The Hub City Writers Project is a nonprofit organization in
Spartanburg
Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Offi ...
,
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
, dedicated to cultivating readers and nurturing writers through its independent small press, community bookstore, and diverse literary programming. The independent press publishes books of literature and culture with an emphasis on the southern experience by new and established authors. Now in its twenty-fifth year, Hub City is the winner of four
IPPY
The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also styled the IPPY Awards, are a set of annual book awards for independently published titles. They are the longest-running unaffiliated contest open exclusively to independent presses. The IPPY Awards ar ...
awards from Independent Publisher magazine; the
Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award for contribution to the arts in South Carolina; and the South Carolina Governor's Award for the Humanities.
In addition to sponsoring creative writing workshops, readings, and contests in its hometown of Spartanburg
Hub City Presspublishes five to eight books a year, including the winner of the South Carolina First Novel Prize.
In June 2010 the non-profit organization opened th
Hub City Bookshop an
independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, cl ...
at 186 West Main Street in Spartanburg SC on the ground floor of the Masonic Temple (built 1928). The store specializes in new releases, regional books, children's books and Hub City Press titles.
History
In May 1995 a trio of writers began to talk in a Spartanburg coffeehouse about how they could help preserve a sense of place in their rapidly changing Southern city. What their community needed, they said, was a literary identity. Modeling their organization after the Depression-era
Federal Writers Project
The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It wa ...
, they marshaled the talents of writers across South Carolina to create a series of books characterized by a strong sense of place. They chose the name Hub City Writers Project because it both invoked Spartanburg's past as a 19th-century railroad center and challenged them to make their hometown a center for literary arts.
Hub City was shepherded in its early days by
Wofford College
Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...
poet John Lane, journalists Betsy Teter and Gary Henderson, and photographer/graphic designer Mark Olencki; gradually the organization broadened its scope by publishing nearly 250 South Carolina writers, creating a 15-member board of directors, and attracting the financial support of hundreds of
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
residents and businesses.
Hub City Press
Hub City Press is known for publishing "new and unsung writers from the American South" and has emerged as the South's premier independent literary press. The press offers four publishing series: the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize, the New Southern Voices Poetry Book Prize, the South Carolina Novel Prize, and the Cold Mountain Fund Series, in partnership with National Book award-winning author Charles Frazier. Their curated list champions diverse authors and books that don’t fit into the commercial or academic publishing landscape, including: people of color, gender diversity, LGBTQIA, people with disabilities, as well as ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.
The press has published over one-hundred high-caliber literary works, including novels, short stories, poetry, memoir, and books emphasizing the region's culture and history. The Hub City Press publication list includes works by such writers as
Ron Rash
Ron Rash (born September 25, 1953), is an American poet, short story writer and novelist, is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University.
Early life
Rash was born on September 25, 1953, in C ...
, Carter Sickels, Leesa Cross-Smith,
George Singleton
George Singleton is a Southern author who has written eight collections of short stories, two novels, and an instructional book on writing fiction. He was born in Anaheim, California and raised in Greenwood, South Carolina. Singleton graduated ...
,
J. Drew Lanham, Ashley M. Jones and Jessica Handler. Editors of Hub City anthologies include
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
senior editor C. Michael Curtis,
Kwame Dawes
Kwame Senu Neville Dawes (born 28 July 1962) is a Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician, and former Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. He is now Professor of English at the University of N ...
,
Cinelle Barnes, and David Joy.
See also
*
South Carolina literature
The literature of South Carolina, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative authors include Dorothy Allison, Daniel Payne and William Gilmore Simms.
History
A Global_spread_of_the_printing_press#United States and Ca ...
References
External links
Hub City Writers Project home page*Lane, John
"Still under the Influence: The Bioregional Origins of the Hub City Writers Project" ''Southern Spaces'', 28 February 2012.
{{Authority control
Book publishing companies of the United States
Companies based in South Carolina
American writers' organizations
Publishing companies established in 1995
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Companies based in Spartanburg, South Carolina
1995 establishments in South Carolina