New Rivers Press is an American

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

publishing press located in

Moorhead, Minnesota Moorhead () is a city in and county seat of Clay County, Minnesota, United States, on the banks of the Red River of the North. Located in the Red River Valley, an extremely fertile and active agricultural region, Moorhead is also home to several ...

and affiliated with

Minnesota State University Moorhead Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) is a public university in Moorhead, Minnesota. The school has an enrollment of 7,534 students in 2019 and 266 full-time faculty members. MSUM is a part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities s ...

. As of 2020 they had published more than 400 books.

History and mission

New Rivers Press was founded by C.W. “Bill” Truesdale in 1968 out of an old barn in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. The first title published by New Rivers Press was ''So Many Rooms Has a House But One Roof'', a poetry collection by

Margaret Randall Margaret Randall (born December 6, 1936, New York City, USA) is an American-born writer, photographer, activist and academic. Born in New York City, she lived for many years in Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, and spent time in North Vietnam ...

. The press moved to

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in 1978, and in 1982, the press became the first book publisher to obtain

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

status. In 2001, when Truesdale died, the press went into suspension and later that year relocated to Minnesota State University Moorhead, where it was revived under different management with a dual mission: to publish literature by new and emerging writers, honoring Truesdale's legacy, and to provide learning opportunities for students. The activities of the press and its related curriculum were integrated into the school’s

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

program until its termination in 2014, and also into

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

, English,

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

mass communication Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...

s, promotions, and

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

development classes at MSUM. Cover

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

s for New Rivers Press by graphic design students were selected as winners in the 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 American Inhouse Design Awards by Graphic Design USA. At the time of its announced closure in spring 2022, New Rivers had more than 400 titles in print.

Series, distribution and funding

New Rivers Press book series include American Fiction Anthologies, American Fiction Series,

American Poetry American poetry refers to the poetry of the United States. It arose first as efforts by American colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the Thirteen Colonies (although ...

Series, Many Minnesotas Project, Many Voices Project, and the New Rivers Abroad Series. The press offers two national awards, The Many Voices Project Prose Prize, and the Many Voices Project Poetry Prize.

Notable authors and honors

Notable authors published by New Rivers Press include Charles Baxter,

James Bertolino James Bertolino (born 1942) is an American poet. Biography Bertolino was born in Pence, Wisconsin, near the border with Michigan. A descendant of Italian and French Canadians, French Canadian immigrant grandparents, he was introduced to poetry ...

Diane Glancy (Helen) Diane Glancy (March 18, 1941) is an American poet, author, and playwright. Life and career Glancy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to a Cherokee descent (non-enrolled) father, Lewis H. Hall, and an English-German-American mother. At a ...

Albert Goldbarth Albert Goldbarth (born January 31, 1948) is an American poet. He has won the National Book Critics Circle award for "Saving Lives" (2001) and "Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology" (1991), the only poet to receive the honor two times. He also won the Mar ...

, Greg Hewett, Robert Peters,

Maya Pindyck Maya Pindyck (born 1978) is an American poet, scholar, and visual artist. She is director of writing and a professor at Moore College of Art and Design. Biography Pindyck grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, United States and Tel Aviv, Israel, ...

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn't ...

, and

Warren Woessner Warren Woessner (born 1944), poet and lawyer, studied creative writing with James McConkey and A. R. Ammons at Cornell University. He moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1966 and co-founded ''Abraxas Magazine'' with poet James Bertolino in 1968. He ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Book publishing companies based in Minnesota Poetry publishers Publishing companies established in 1968 Minnesota culture Non-profit organizations based in Minnesota University presses of the United States Minnesota State University Moorhead Non-profit publishers 1968 establishments in Minnesota