When I first started the Head & The Hand Press in 2012, Editorial Director Linda Gallant and I knew that before we were to work on a novel, we needed to establish some cred in the publishing world. As it goes in literature, an anthology is the best way to accomplish this.

However, Linda and I were faced with a bit of a dilemma. As avid readers and students of literature, we were both a little tired of the standard anthology format where a reader can easily get lost in the slew of stories that sometimes don’t always fluidly connect between the contributors’ themes and styles.

We wanted something dynamic that could carry a theme and a reader’s attention. I’m not sure who said it first, but being two people who believe in local cultures and have a huge love for Philly, we looked to our city’s oldest literary form—The Almanac. So we went down to the Rosenbach Library in Center City, donned the white gloves and began sifting through every almanac from original printings of Poor Richard’s to the mid-19^th century campaign add for William Henry Harrison titled The Tippecanoe Almanac.

Linda and I left the library that day with a new mission, to create 4 almanacs dealing with the themes of cities, science, farming, and religion, which were usually the general themes of old-time almanacs. Since our first one was The Rust Belt Rising Almanac, dealing with cities, the theme of belt’s just sort of stuck leading us to explore the cosmos in The Asteroid Belt Almanac and now finally taking our foray into farming with The Corn Belt Almanac to be released on First Friday June 5^th at Emerald Street Community Farm that my wife and I operate in Kensington.

Although we are proud of all of our almanacs, I must say that I’m most excited about this one mostly because it is the closest related to the original intent of the “almanac” form. Of course, there’s the world famous Old Farmer’s Almanac that is still in yearly production, but when you look to the old time almanacs, they truly were guides to the weather, the planting season, and the harvest festivals that were so important to our American agrarian society.

However, what really makes it an almanac is the entertainment value found amongst the bits of wit, wisdom, essays and stories—and our collection certainly lives up to that.

Our collection ranges from stories about bringing families together with meatballs, learning about communities by working on their farms, seducing love interests with pots of borscht and finding connections to your past through putting some seeds in the ground. These stories are by food writers and farmers who’d you expect to hear from, and voices that aren’t always heard when we talk about food. There are also the fun departments such as a glossary as to where our American expressions come from like “Let the cat out of the bag,” or “Get someone’s goat,” and a whole “Guide to Good Places and Good People” where we highlight some of the stellar organizations promoting food and farming in Philly.

Of course, we haven’t put out our Bible Belt Almanac which we hope to produce within the next year, but I must say that so far, this collection has been one of my favorite to work on.

Please check out a copy and stop by Emerald Street on June 5^th for some readings from our contributors, music, farm tours, good beer, and most importantly, good friends.

If you go:

• Corn Belt Almanac Release Party
• June 5, 2015 at 7 PM
• Emerald Street Community Farm
• Facebook Invite

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Nic is an urban farmer, writer and founder of The Head & The Hand Press. His newest work Kensington Homestead is a collection of essays chronicling his adventures in city homesteading with his wife Elisa. View all posts by Nic Esposito