Kano Press
Kano Press takes its name from the oracle rune Kano, which stands for Opening, Fire, Torch. A rune is a letter in a runic alphabet used to write Germanic languages before the Latin alphabet was adopted. The symbol for kano is <, or reversed >. Runes inscribed on small stone pieces that are blindly drawn from a bag are used to aid our understanding of whatever issue we choose or to provide guidance. Drawing < signifies opening and renewed clarity, freedom to both receive gifts and to know the joy of nonattached giving. If one draws the reversed position, >, it signifies a darkening of the light and advises to give up the old, live on empty, develop inner stability, and wait for illumination.
Three guiding quotations:
"I mean, if you have any idea of any kind of complexity or immensity or destiny, of general order, you're put in a position of nothingness. And I think this is true. I don't think I'm anything; I never have thought that. Whatever it is that activates it is a certain kind of energy that goes on. But the effect is ridiculous; it's absurd."
—Lincoln Kirstein in The New Yorker
"When I see heavy dramas with no comic relief, I don't think they're honest. I don't think people go through life miserable all the time; in fact, if you're very miserable, you giggle a lot at the oddest things."
—Carl Reiner in The Trib
"In the same way that . . . the listener completes the song, I believe if you give them a certain sound and you place it just far enough so that they can just hear it, it creates a depth in your hearing and that depth, just like if you imagine the church bells in the distance, there's something about that that opens the listener . . . there's something about these distant sounds that open us up emotionally and if as a writer, a songwriter, I can produce sounds that allow the listener to open themselves emotionally, then whatever I have to say lyrically has a chance of being really meaningful."
—Paul Simon, "Smartless" podcast
Kano Press aspires to publish books that include humor and a transcendent point of view, stories that evoke openings.
We are not taking submissions at this time.