About Pancake Press

Pancake Press was founded in 1974 with a monthly series of poems by Patrick Smith called The Moon Books. The series lasted for ten years, encompassing 120 manuscripts, and about twenty were printed and bound.

The Press eventually enlarged its scope to include works by Jean Carr, David Derus, Stephen Dunning, John Logan, and David Ray. The last books published by the Press were both by Patrick Smith: a book-length poem, Susannah & the Elders (1992), and a catalog of oil paintings entitled LIFEnearDEATH—Portraits from a Hospice (2000), containing reproductions of a series of 25 paintings created between 1997 and 1999 when Patrick was working as a volunteer at a hospice in San Francisco.

Patrick’s unpublished poetry manuscripts include:

• • The Imaginary Archives of Wallace Stevens
  • Ashbery Needs Money
  • Living in Heaven
  • Open at a Certain Page
  • Correcting the Echo
  • After Heraclitus
  • Days with Du Fu
  • One Hundred Little Poems Leaving Something Out

He also wrote several short stories, a memoir, How to Fly, and a novel, Mortal Beckett.

The works published before 1990 have hand-sewn bindings, and all books published by Pancake Press are listed in Browker’s Books in Print. The books by Patrick Smith, Stephen Dunning, David Ray, and John Logan are still in print and available for purchase for $25 each, including shipping, but the Press is not publishing new works. Click here to order a book.