Tupelo Press is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1999. It produced its first titles in 2001, publishing poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Originally located in Dorset, Vermont, the press has since moved to

North Adams, Massachusetts North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 12,961 as of the 2020 census. Best known as the ...

History, staff and funding

Tupelo Press was founded by Jeffrey Levine, Publisher and Artistic Director, and author of three collections of poetry. The staff includes Kristina Marie Darling Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press and Tupelo Quarterly, David Rossitter, Managing Editor; Cassandra Cleghorn, Associate Editor for Poetry & Nonfiction, and Kirsten Miles, National Director of the 30/30 Project and National Coordinator for Tupelo Press Seminars. Tupelo Press publishes the winners of its national poetry competitions, as well as manuscripts accepted through general submission. Awards given by Tupelo Press include the Dorset Prize, the Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry, and the Snowbound Series Chapbook Award. Tupelo Press titles were previously distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, but in 2010 they left Consortium to create an independent distribution venture. Tupelo Press books are also available from Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and Small Press Distribution. The press receives support from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, private foundations, and individuals through donations, book sales, and annual subscriptions. Tupelo Press partnered with the

College of Charleston The College of Charleston (CofC or Charleston) is a public university in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest university in South Carolina, the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the Unit ...

and the literary journal '' Crazyhorse'' to establish the ''Crazyhorse''/Tupelo Press Publishing Institute to address the demand for "well-qualified editors and publishers...and to augment the career prospects of emerging writers... The institute is a graduate-level program open to writers at any post-baccalaureate level, whether finished with a graduate program in creative writing, currently enrolled or considering attending one." In 2013, Tupelo Press began partnering with the Hill-Stead Museum for the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, a prestigious national poetry prize for adult writers. Established in 2002, the Prize has drawn submissions from around the country that have been judged by renowned poets such as Martha Collins, Patricia Smith and Tony Hoagland.

Notable authors and honors

Notable authors published by Tupelo Press include

Lawrence Raab Lawrence Raab (born 1946, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts) is an American poet. Life Raab graduated from Middlebury College in 1968, and from Syracuse University with an MA in 1972. He taught at American University (1970 to 71), University of Mic ...

, Jeffrey Harrison, Amaud Jamaul Johnson,

Ruth Ellen Kocher Ruth Ellen Kocher (born July 26, 1965, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) is an American poet. She is the recipient of the PEN/Open Book Award, the Dorset Prize, the Green Rose Prize, and the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. She has received fellowship ...

Mark Halliday Mark Halliday (born 1949 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American poet, professor and critic. He is author of seven collections of poetry, most recently "Losers Dream On" (University of Chicago Press, 2018), "Thresherphobe" (University of Chicago P ...

G.C. Waldrep G. C. Waldrep (born George Calvin Waldrep III; 1968) is an American poet and historian. Biography Waldrep was born in South Boston, Virginia. He earned undergraduate and doctoral degrees in history at Harvard University and Duke University, resp ...

, Larissa Szporluk,

Dan Beachy-Quick Dan Beachy-Quick is an American poet, writer, and critic. He is the author of eight collections of poems, most recently, ''Variations on Dawn and Dusk'' ( Omnidawn Publishing), longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. His oth ...

, Ellen Doré Watson,

Ilya Kaminsky Ilya Kaminsky (born April 18, 1977) is a hard-of-hearing, USSR-born, Ukrainian-Russian-Jewish-American poet, critic, translator and professor. He is best known for his poetry collections ''Dancing in Odesa'' and ''Deaf Republic'', which have earn ...

, Jennifer Militello,

Aimee Nezhukumatathil Aimee Nezhukumatathil (; Malayalam Abugida: നേഴുകുമറ്റത്തിൽ; ; born in 1974 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American poet and essayist. Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her ...

Rigoberto González Rigoberto González (born July 18, 1970) is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. His most recent projec ...

Annie Finch Annie Finch (born October 31, 1956) is an American poet, critic, editor, translator, playwright, and performer and the editor of the first major anthology of literature about abortion. Her poetry is known for its often incantatory use of rhythm, ...

Matthew Zapruder Matthew Zapruder (1967) is an American poet, editor, translator, and professor. His second poetry collection, ''The Pajamaist'', won the 2007 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and was chosen by ''Library Journal'' ...

Natasha Sajé Natasha Sajé (born June 6, 1955, in Munich, Germany) is an American poet. Life She grew up in New York City, and New Jersey. She graduated from the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, College Park. She teaches ...

, Joan Houlihan, Thomas Centolella,

Maggie Smith Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than sixty films and seventy plays. She is one of the few performer ...

, Lauren Camp and Ted Deppe. Their authors have been recipients of many awards including the

Whiting Writers' Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard ...

, the

Lannan Literary Fellowship The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

, the

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

, the ''

ForeWord Magazine A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing, sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the ...

'' Poetry Book of the Year, the Addison M. Metcalf Award in Literature, San Francisco State University Poetry Center Book Award, Norma Farber First Book Award, NEA Literature Fellowships and

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, the

PEN/Open Book PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...

and numerous other honors. Tupelo Press titles have been reviewed in ''The Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, The New Yorker, Library Journal, Booklist, The Women’s Review of Books, Ploughshares, The Philadelphia Inquirer,'' and many other publications.Tupelo Press > Author Pages > Reviews
/ref> Tupelo also publishes a series of poetry in translation, including the work of such internationally respected authors and translators as Polina Barskova (translated by

and Katie Farris), René Char (translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson), and

Joumana Haddad Joumana Haddad ( ar, جمانة حداد) ( Salloum; born December 6, 1970 in Beirut) is a Lebanese author, public speaker, journalist and human rights activist. She has been selected as one of the world’s 100 most powerful Arab women by Arabi ...

(translated by

Khaled Mattawa Khaled Mattawa (born 1964) is a Libyan poet, and a renowned Arab-American writer, he is also a leading literary translator, focusing on translating Arabic poetry into English. He works as an Assistant professor of creative writing at the Univers ...

References

{{reflist

Sources

Tupelo Press Website

External links

Tupelo Press Website

Council of Literary Magazines and Small Presses > Directory of Member Publishers

Consortium Book Sales & Distribution > Tupelo Press Publisher Page

* [http://google.com/search?q=cache:osfVXoDNuCUJ:www.bloomsburyreview.com/Archives/2002/Jeffrey%2520Levine.pdf+%22jeffrey+levine%22+interview&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a Interview: ''Bloomsbury Review'' > 2002 Archives > ''Promoting Emerging Poetic Voices: An Interview With Jeffrey Levine, Publisher of Tupelo Press'' > By Ray González] Book publishing companies based in Massachusetts Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts Publishing companies established in 1999 Small press publishing companies Poetry publishers Literary publishing companies 1999 establishments in Massachusetts