Welcome

The 5th Annual Belfast Poetry Festival is pleased to announce the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest TO ENTER & FOR MORE INFO... click here

Our intention is to encourage fine Maine poets to self-publish successfully. Our premise is that it is a deeply satisfying experience to bring our own books into being. We will share our experience of working with a skilled team that consists of a designer, copy editor, and printer to produce beautiful quality editions of our work. We can suggest the process we've followed to bring our books to bookstores, poetry events, and readings across the state. We are open to suggestions to continue this learning process together.

The Illuminated Sea Press is not a place, it's a conversation!

We do not read manuscripts. We trust you to know when your work is ready to print.

We are available to talk as writers to writers about what has worked for us in this process of bringing out our own books of poetry. We don't want wonderful poetry to languish for years in manuscripts waiting to be published! It is our belief that bringing out and sharing our voice supports us all in becoming more vital and alive.

How we began

The Illuminated Sea Press was begun in September 2004 when Elizabeth Garber decided to self-publish her first book of poetry, Pierced by the Seasons: Living a Life on the Coast of Maine. She never imagined the press being anything more than a vehicle for printing her own book, but she had to buy 10 ISBN numbers at one time. A month after her book came out, Baron Wormser called her to ask how she had brought out her book independently because he had a chapbook he wanted to print. She told him what she had done, and in 2005, he published Carthage and became the second author to self-publish under the name of The Illuminated Sea Press.

In 2005, Karin Spitfire brought out her book Standing with Trees, and Elizabeth brought out another book Listening Inside the Dance: A Life in Maine Infused with Tango as well as an Argentine edition titled Escuchando la Danza: Un Viaje de Principiante Hacia el Tango with translator Demian Gawianski.  

Future publications planned are Deborah Rose's audio presentation Her Time Has Come: Mary Magdalene in the 21st Century and PALACE BOULEVARD: Poems to the Divine Mother, a book of poetry and accompanying CD by Barbara Maria.