and started writing it. I kept writing it, like lots of writers do, despite rejection and floundering around. I was lucky enough to have a professor at BYU, Bruce Jorgensen, who taught me about prosody, and at the U of U, Larry Levis, who recognized something in my work worth encouraging. And I now have a whole life in poetry, with long-time friends who are poets and who love and read poetry. I am grateful for all of it.

Jonah Delgado

Jonah Delgado was born and raised in Los Angeles but moved to Utah in 2018. He quickly fell in love with the mountains, the Great Salt Lake, and the art scene in Utah. Jonah graduated from Weber State with a BA in English, and is always on the hunt for new exciting art to gawk at and enjoy.