THE GREAT LAKES LITERARY CREDO

• Offer honest, real-world advice; no hype.
• Offer a stepping-stone approach, with achievable milestones.
• For your writing, to paraphrase Aldo Leopold, a thing is right when it develops integrity, stability, beauty.
• Seek a satisfactory balance of immediate gains, sustainable progress, long-term success.

Great Lakes Literary is very Midwestern: practical, results-oriented, not prone to over-promising or under-delivering. We will pin down your goals, select the right model, and then make your project happen in a way that everyone involved is happy to be a part of it.

As the director of Great Lakes Literary, I'm proud to be a jack-of-all-trades, a holistic thinker and planner. I've worked as an arts administrator, an editor, an award-winning writer and indie-press publisher, and a marketing manager. I've edited and developed books with major players in the literary field. I seek to develop literary works that can grow and flourish. As a gardener, I prefer hardy perennials in my yard that grow fuller each year, multiply, and fill their space. As a book-project developer, I prefer the same. Bring me good ideas and works-in-progress, and we'll find the right space to plant and grow them.

Integrity. Achievable Growth. Beauty.

Although these touchstones are ambitious, they are tangible. They reflect in concept a bit of a zen approach: temple, practice, enlightenment. These three concepts are visualized by three symbols: square (for a "zen temple" or a right-minded place to practice), triangle (for the act of a person sitting in practice, i.e., doing what needs to be done) and circle (for the connection with the wholeness). While zen is often viewed as abstract, absurd, cerebral, it is rooted in a commitment for daily practice, for ritual to deal with uncertainty. Not so different from a Midwestern approach, in my mind, although our zen koans are regional (What's the best "hot dish?").

To plan your project for success, this means:
• where shall we focus efforts? (your strategy)
• what shall we do? (your action steps)
• what do we want to come of it? (your goals & milestones)

These matters are what Great Lakes Lit can help you with, whether your need is for excellence in editorial support, marketing plans and tools, pitching assistance, or publication support.

Let us help convert your needs to actions to success.
To discuss your literary project or career needs, send an email to: philip_martin@sbcglobal.net